4/07/08

Monday, 9:00 AM. 30 degrees, wind E, calm. Barometer predicts precipitation. It has rained some over the past 24 hours, and is presently very foggy. But, we dodged the bullet… northern Minnesota got up to 24” of snow.
I asked neighbor Sherman, a ferryboat captain, about the ice breakup yesterday, and he was running the boat I was watching. He said he thought the ice mostly blew out the open south channel after the ferry cut a path through it. He said it was quite windy out there and it did go out awfully fast. I also conferred with neighbor Erick who has lived here most of his life, and he says when the ice is “candled” with vertical holes from melting it can disintegrate very rapidly. So I am theorizing that it was a combination of those three factors, cutting a channel, strong wind and rotten ice, which caused the sudden disappearance of the ice yesterday morning. At any rate it was an awesome thing to experience. No blog tomorrow, we are going to Wausau to attend a regional forestry meeting. Lucky gets to stay at Blue Ribbon Kennel in Ashland.