IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SPRING

WEDNESDAY MORNING:WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S FIRE

WHAT TO DO ON A SPRING-LIKE DAY?  GO ICE FISHING

AND WHAT IS THAT OUT ON THE ICE?...

...IT'S A TRACTOR WITH A PLOW, OF COURSE!

Wednesday, 8:00 AM.  39 degrees F at the Ferry Dock, 33 degrees on the back porch.  Wind WNW, light with stronger gusts.  The sky has cleared, the humidity is 72% and the barometer is rising, now at 30.22".
   Yesterday was a real melt day, the weather warm and the sun dauntingly bright. The official high was 45 degrees but it got to 55 on the truck thermometer, which is pretty accurate.  That meant that there was a lot of slush on top of the lake ice, which made things look a lot less safe  than they actually were. Evidently with that in mind, a couple of ice fishermen were walking out to set up their tip-ups off the Sioux River late yesterday afternoon.
   It took a lot of peering out onto the ice for me to finally determine that what I was seeing was indeed a tractor with an end loader.  The operator was evidently intent on retrieving something from the ice but I couldn't make out what it was.  The whole scenario looked rather iffy, but the ice is still certainly really thick out there.
   As the old song says, "It Might As Well Be Spring,"