Searched Third Sister Lake

This past Easter Sunday, I took one of the boats out to search for evidence of the dogs (or coyotes) that were seen falling through the ice this past winter. It was of additional concern, since - to the witness - these appeared to be German Shepherds, and the witness knew that two German Shepherds had gone missing recently in the (very) rough area of Saginaw Forest.

I found no evidence of any animal that would have fallen through the ice.

On Wednesday afternoon, I took the boat out again with one of the owners of the missing dogs, and we found nothing, either.

I hope that the dogs do turn up.

Well, the Geese Are Back

The Canada geese have returned to the area. Now all I have to do is keep them off the lawn, since I'm not a big fan of walking through goose droppings.



Usually, running at them while clapping loudly is enough to shoo them into the lake, and after a few days of this routine, they are usually content to not walk around the lawn, and I'm content in not having to deal with large goose droppings.

Soil Settling and the Compost "Bin"

One corner of my compost "bin" has sunk due to soil settling. The location of the compost "bin" was almost immediately on top of where the hole was dug for accessing the shower drain line, and so it's not surprising that the soil has settled since that time (especially now that it went through a freeze-thaw cycle).



I'll have to fix it by putting in more soil in the area. Hopefully, that will let me keep the "bin" in that same location, since moving it (again) will be a real pain.

Returned to Find...

So I returned from a slightly extended "Spring Break" to find a wreckage of tree limbs



and blasted tree trunks:



Apparently, there was a massive ice storm that had hit while I was away, and UM grounds likely found the driveway blocked when they came in to plow it. Even if I were here, based on the sheer amount of chopped and sawed wood lying on both sides of the road, I wouldn't have been able to make much of a dent on it all.

...and now a possibility of an icy, icy driveway

Looking at the forecast, it appears that there is going to be rain coming this afternoon and continue through until tomorrow at noonish. It will also be accompanied by above-thaw temperatures, which, when they hit the packed snow will (initially at least) turn to ice. Tomorrow does not look to be a fun day. Not at all.

In other news, happy beginning to the Year of the Snake!

Not huge amounts of snow, but ice and cold

So Thursday night didn't bring any major amounts of snow on Friday morning, but it did lay down a nice little layer of ice underneath the few inches of snow that did come. It made shoveling more of a chore than I had wanted.

And last night it dipped down to around 6F, which made going out this morning a wee bit nippy. Still, I guess this winter is turning out to be more "winter-like" thank last year. (Of course, the forecast says that mid-day Sunday through 10PM on Monday will be above freezing, with much of Sunday night bringing rain, so it might again be "bye-bye snow," I fear.)

Going to bed after yet another day of slow melting...

... and some people are saying that there's going to be a blizzard. As of 9PM, there was no indication of one, and even the local radar was indicating that the majority of the winter weather was north of here.

We'll see in the morning, I guess.