By Joe Crain
The last of the ice is melting off the lake!
This month, our winter ended rather abruptly, but not completely, here in the far Northern reaches of Wisconsin as temperatures leapt into the lower 40s for most of the first two weeks of March. With the snow pack at a mere foot or so it wasn’t long before the trails were wide with mud and grass. But March in the Northwoods can be a month of spring dreams followed quickly by some winter whiplash, so I spent most of this warm period in apprehensive enjoyment of the unseasonably warm weather. Of course, the skier in me was very disappointed, because the first couple weeks in March are often great for late season trips around the cross country trails. This month, trails turned quickly to sheets of ice and bare ground on southern facing hills. With just a short stint into temperatures around the normal mark at the beginning of week three, the temperatures remained in the mid-to-upper 40s and even bumped into the 60s on two or three occasions. But alas, the month known for lambs to lions and lions to lambs was true to its poetic form this year and our lamb like start of the month abruptly morphed to a lion to end the month. A howling wind and snow storm struck leaving us with a few inches on all recently melted lawns in the area. Another storm followed just a couple days later on the 27th, and it was another blaster. That storm was a rather surprising one, because temperatures were fairly warm most of the day and we remained dry, and not until later did the temperatures drop and the snow came in a liony roar at a pace of an inch an hour! When the snow wrapped up early Sunday morning on the 28th, a wet two to three inches remained on the ground. If the ground hadn’t been so warmed before the storm hit and melted most of the snow as it fell, we would most likely have been looking at a foot of snow on the ground! The whole storm was a mere shadow in or memories by midday on the 29th as we went from cold blowing snow to a 60 degrees gorgeous day that melted all traces of the previous day’s winter fury. So this year the old saying about March and its proclivity towards coming and going as a lion or a lamb was more a lamb on the way in and a lion cub on the way out: potentially ferocious but mostly bounce and pounce.
Around the shop we have been finishing up the repairs we had squirreled away in the Wanegan for winter work. It was so warm early in the month that I was able to get the windows reinstalled in the Horvath House. Caretaker Andy took advantage of the stretches of nice weather to build and install some no touch water bottle filling stations on the outside of each of the Jops. They consist of a tiled back splash with a hands free spigot. Much like a soda pop dispenser at a fast food restaurant, a camper just presses their water bottle against the handle and water is dispensed! We have been having a lot of discussions about other ways to keep this season’s campers clean and healthy and able to concentrate on the fun of project periods and friendship building that a summer at camp is all about. These water bottle fillers are just the start!
Excited and cautiously optimistic that things will be very near normal when the first session buses reach the front gate, it’s Caretaker Joe at Camp.
One last patch of snow on the Upper Diamond… Summer is almost here!