A few weeks back, when I took may dad down to Red Wing. even the local rivers (St. Croix) were frozen over. The only exception was the Mighty Muddy, aka the Mississippi. This week Sunday we went out for another drive, looking to see how this exceptionally warm spring was coming. The St. Croix was ice-free, including the ice-dams that had backed up causing flooding in a variety of locations. We did see the melting remains of one, however, pushed up on shore in a couple spots in the Lions Park just on the north side of St. Croix Falls.
Heading west along Hwy. 8 a bit, we drove up the length of North Center Lake accessible in Center City proper. While still covered with large sheets of black-colored ice, there were large gaps between sheets. Many spots had about 100 feet of open water out from the shore.
Monday on my way home from work, I noticed that the lakes visible in Forest Lake from the interstate had cleared all their ice cover. I decided to pay attention the rest of the way home to see where there was still ice. Comfort Lake was ice free, as was Green. Both North and South Lindstrom Lakes, however, had significant ice remaining, though the water patches were growing. South Center Lake had ice as well, but interestingly North Center Lake, the one we'd driven along on Sunday, had cleared.
Today on the way in to work, North Lindstrom had cleared, and tonight South Lindstrom as well. I had trouble telling with South Lindstrom this morning until I spied an eagle and a pair of crows standing out on a large patch of ice. Tonight South Center remains the only local lake with ice, and the winds today have pushed what little that remains into a single northern bay. I expect it will all be gone tomorrow.
The metro is south of us and usually warmer, so I was surprised to see the western suburbs sporting lakes with full coverings of ice. The only explanation I have is that they got significantly more snowfall than we did here, and it protected the ice much longer from starting to melt.
What does it all mean?
Fishing season is coming soon!
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Puddle-Crunch Wonderful
Ahhh, Lent, when the world is puddle-crunch wonderful....
My apologies, of course, to e e cummings, and his poem about spring. Where I grew up, in north central Minnesota, Lent was a harbinger of spring, and somehow the ideas just kinda meshed.
I realize that for some Lent is a time of ritualized sacrifice, a lead-in to the crucifixion and the celebration of Easter, me-tooism at its Christian best. For some it's the hangover from Mardi Gras, that time to party hearty for tomorrow and for weeks after we celebrate death. For much of the world, by the time Lent arrives, it's already what we Minnesotans would celebrate as spring: mild weather, sunshine, the start of the growing season. Heck, by the time Easter rolls around, most of the country can even hold egg rolls or hunts outside in the grass!
We're lucky if by Easter we can see the dead brown remains of last season's grass in patches through the remaining snow. Nobody'd subject their kids to an egg hunt in that mess! Still, Easter holds the promise of spring arriving, and sometime during Lent every year it became manifest in a very particular way.
It's ideal maple syruping time, with days above freezing and nights below, when the sap flows at its heaviest. Of course, most of us didn't tap trees for sap. We did, however, walk outside. There the snow melted a bit during the days, and refroze into ice puddles at night. Sometime after the surface of those puddles froze, the lower parts remained liquid, slowly draining away. What remained were air bubbles, tempting white shapes under thin ice, ready for any kid who came along to stomp on and break: crunch! crunch! crunch! Those of us who really found this an entertaining diversion from the usual dreariness of winter got positively energetic about breaking every possible piece of ice along our paths. Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! If necessary, jumping was permissible to get those thicker pieces. If you were walking with another kid, etiquette demanded that you share, taking turns breaking the ice, or taking only one side of a particularly big puddle. STOMP! STOMP! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!
Break every bit! Tomorrow there'll be more.
Now that I'm a geezer, I have to be very careful on ice. There have been too many falls, and each does more damage. But during Lent, when the world is puddle-crunch wonderful, and conditions for safety allow, you can still catch me going crunch! crunch! crunch!
My apologies, of course, to e e cummings, and his poem about spring. Where I grew up, in north central Minnesota, Lent was a harbinger of spring, and somehow the ideas just kinda meshed.
I realize that for some Lent is a time of ritualized sacrifice, a lead-in to the crucifixion and the celebration of Easter, me-tooism at its Christian best. For some it's the hangover from Mardi Gras, that time to party hearty for tomorrow and for weeks after we celebrate death. For much of the world, by the time Lent arrives, it's already what we Minnesotans would celebrate as spring: mild weather, sunshine, the start of the growing season. Heck, by the time Easter rolls around, most of the country can even hold egg rolls or hunts outside in the grass!
We're lucky if by Easter we can see the dead brown remains of last season's grass in patches through the remaining snow. Nobody'd subject their kids to an egg hunt in that mess! Still, Easter holds the promise of spring arriving, and sometime during Lent every year it became manifest in a very particular way.
It's ideal maple syruping time, with days above freezing and nights below, when the sap flows at its heaviest. Of course, most of us didn't tap trees for sap. We did, however, walk outside. There the snow melted a bit during the days, and refroze into ice puddles at night. Sometime after the surface of those puddles froze, the lower parts remained liquid, slowly draining away. What remained were air bubbles, tempting white shapes under thin ice, ready for any kid who came along to stomp on and break: crunch! crunch! crunch! Those of us who really found this an entertaining diversion from the usual dreariness of winter got positively energetic about breaking every possible piece of ice along our paths. Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! If necessary, jumping was permissible to get those thicker pieces. If you were walking with another kid, etiquette demanded that you share, taking turns breaking the ice, or taking only one side of a particularly big puddle. STOMP! STOMP! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!
Break every bit! Tomorrow there'll be more.
Now that I'm a geezer, I have to be very careful on ice. There have been too many falls, and each does more damage. But during Lent, when the world is puddle-crunch wonderful, and conditions for safety allow, you can still catch me going crunch! crunch! crunch!
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