I’ve said before that the surest sign of spring is when some procrastinating ice fisherman sinks a truck. Well the ice conditions this year were superb. You could have built a battleship on it. Then, when things got warm-ish, everyone got their ice shacks on dry land with uncharacteristic efficiency.
No trucks were sunk!
Since then Mother nature has been a stone cold bitch. I was out in the blustery snow this morning; swearing at my ATV’s winch cable (jammed again). It was attached to my disabled ATV. It had stalled when I crashed the snowplow into a block of slushy ice/snow mix I’ll call hell-crete and it wasn’t going anywhere until I shoveled enough to put a tire or two on the ground. Here’s a hint: an ATV’s unstoppable force is actually quite stoppable. When you jam it into theoretically compliant snow which is actually denser than a politician’s skull you learn that. I careened off the seat like a Muppet flung from a catapult.
Did I mention my wood pile? It’s totally adequate. It’s also iced up like Greenland fell on it. I clear the path to my “chosen” wood pile and let the others get covered. In APRIL… freakin’ damned where’s my tulips April… my chosen one ran out. I can unearth the others but I have to hurry because NOAA reports that the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are coming on a cold front by midnight.
If there’s any balance in the world it’s going to be an awesome autumn because early 2013 is not riding out winter… it’s surmounting a siege.