Ice Out

The small bit of ice on Boston this morning was completely gone by late afternoon.

Clancy heard loons before dawn.

Leif went kayaking in the evening.

 

Spring

Thanks to the ice being almost out on Boston Lake, there are many wonderful dead things washed up on shore for Lleulu to roll in.

She is very pleased with her smears of stink.

It also appears as though a pair of Sandhill Cranes have taken a liking to our small sheep pasture that is currently void of sheep.  I thought the trumpeters were loud...these cranes produce a true cacophony of croaking!  They make quite a fuss when Lleulu makes her rounds in their area.

Clancy is busy cutting down more trees today....trees we've been meaning to cut for several years now.  It seems as though the spring cleaning is happening out in the yard this year.

Spring Work

Clancy cut down several dead, dying, ugly, and inconveniently placed trees this past Saturday.  There are still so many more to deal with, but we wanted to make sure the mess got cleaned up before the grass started growing so we only cut a few at a time.  

Thanks to a chainsaw and use of my dad's Bobcat, we got all the firewood carried to the stove area and all the branches carried to a clear area near the pasture where a bonfire this fall will do no harm.  It is quite a mountain of brush, and I'm sure more will be added to it in the weekends to come.

A few of the trees that we took out were over-mature birch along the lake shore.  They have been there for as long as I can remember.  We will miss their shade and creamy white trunks...but not the enormous dead limbs they would randomly drop.  Thankfully, several young birch trees are already established in the vicinity.  The tradition continues...