April by the lake. Still ice, still snow. Even more snow than there was at any time in March. Here I was thinking I could start on the outside projects like building the new dock, spring cleaning the yard.
I was thinking of maple sap, drinking it straight from the tree. We’ve always had maple sap for late March and certainly in April. Not this year.
For April Fool’s day, we got four inches of snow. So I set a ski track on the lake. Such a beautiful day! Lots of us skied the new track that day, although, I haven’t done a lot of skiing this year, so I was the slowest of the bunch. Ice stuck to the base of the skis. It was like skiing on sandpaper. When I got home, I applied hot wax so that won’t happen again.
Then we got a foot of snow on April 4. So I set a ski track on the lake. I stopped in to a neighbour’s house along my route, and had a nice mid-winter visit. By the time I got home and had lunch and went out to ski the track, half of it had filled in. A strong wind blew the fine snow just at the surface. I did not ski far.
A couple more inches of snow fell on April 6, so on the morning of April 7, I set a ski track on the lake.
As soon as I got home, I put on the skis and enjoyed my new seven-km track. Life is good by the lake. By late afternoon, a flurry of snow blew across the lake and filled the track again. Then it snowed another two inches.
The next morning, I set a ski track on the lake measuring 5.8 kilometres. It was a beautiful sunny day, and there was no wind. I rewaxed the skis. Skiing was the best of the year. Stride and glide, stride and glide.
The next day, I got to ski without having to reset the track. I took lunch, and made a day of exploring. If we had no more snow, this track would last for days. Chances of that are slim.
You might think that I’m revelling in this extra-long winter. Not really. I’m just pretending it’s March. Yet when I look over my weather journal for the past many decades, I remember the spring of 1985: three feet of snow still in the bush on April 21. The ice stayed on the lake until May 9.
Then there was April 1996. We were still crossing the lake on two feet of ice on May 1.
Of course, there were also the warm springs. In 1999, I was raking the yard on April 21 as I watched the last of the ice leave the lake. In 2010 and 2013, the ice was gone in the first days of April. Not this year.
This year there is snow. And lots of ice. More snow is coming this weekend. So I’ll set a ski track on the lake. Lemonade anyone?
Viki Mather has been commenting for Northern Life on the natural world and life in Greater Sudbury since the spring of 1984.
