Lake Superior Spring. Time to get excited about sailing....

[noelH]

+20C, sunny, light offshore (westerly) breeze yesterday.  Today, high of 8C, cloudy, near gale onshore NE.  Forecast for what it's worth. Maybe rain, snow mix later this week. Yesterday, excited about maybe an early launch (delusional dufus). Today, reality. No rush to move gear onto Vela.

So, stump removal time. Too cold with the windchill to build up a sweat digging and hacking roots. Nice day for stump removal if you think removing a stump is fun. Did resort to using the bucket on the tractor for the final grunt moment and filling in a larger than planned for hole.  Good day. Success and didn't flip the tractor. 2 tons of steel, but did have a few "light" moments.

Next "fun" task. Replace or just tear down ~200 meters of fence that surrounds the immediate area around the house to keep the deer out of the veggie gardens. Last 3 springs the black bear have decided to visit. It has been decades of no bear issues. Of course they never exit through the section they came in through. A couple weeks ago Boris Brutus Maximus visited.  Decided to play soccer with my caged suet feeder.  He is our local big dominant male. Gentle giant. Of course as he exited the yard he decides to tear open a new exit. My fault. Usually take down the feeders on Tax Day. But this season has been totally off. Black Bears out roaming at Christmas time and back at it way earlier than "normal".  They are amusing and interesting to observe.  But not so much when they destroy property.

[Norm L.]

Thank you for making me feel so much better about keeping my 130' of bamboo at bay. I have phased out of the more time consuming and boring work. I still cut down to thin but now pay some youths to cut up the 15-25' long bamboo shoots into shorter sections so that they can tote them away.
No need of a tractor and no fear of bears. Never even the sighting of a snake.

[Spot]

Swung by Pepin and Byllesby, our local 'lakes', which are indeed reservoirs of the Mississippi and Cannon Rivers respectively this afternoon. I am only a couple miles from the west end of Byllesby. Sunny day, about 60F, windy enough wind for small whitecaps and to keep the flags straight out off their poles.. Lots of early season fisherpeople in motorboats on both waters but only one sailboat on Pepin. Probably a dozen some owners at Lake City Marina opening their boats, applying bottom paint, stern lettering, etc. amidst a cacophony of halyard slapping. Rough guess there were 150-200 boats waiting to go in at the marina, slips were probably only 5% occupied. Walked the beach and collected some trash at Byllesby and was awarded a small hank of double braid and an intact but cleaned (eaten) clam shell. The water was pretty low, the rocks I normally avoid launching were 10 feet in and a couple feet higher than the water's edge.
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[LakeShark]

am only a couple miles from the west end of Byllesby.

Funny were not that far from one another (live south of Rochester).  I sail on Pepin most of the summer and was wondering how it looked.  Thanks for the pictures.  If we could just get it to warm up a few degrees and the wind to stay below 15 I could actually get out on the water for a tune up sail!