AND THE BAND PLAYS ON

Julia is now in her 5th year in the Huntsville Community Band. She, along with a number of others, decided to take up a musical instrument later in life with little or no previous music training. She is no Moe Kaufmann, however although she is quick to deny it, she does manage to crank out a pretty mean tune. The group practices once a week and every now and then they are invited to perform in front of live audiences. Last Wednesday they made the trek to the Kiwanis Music Festival, an annual event taking place in Orillia, half way between us and Toronto. Each entry to the festival is adjudicated and low and behold they won GOLD!

THE ICE IS GONE

True to form and as has typically happened over the years, the ice is now gone from our part of the lake. It is just incredible, regardless what the weather has been like, how regular its departure has been. Last night Julia and I, along with two of our guests, went out in canoes to check out what remained of the ice. We pretended to be ice breakers but some flows were still too thick to do anything. With the wind shifting these massive sheets of ice around we had to be extra careful not to get hemmed in. By this morning, April 19th, it was all gone!

SYRUP-ING IS ALMOST OVER

The sap runs this year have been OK but with the cooler temperatures and 15 cm of new snow earlier this week could this be the end of it all? Hopefully not. With some luck and the forecast of cooler nights and warmer days we should get one more boil done before we call this maple syrup season a wrap.
The next big event (for us anyways) is when the the ice leaves the lake. Since arriving at Foxwood in 2002 we have taken records of when we consider the ice officially gone. Although our records represent only a small snapshot of time - Tom Salmon settled the property in 1876 and the lake has had ice going in out for who knows how long - we find it interesting how consistent the dates are. Regardless of the year, the ice leaves the lake in front of us either on April 19 or 20....with maybe the last ice flow going on the 21st. We'll see what happens this year!