'Where the heck have I been?'

I won't go into detail here but I've experienced an interruption this spring that has kept me from blogging.
If all goes well I hope to be driving nails on the new cabin all summer and won't have access to the Internet. So it could be next fall before my blog schedule returns to normal.
Since I know it is of interest to a great many people, let me just report that spring breakup of area lakes, including Red Lake, is very unlikely to be early and could be late. Average ice-out for Red Lake is May 8.
It was a cold winter but we have learned over the years that winter ice and snow depth don't make much difference on breakup times. What matters the most is the weather in April. To date the temperatures in April have been below normal. It looks like the forecast for the next couple of weeks is for warming but still not where it should be.
On the good side there haven't been many spring snowfalls that set everything back.