Still waiting for Spring to begin

Last year, I launched my boat on April 13th and was able to get to my cabin on Rainy Lake on April 16th!
We had the water running on April 21.
It was the earliest we had ever reached and opened our cabin since starting records in 1968. Our hot tub was filled and heated and we watched the sun set over Sand Bay.
We have been as late as the second weekend in May in travelling to the cabin.
This past Friday, my wife and I were amazed at the number of boats around Stratton and Pinewood on the Rainy River. There were over a hundred congregating at the Sturgeon Creek and Pinewood River all focused on catching early walleyes before the season closes next Monday. The river was still iced over in Rainy River and ice fishermen were out with snowmobiles and fishing shelters catching walleyes.
I am a fair weather open water fisherman. I like warmer temperatures, and will put up with some cold rainy days for fishing, but they are short days.
There is some documentation that four weeks after the ice disappears under the international bridge at Rainy River, the ice will be gone from Lake of the Woods, and a week later you can travel anywhere on Rainy Lake. That would make the earliest potential for ice out on Rainy Lake almost the week of the Victoria weekend in May. I hope that is incorrect.
As I examine the weather channels future listings for highs and lows, I keep being teased by the weather two weeks ahead, only to be disheartened by seeing those warm temperatures plummet to just barely melting as we come closer to those days on the calendar.
Spring brings hope. Spring is a clean up period. Spring is ice out season. Spring is opening the cabin. Spring is leaves bursting into leaf with spring green colours. Spring brings the purple crocus plants shooting first through the snow. Spring is the green nubs of tulips and daffodils pushing their way to the top of the soil. Spring is the snow disappearing and the raking of lawns.
I am still waiting for spring to start. I chuckled at a sign last Friday that said; “Winter can’t last forever, spring will come”. I think that we all know that, but we are now into our sixth month of snow on the ground, and winter seems to have gone on for far too long.
Our normal warm winter thaws in January, February and March have really not happened.
I am ready for warmth beaming down on my face, and melting the snow. I am ready for the penetrating rays of the sun to undermine the ice on the lake. I am ready to do the cleanup in my yard. I am ready for spring.

–Jim Cumming,
Publisher