The slow walk out of winter

(via OnTheCommon.com - The slow walk out of winter)

When we reached the top of the first rise on the camp road and saw the unfriendly mix of ice and snow with melting water and soft ground underneath, we opted for the prudent choice. We parked the car and walked the rest of the way.
This wasn't a hard winter for us. We had cold stretches, but only a few times did it dip below zero. We had snow, but the mid-Atlantic states had much more. No, it was a fairly easy winter with not much more left to it.
The ice had started to pull away from the shore. If you looked closely, though, particularly around the dock, you could still see that the ice is still nearly a foot thick.
We're in the cold part of the lake. The northwest winds push the ice into the cove. Elsewhere, the sun and rain have thinned the cover. Queenie, our very own plywood royalty, went for a swim some time on the evening of March 18 (Queen Lake Iceout). When we were at the lake on the 16th, she was still standing tall in the afternoon sun.
Our neighbors reported that there had been a lot of snow on the open ground as recently as the past weekend, but the rain took it away.
Because much of the road is sheltered by evergreens, the warm sunshine doesn't have a big effect on the snow cover. It's the fog and rain that'll do the melting. The forecast suggests that we might have some of that kind of weather early next week. It wasn't a bad winter, but we're ready for spring.