After a few days of low single-digit temperatures, the warm weather has returned. Today was 12 oC (54 oF) and sunny. It was so lovely, that I when I took Raven for her walk, I went out without my jacket. First time in 2009! I took Raven up our road and then down the next one, over to Eel Lake. Eel is the lake immediately to the west of us – the properties on our side of the road are on Kingsford, and those on the west side of our road back onto Eel. There’s public access to Eel if you walk a little ways down the road, where a narrow causeway divides Eel from Canoe.
The ice all along the north shore of Eel has melted back, exposing a wide strip of open water. We have yet to see any open water at our shore on Kingsford, although the south end is already open where the submerged river current keeps the water moving. Eel is a deeper lake than Kingsford, so I imagine that the ice doesn’t get as thick, and in turn it melts faster. Also, I suspect that being the north end and therefore exposed to the sun most of the day, the shore we visited warms up faster than at our east-facing property.
Raven immediately went down to investigate the water, and bounded about in the shallows. Seeing her interest in playing in it, I threw a few sticks for her, and she went splashing in after them. At least, she would as long as they were close enough to shore that her feet could touch bottom; she wasn’t quite ready to swim out into deeper water. Still, she was up to her neck in the water – voluntarily. A long way from not wanting to get her feet wet back in the fall.
A wet, happy dog.
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