Although late to start and some anxious days wondering if it would finally turn cold, Winter 2023 came right around and has been fantastic. It's hard to believe that back in February we were over a week late starting ice fishing here on the Avalon due to unsafe ice conditions. Since then it has been a winter for the books. Lots of snow, and enough cold weather to create 18" of ice across the ponds we frequent.

It's now the end of March and we have been blessed with continued cool temperatures hovering around -1ºC daytime, this past weekend we receive a dandy of a late winter storm. In comparison last year was just terrible and even though winter 2021 was decent, by the 20th of March many ponds were wide open water.

Starting late Friday afternoon snow accompanied by very strong winds arrived with a fury. By Saturday morning we had just over 30cm of windswept snow on the ground. Typical spring snow, it was dense, damp and very heavy.

My Honda 9/28 Snowblower certainly worked hard and earned its keep tossing the majority of our snow directly into strong winds.

It was deceivingly deep, we really only realized how much had drifted in after I made the last few cuts with the blower.

It's been a few years since I've had a drift this tall in front of the Rec. Room window especially in March!

Cheers, MIKE

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