Posts Tagged ‘lake ice’
Guess Contest
Despite what the two words, “ice” and “out,” have come to mean in 2026 with respect to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, used together, these words have long had a different connotation in places where winter resembles Arctic conditions that last for many months.
For many lake communities, the question of when a lake will become ice-free has launched a time-honored tradition of friendly wagers on predicting the exact date. Thus, I have decided to open a contest for you, my dear readers, to guess the exact date of ice-out on Paddock Lake in 2026.
This photo shows the ice’s condition as of yesterday morning. It was frozen solid. Mia was already making close observations toward settling on her best guess. You will have to rely on what you can deduce from the image.
Here are the Contest Rules, as determined by a committee consisting entirely of unbiased representatives of Wintervale Ranch. In other words, me:
- Your guess must be submitted in whatever way works best for you and your level of connection with blogger, *this* John W. Hays. That may include an email, a text, a comment on today’s post, or telepathy, if you think I can be trusted to receive it. Don’t count on that.
- Comments on this post should include your initials, nickname, or some unique identifier of your choosing since unfamiliar commenters show up to me as “anonymous.”
- To be as fair as possible (and as a reward to contestants who are regular daily readers), your guess should arrive to me before the end of the day today, March 3rd. If you only miss by a small amount of time, go ahead and guess anyway. The judge may allow it in the case that nobody else has chosen to participate.
- In the event of a duplicate date being guessed, the first one to pick said date will be granted an advantage. However, there remains the possibility that I might split the prize if the situation seems warranted.
- Sour grapes are considered bad form, so if the horses choose to mess with the lake before ice out is declared by the judge, no complaints will be tolerated. Plus, such action by the paddock dwellers could possibly help some guesses. Did you consider that?
- Any rules that have been overlooked will be left to the whims of Mother Nature to ignore as she sees fit.
In the event that anyone actually bothers to guess, and if a guess of the exact date is successfully submitted, this contest is prepared to offer the following as a prize:
The winner will be awarded a custom word painting of vague length that may loosely resemble some manner of prose frequently referred to as a poem, ode, or rambling free verse creative writing that will somewhere within, somehow contain four words submitted by the person who guessed the correct date.
If a tie is deemed permissible, each person will be submitting two words to be combined in the victory verse composition.
The following context is being provided for consideration while deciding on your guess:
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Groaning Ice
We made it safely to the lake place in the middle of the afternoon despite Cyndie’s Honda CRV missing its rear spoiler. Some degenerate scofflaw saw fit to liberate the spoiler from her rear hatch while she was at a hair salon in St. Paul. I’m always amazed that people get away with such brazen behavior in broad daylight.
Yeah, it was legitimate behavior to be removing a body part from a vehicle in a parking lot. If I saw someone dismantling parts of an automobile in a car park, I wouldn’t snap a photo of the goofball to show the police, either. Just keep walking and mind my own business. What’s that saying? All it takes to stop one criminal in the act is one good person to pay attention and say something about it.
We are just out $350-400 bucks and the cost of labor by a professional to reattach it. Don’t even think of contacting insurance. We can’t afford the hit and would have to pay the deductible anyway. Gosh, I love paying for insurance that we don’t dare use since it would end up costing us even more for insurance.
Enough groaning about that.
You would not believe how cool it is to hear the whale-like moans and groans coming from the ice on such a big lake. With the cold air temperature and little to no snow cover, water was expanding as it froze, and the more than 3000 acres of surface area were being pushed and pulled with wild auditory reverberations.
I tried recording a short video to capture the sounds, but it only picked up Asher’s and my bumbling rustling around. You definitely had to be present to enjoy the sounds.
The rest of the groaning last night wasn’t from the ice. It came from me watching the Vikings unsuccessfully trying to score a touchdown from the five-yard line over and over again.
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Icy Adventures
We don’t usually spend much time up at the lake when the ice is about to vanish from the water’s surface. I find it very entertaining. Temperatures dropped far enough below freezing Sunday night that water to the shore, which was liquid when we arrived, had refrozen solid by yesterday morning.
As the sun climbed to a mid-morning angle, the lake began making a percussive symphony of booming and cracking sounds in response.
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There is an almost mystical energy unleashed by the intensity of natural forces pressing in multiple directions as the frozen surface reacts to wind, sun, gravity, the mixing of heat and cold, and the resistance of rocks and sand on the shore. When a fracture reverberates throughout the expanse of acres of ice, rumbling and echoing for almost a minute afterward, it can be felt in your physical core.
I notice my pulse speed up when it happens, and hear myself making sounds of appreciation that don’t actually form words.
The guys –brothers, Jedediah and Caleb– showed up to work on the rotting truss and were quickly introduced to Asher and some of Cyndie’s fresh-baked scones.
They installed extra (temporary) support to the deck and the bottom chord of the truss itself in preparation for assembling scaffolding for the job. After further analysis and some outside consultation, the decision was made to change to a “hammer truss” design for the replacement.
I’m looking forward to what they come up with. It should be easier to build and will eliminate at least one of the key points that was trapping water and triggering the rot. It will change the appearance of the front of the house and may take a little getting used to at first, but I am open to the possibility it may end up being more appealing in the end.
It will certainly open up overhead space on the deck and produce a more spacious feeling.
As the warm afternoon eliminated most of the new ice that had formed the night before, Cyndie and I let Asher have some fun along the shoreline.
He had a blast breaking ice and chewing some of the chunks. Falling into the water as sections of ice gave out beneath his weight didn’t seem to bother him one bit.
Icy cold doesn’t seem to startle him either.
It looked like so much fun, I needed to keep reminding myself I couldn’t step out to join him in the shoes I was wearing. That, and the fact that icy cold would absolutely make an impression on my feet.
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Favorite Photos
Holy cow, this year is flying by. It’s the 3rd day of January already! We are home again, and I’m happy to report that Delilah did great on the 4-hour drive from Grand Rapids, Minnesota to Beldenville, Wisconsin.
Today, I hope to do as little as possible in the way of productive endeavors, unless they involve power-lounging and idling away the time with trivial pursuits (which have their own way of feeling productive sometimes). I will mentally prepare for the return to the week of work that follows the New Year celebrations. Everything that was being held in suspended animation during the holidays will be released for a return to the regular grind.
Our next paid holiday doesn’t arrive for 5-months! At least the daylight hours will gradually be getting longer during that otherwise ominously staid period of time.
On that cheery note, I will endeavor to bring some pleasure to these proceedings with a sampling of a few of my favorite photos to emerge from our weekend visit with Barb and Mike.
The first two were taken by Barb when the lake was just in the process of freezing, and she generously shared them with me. The close-up shot is right out of my bag of tricks, so of course I love it the most. I asked her how she got it to be black and white, and Barb replied, “It’s not.” I love that it looks like there is no color in the captured image.
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This next one is mine. I took a picture of the water flowing beneath a dam, wanting to capture the water droplets on the edge of the forming ice. After zooming in, I was surprised to find the lines that look like a drawn-in animation. A moment after that, the whole thing took on a look of being more a painting than a photo. I’m really happy with it.
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Relative Something 