Cabin season finally here

The flyers that will be distributed later this week are filled with outdoor living items.
Flowers, plants, and shrubbery, along with gardening, and yard maintenance tools, all are being advertised. If you are into boating or improving the look of your yard, the ideas are all laid out.
Spring is here.
My wife and I made our way to our cabin on Saturday. We were the first to have our boat in at the marina.
The cabin was in good shape although the water was low. We had a white beach that extended past the water’s edge. That last six-eight inches of ice still has to melt.
Water was just breaking over rocks that I haven’t seen in more than a decade. Pulling up to our dock, from the floor of my boat, my head was just about even with the top of the decking.
It is hard to imagine that the water had risen 75 cm above the decking last summer.
We pulled into our bay and a pair of mallards launched vertically into the air.
All the damage that was done to docks and cribs can be repaired this year. We came away unscathed except for a water pump, but that was a minor repair.
Our neighbours were not so fortunate, and will have a big task to repair their cribs and docks.
Looking at the Lake of the Woods Control Board charts, the Namakan-Rainy Lake watershed currently is at the low end of the curve. In-flows into the basin are at record lows while the out-flows from Rainy Lake to Lake of the Woods also are at minimum levels.
Since the huge rainfalls of last May and June, and the record snowfall of the 2013-14 winter, our region appears to have been in drought. Walking across our island, on Saturday, places that normally are wet were dry and the pine needles and leaves crunched under our runners.
Leaves have not yet started to bud out.
As we sat on the deck Saturday afternoon, we wondered why we hadn’t brought supplies up to stay the evening.
The heat from the sun was warming us. Birds were chirping in the background and one of last year’s baby squirrels made an appearance to check us out.
He seemed not too impressed that we were back and announced our return to his friends in the area. The squirrel had wintered well.
When we left the island, we motored past a pair of boats that were fishing around reefs on a nearby island. My wife wondered if we might go fishing this coming weekend for some northern and bass.
But lots of work will come before fishing. The water has to be hooked up, the hot tub filled with water, deck furniture put out, and a general clean-up around the cabin.
The cabin season is here.