Changes

All lot has happened since I last wrote.  First off, we drove our trucks out of here on May 1st.  It took us going out the afternoon before, to break the trail through the snow up to Lover's Leap, or the summit on the trail we take to town.  That afternoon took quite a lot of pushing and pulling by both trucks and people, but we made it to the high point in about 4 hours and decided to call it a day.  It was quite a warm afternoon and the snow would turn to ice as soon as the tires spun even a little, if we had kept going we were afraid that we would not make it back up the trail from the otherside, because the snow conditions changed quite a bit through the day.  Lesson learned - definitely should have had tire chains. 
So the next day we took off bright and early in case we had trouble breaking through and going the rest of the way to our rendevous point that we leave our other trucks at.  It turned out that it was no trouble at all and we were out in pretty good time.  We then spent the next 12 days in the valley with friends, helping redo the roof on their home.  We had a blast and so did the kids, it was a lot of work but we could not have spent those days any better way. 
After that we came home to find the lake with lots of huge cracks or leads across it.  Over the course of four days the lake changed drasticly.  And last night the ice swept away and we have open water today.  We wasted no time and took the boat out and went for a tour.  There was a few ice bergs here and there but otherwise, clean sailing.  Our loons from last fall were back today too, they must have been on some other open bay on the lake and as soon as they could they were back swimming in front of the cabin.  I was happy to see them again. 
We took the quads out yesterday and made it to the claim, still some deep spots of snow there, but we could still get in.  Paul started working on the back hoe that has been broken down with hydraulic problems since the fall.  We also moved out our saw mill and moved it to another location.  Today, Paul sawed up some boards and was able to finish our stairs going down to the lake. 
With the lake open now it seems like spring is really here and the trees are starting to bud out too.  We are also seeing lots of bears out, which is another sign for us, one to stay close to the cabin!