Two nights without frost! In fact, last night it only got down to +4·. There are some pretty heavy-looking clouds, occasionally dropping a tiny bit of water, and a northwest wind, but when the sun comes out, it's very pleasant. We should be out cleaning up the yard, but instead agreed to let Mike's kids to treat us the Mothers' Day smorg at the Cove. We had planned to go to the Beach Café for their supper smorg, but as soon as I get this Report written we will leave for Humboldt to have supper with Lloyd and Louise and their family. (The sacrifices you make for your kids!) From Humboldt we'll go to Saskatoon where we will meet Doreen's sister, Lucille, and bring her home with us. I think Doreen is hoping Lucille will do the yard work.

This gets scary - we stayed at Sandy's house in Melfort Tuesday and Wednesday nights; Mozart Friday and Saturday, now Humboldt and Saskatoon Sunday and Monday. Then, I hope we can stay home for a few days.

I rode my bike around the peninsula and Lakeshore campground last week. There was some open water off the marina, and west by the water-ski beach. I saw loons, grebes (possibly 2 kinds)  and quite a few Canada geese. That marshy area west of the Marina, though, where the geese usually nest, is high and dry.  Some Park staff spoke of finding goose nests with broken egg shells. Sounds as if the dry land isn't giving them the isolation they need and some predator is getting the eggs. Not that it is a problem - last year, the geese gave up trying to hatch out a family and left, and as a result the beach was nice and clean for people.

Friday and Saturday, we saw geese by the thousands, on Nupp Lake and all the sloughs between Kelvington and Elfros. Most were snow geese, both blue and white phase, and lesser Canadas, but there were lots of greater Canadas, the only ones to nest around here.

Our bird book just lists Canada geese as one species, with several sub-species. It says the smaller the goose, the farther north it goes to nest. It mentions the "mallard-size minima" nesting in Western Alaska. A wild life artist told me years ago that the greater Canada goose has a larger sub-species which he referred to as the giant Canada goose.

The staff has obviously been working in the campground; all is nice and neat and clean, ready for campers. The water was turned on in our neighborhood last Friday, so we won't have to haul water until late fall.

Last Saturday, the first day of the new fishing season, Vaughn Binkley and Mel Tkachuk went out and drilled some holes in the ice. Vaughn tells me the ice was only about 18 inches thick, and the bottom half of that was pretty rotten. He said the fishing was pretty rotten too, so they didn't stay out long. Since then, some big cracks have been growing all week, and it is at the stage where the wind could really move the ice around. Once that happens, it will break up quickly.

I checked back for a few years; recently the ice has gone out in April, but in 1996 it was May 24th before we could say it was gone. From 1994 to 1997, it was anywhere from May 1 to May 24th; for the three years prior to that it was late April, and since then it has been late April. My records only go back to 1992, but it seems to run in four-year cycles. Freeze-up is anywhere from November 8th to November 30th, and doesn't seem to have any relationship to when break-up occurs.