The ice is out! Spring has sprung! Eggs are done!

Saturday morning in Port Wing and a big event of the day is to go to The Dump.  The Dump used to be an actual "dump" where people brought garbage and just tossed it on a smoldering smoky heap of trash.  The added fun of that situation was being able to drive by the Dump in the evenings and watch the bears paw through the trash.  Great entertainment for my two little girls!

But then society progressed, environmental concerns arose, and now The Dump is a trash transfer station, gated, with dumpsters for trash and recycling.  It's open on Saturdays from 9-2 in the winter with some added times in the summer on Wednesdays from 4-7pm.  And it's harder for the bears now, although they do still challenge the person in charge to keep finding ways to keep them out of the dumpster containers.

So, today was Dump day, and on the way back from the Dump, we headed over to the marina area for our daily trip to see Lake Superior.  And the lake was open...the ice was gone!  Well, most of it; there were still some ice floes bumping around out there.  It was a solid sheet of white yesterday and today it's just gone.  We don't know if it sunk or if it just blew into the middle of the lake.  Bottom line...it's gone!

And later this afternoon we went back down and the commercial fishing boats were out of the docks where they had been packed in with ice all winter!  One, the Julie Ann, had plowed through the ice chunks to get all the way out of the channel into Lake Superior, but and when we saw it, they were coming back in but a little to the west to break up the ice a little more.

 The other one, named Judy, was moving around closer in to the marina, probably also to break up the ice so going would be easier when they try to go out again. Now it really feels like spring is here!

And finally, I just had to try the onion-skin egg-dying from my blog yesterday.  They don't look as nice as Ingabritt's, but I think we have tweaked my process for a more successful attempt the next time. Ours are more brown than red but I think I should have had more red onions.  As it was I used our last two red onions from our garden last summer.  Also, I should have pulled the hose tighter around the egg to hold the leaves closer to the eggs.  And, they were store-bought eggs, but I think I should have washed them first because the dye didn't stick in places.  But it was fun to try and it smelled really good with the onions and vinegar.  And here they are:

Happy Easter!