Freedom—January 10, 2018—The end of 2017 had an unusual set of events for Ossipee Lake winter naptime. The drawdown started on time (10/09/17) and I almost did not get my floating docks up on shore. Our dog had a great time walking along the dried up lake bottom.

Then during the end of October and month of November rains took over. Reported lake level went from 406′ on 10/25 to 410.11′ on 11/01/06 and my docks tried to float away. Our dog was not happy.

The level got back down to 406′ by mid November. Today it is reported at 404.32′.

The bay (and most of the big lake) froze over in late December but not safe for travel. Constant below zero temperatures since Christmas have restored the ice surfaces. I recorded 17 below most nights this last week. Some snow machines are back traveling the ice. We also had significant snow in the last two weeks with an electric power outage four times since late December. The entire area of 2,000+ customers was out for almost a day. The west side of Broad Bay was out for three days.

Plow crews have done a very good job keeping roads, parking lots and home driveways open. Some of the roads are starting to fail including the south end of Route 153, north of the bridge and the Freedom Town Road.

The good news is that the black flies are gone and ice-out is only 3 months away (04/18/18 ?).

No news on the new north side dam construction.