You are right.    It seems that the season doesnt begin until mid-Jan and as you mentioned, April riding is pretty much the norm lately in Northern Ontario.   The weather patterns are definitely changing whether we want to believe it or not.    

Mother's day weekend still ice on the bigger lakes, snow in the bush, and snowing this morning. Glad I did the lawn chores Friday and Saturday. On Friday's drive up, many lakes north of the Soo, were fully covered with ice, including Catfish lake in Wawa. I dont ever want to hear anyone spewing global warming crap, again!    With winters starting later, and lasting longer, I really believe, our calendar is not corrected enough with leap year events. My guess is, we are 3-6 weeks off on our calendars.   Over the last 30 years, it started as tough to get into April for riding. Now mid April is almost guaranteed yearly. This year we could darn near ride to mid may, in some areas.    I'm over it! Ski

They just kept on trucking.  Got off the trail a few hundred feet up from where I clipped it.  They were both on the railbed going the same direction as me.  Locked the sled up with nowhere to go.  Slid up beside the calf and caught the back end of it.

Calf was okay and mom did not come charging at you protecting the calf? Sound like you had a lucky day that could have been much worse.

My buddy and I were on the rail trail coming home from Coldwater at night.  Cow and Calf had popped up on to the trail and I caught the back end of the calf. Luckily, zero damage to the sled.  Got my leg and the front spindle but couldn't find anything else wrong with the sled.