So what does real winter look like?

We needed to restock the stash of firewood on the back porch a couple days ago.

Now that it's Winter, we have a plastic sled that we use for moving firewood from the woodshed to the house. The S.O. snowshoes over, fills the sled, and drags it back to the porch.

The first winter we were back, he tried keeping a trail open using the snow thrower. He figured out pretty fast that it wasn't worth it; snowshoeing was easier.

And here he is, back at the porch about to step down so he can start unloading the sled. Off to the right (hiding behind the open storm door) we've got a small covered area that will hold about a week's worth of firewood. If truly nasty weather is predicted (like the blizzard that's supposed to hit sometime later this week), the S.O. makes sure there's enough wood stacked there to last through any storm. The porch is raised; when the ground is bare, there are three steps up to it.

We finally had some above freezing weather yesterday. It got to be almost 40 outside. Things turned slushy downtown. Up here on the rock we call home, though, I don't think one day of warm weather made much of a difference. Driving up from town was still like doing a reverse bobsled run, and the snow in general is still, as the saying goes, asshole deep on a 10-foot Indian.

Product plug: The snowshoes are Alaskans made by Iverson right here in the U.P. If you ever need (or want) some snowshoes, I recommend going traditional and getting some Iversons. If nothing else, when you get to be old and feeble and can't snowshoe anymore, the Iverson snowshoes are going to look a lot cooler hanging on a wall than the modern aluminum and polyurethane models.

The village continues to grow

Looking toward L'Anse and the Huron Mountains from the Baraga side of the Bay

While the rest of the country freaks out over Winter, local fishermen are rejoicing. I think there are fishing shacks out on Keweenaw Bay that hadn't been on the lake since the 1990s. There's also been a flurry of new construction. This isn't the area where the S.O. and his friend go fishing. They're more adventurous, more nomadic. They use tents and tend to head farther north up the bay past the Sand Point lighthouse.

The power plant putting out the plume of smoke is the J. H. Warden biomass plant. It started off as a coal-fired plant, got converted to gas, was mothballed for awhile, and now burns "biomass," an interesting term for shredded railroad ties and other weirdness. Oh, they also burn fresh wood chips, but for awhile it seemed like it was all old creosote-soaked railroad ties all the time. There's nothing quite like being downwind from a plant burning creosote-soaked wood chips to make a person start wondering just how many lies got told during the permitting process. Every time I catch a whiff of it, I'm glad we live way back up in the hills, just over the horizon, instead of in town.

And what is Winter looking like at our place? About the same as it did the last time I put up a grader photo. This one's from this morning:

Our snow levels haven't changed much. We got about 8 inches of fresh fluff overnight, but the stuff on the ground has been settling so it's still not super deep. I doubt if it's much over 30 inches, although the S.O. swears it's at least 3 feet.

It's not just St. Louis

They're freaking out here too. I did a post a couple weeks ago about the absurdity of schools and other organizations closing when the temperatures around here dipped below zero. Well, they're doing it again. The predicted high for today is a negative single digit number, wind chills are going to be nasty, and every single school in the western U.P. is closed. Unbelievable. It's cold, but, Christ on the proverbial crutch, it's not snowing. It's not even that windy. The wind indicator on the weather vane in the front yard is just sitting there, and tree tops are barely moving. Dress the little barracudas in their snowmobile suits, wrap scarves around their heads, and shove them out the door. Either that, or resign your collective selves to having school run into July* because there's a limited number of "snow" days allowed, and all the local schools have pretty much burned through the available supply. There is absolutely no reason to freak out when it's a classic and totally normal Upper Michigan January day: cold enough to castrate brass monkeys, but nothing out of the ordinary for this part of the country at this time of the year.

Or at least it didn't used to be out of the ordinary. Apparently now it is. We've had so many warm winters in a row that when we finally get one that behaves like winter did 20 or 30 years ago, no one can handle it. Back in the 19th century, Bishop Baraga wandered all over the U.P. on snowshoes in some truly godawful weather. He survived without Thinsulate or a climate controlled vehicle; it seems like we modern day Yoopers should be able to cope with a little cold now.

You know what my test is for weather that's cold enough to worry about? It's when I step outside, blink, and my eyelashes freeze together. That hasn't happened yet; when it does, maybe I'll agree it actually is cold.

[*I cheerfully predict that the same parents who don't want their kids going to school now because they're terrified of the wind chill number will be raising hell when it gets to be June and the extended school year interferes with family outings or the kids getting summer jobs.]

He snuck up on me again

It snowed again last night. This isn't exactly news for a Thursday in January in the U.P. I'm guessing we got at least a foot of what Sarge refers to as alligator repellent. I got up this morning, looked out at the driveway, and decided that this was going to The Morning when I finally got the perfect winter snowplowing photograph. Lots of fresh powdery snow and great light: just cloudy enough to keep things from glaring, but still really nice and bright. I was going to position myself so I could catch the grader just as he came around the curve. I got dressed, I put on boots, I was ready. I even kept stepping outside occasionally to listen for the machine. So how did I do?

He did it to me again. Snuck up. I swear I only looked at the computer screen for two seconds and the next thing I knew I heard the beep-beep-beep as he started to back up. Son of a bitch. How does he do it? How can a machine that big also be that quiet?!

It's a mystery.

Seeing just how deep the snow is on the grader makes me realize (again) how lucky we are that the county road commission still does private driveways. It's worth every dime of the annual plowing fee. 

The driveway plowing was a program begun by a previous county engineer. It's since been discontinued. I've mentioned before that it's one of those things that's being phased out through attrition. No one can be added, and if you drop off, you're off it forever.

Lake Effect and Its Consequences

The S.O. and I have been planning a short trip out of town for some time. The Younger Daughter has relocated to Missouri, we're curious about her new digs and her new duty station, and we have a couple pieces of furniture she's said she'd like to have. The Plan called for us to load up the truck and hit the road several days ago. So what's the snag? Lake effect snow. The damn stuff won't stop falling. We can't leave until we've got our new carport kit completely assembled and the boats parked under it, but that lake effect snow is turning what should have been a fast and easy project into one that's taking forever to complete.

The carport is one of those adult tinker toy sets, a VersaTube "pre-engineered DIY building with slip-fit connections." We got the frame up on Tuesday afternoon in less than an hour. It really did work as neatly as the advertisements all claim. Then came the fun part: the roofing. We picked up the sheet metal on Wednesday. It was snowing, but the forecast claimed things would be better the following day. Pshaw. It was snowing on Thursday, too. Still, we managed to get about half the metal up before it started getting too dark to see what we were doing. We were sure we'd be able to finish it on Friday. Again, pshaw. There was a break in the snow -- we actually got to see some blue sky for awhile -- but we got only two pieces of roofing up. It is positively amazing just how many screws one piece of 14' x 39" sheet metal requires to hold it in place and just how time consuming it can be to put those screws in when you have to keep repositioning ladders. So we tried again yesterday. One piece in place and the batteries on the drills went dead. They drain fast when it's cold outside. Of course, considering that precipitation at the time consisted of a nasty mix of rain and snow, we weren't moving real fast anyway. It's easy to walk away from a project when you're feeling frozen and half drowned.

So now we've got three pieces left to go and theoretically we're done. Sort of. The S.O. will still have to move the Crestliner, which is going to be a real joy to do when the snow is now about 8 inches deep and super slushy, and then we'll tarp the sides of the carport. Maybe I should tell the kid to buy a turkey because at the rate we're progressing, it's going to be Thanksgiving before we get there.

You know, this is one of those projects that would have taken the S.O. and I maybe half a day to complete thirty years ago. It's truly depressing how much slower everything goes once a person achieves geezerhood.

Glacier Glide 2012

Ephemeral art - odds and ends of organic material embedded in ice

I talked the S.O. into going up to Marquette yesterday to check out Glacier Glide, an outdoor art show held at Presque Isle Park. According to the notice I saw, artwork would be positioned throughout the park to be viewed by the public, who could "snowshoe, ski, or hike" to see the various pieces. Thanks to frequent warm spells this winter, there isn't much snow on the ground at the lower elevations so I figured we were safe in planning on walking.

Quilted pieces made by members of a local quilting group. 

And walk we did -- all the way around the island, something that was actually a first for me. Presque Isle isn't particularly big, but for some reason up until yesterday if I circled the island, it was in a car. Old habits die hard -- that's the way I first saw the park, as a passenger in my grandparents' car a zillion years ago. We used to go there a lot as part of the traditional Sunday drive. We'd circle the island and then park near the Shiras Zoo to look at the half dozen animals on exhibit -- exotic creatures like black bears, porcupines, and bobcats in the small enclosures and whitetail deer in a larger fenced area. The deer would crowd up against the fence to beg for carrots. As a little barracuda, I loved it. As an adult, I'd no doubt be appalled. There are still deer on the island, but the fence is long gone. So is the rest of the zoo, except for one small reminder:

What's left of the Shiras Zoo. The enclosure for the deer was behind this structure. 

It was a nice afternoon and a pleasant walk, although at times it wasn't so much walking as doing a Tim Conway old man shuffle over long patches of ice. I did spot some cross-country ski tracks in a few places on the sections that were just hard-packed snow, and thought that whoever had skied that road was a far braver (or more foolhardy) person than I'd ever be. I know there are skiers who are really into the skating technique, but even the skiers who "skate" probably don't want to do it on real ice. When the road isn't hard and lumpy, though, it would be a really nice loop to ski.

As for the art, it was a bit of a disappointment. Going by the description in the paper, I thought there would be more artists represented and that they would do something spontaneous or a better job of reflecting the setting, but no such luck. Most of what we saw was quite nice -- lovely woven pieces, some gorgeous watercolors, some rather odd mixed media collages -- but almost everything was  work that could have been shown in any gallery at any time of the year.

On the other hand, I did spot a use for the singletree that's been kicking around the barn for years. I never thought about using it to hang a quilt, but after seeing that shawl waving in the breeze. . .

January

I've heard of people using modified lawn tractors to keep their driveways clear. This is what we use.

Eat your heart out, DaveO, we've got snow.

Blizzard of 2010, part 2

This is it.  The Great Blizzard. 

I'm tempted to give myself a snow day anyway.