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Before I say another word, I would like to thank my best friend and wonderful wife, Nora, for writing last week’s entry. It is nice to have a break. It seems to re-energize me for the next week’s entry. Thanks Sweetie!

Winter continues to crank along in the Keweenaw. It snowed every day last week. Nothing too big most of the time, but Friday’s clipper system over achieved and brought a solid 6-8″ to most areas. The snow is now ankle deep in the higher terrain of the Keweenaw…If you go in head first! Haha! A riding buddy of mine would say that all the time and I thought it was a pretty funny way to put it. Ankle deep…if you go in head first. Keweenaw Counties total for the season is around 235 so far and that looks to grow considerably this week. Before I get into that, I have some shots to share from the weekend.

The girls traveled down to Iron Mountain on Friday so that Grace could attend a figure skating clinic. Thankfully they left before the snow got heavy and they were able to make it there without any issues. I finished up my work for the website around noon and then took to the road myself. By the time I was headed out of Jacobsville, we had already gotten a quick 3 inches and it was coming down pretty good. I have never minded driving in the snow, in fact, in most cases I fully enjoy it. The only times I did not like it was when I lived in the big city and had to deal with the traffic and folks who just did not know how to drive in it. The other two times were when I was far from home and it was snowing so hard, I was not sure I would make it home or have to change plans. Once that happened returning to the university of Wyoming after playing in a hockey tournament in Steamboat. I was THE last vehicle they let go up and over Rabbit Ears Pass. The other was coming home Christmas Evening from southern WI. Hit snow falling so hard (about 6″/hr) around Mass City that I was pushing it with my axle. Thankfully, I caught up with a plow truck and was able to continue on my way.

Anyway, my first stop on Friday was in Calumet and it was coming down at around 2-3″ per hour, with winds blowing pretty good. The visibility was less than 1/4 of a mile. Typically that would be enough to just about shut down most areas, but for the hardened folks of the Keweenaw, it just caused them to drive a bit more slowly and cautiously. After my stop in Calumet, I headed up the highway through the hamlets of Centennial, Wolverine, Allouez, Ahmeek and Mohawk, finally reaching my destination in the greater Phoenix area. It was still snowing pretty good at that point and I did not stop on the side of the highway for fear of creating another challenge to drivers. I did turn off on a side street and was able to snap this shot of a home that has not seen any humans in it since the snow began to fall 3 1/2 months ago.

After that, I had to go all the way back down south to Houghton to pick up some ThinkSnow stickers I had run out of as well as do the grocery shopping for this week. The snowfall rate had backed down a bit by the time I got to Houghton, but even still, a fresh 1-2″ was on my truck when I came back out of the grocery store. I returned home to two hungry and happy-to-see-me doggies, fed them and had dinner and settled in for the night.

There was still a bit of snow falling when I woke up Saturday morning, but just very light snow showers. I fed the dogs, fired up Big Red and cleared snow. Then took a shower and hopped in Chelsea (the truck, her full name is Chelsea Dagger) with the Riot in the bed and headed north to ride with my good friend Al from the old days of our riing riding gang the Lumberjacks. I probably have not ridden with Al in at least 5 years, but it was just like falling off a bike, like we just rode last week and it was great to be out there with him. We also had a group from the Crystal Falls area that I was introduced to about a month ago and promised that I would take them into the bush for a day’s riding.

I don’t know if it was riding with Al, or riding in my old stomping grounds or some combination of those two, but I felt the most relaxed and happy to be on a sled as I have felt in a long time. Ever since having my heart issues, riding the backcountry has been somewhat stressful for me. It is a lot more physically demanding and I think the fear of getting stuck and having to rely nearly 100% on the others to get me out of my pickle creates some anxiety. I think if riding he trails was not so worrisome to me for fear of getting hit, I would have transitioned to a trail rider only.

The snow was plenty deep and the fresh 6-8″ that had fallen 12 hours before we took to the woods was like icing on the cake. The group were all good riders too. They ride primarily the backcountry north of Crystal Falls, but just do not have the kind of snow we have here, so they were all smiles all day! There were a few mishaps and Al dropped into a drainage to help one of them out and had to do a little finagling to get himself out of the drainage, but all in all, a great time was had by all and I hope those guys can make it up again to ride someday, as they were super nice guys.

I even was able to pull off a maneuver that I would not have tried in the past 3-4 years. It the same spot Al dropped into the drainage, I started to head down, but quickly hit the breaks when I realized what kind of a situation that would put me in. So while the sled was stationary, pointed straight down the hill, I tipped it over on it’s left (uphill) side on about a 45 degree angle, hit the throttle and the sleds rear end swung right around, which put it at a perpendicular angle to the fall line and I was able to side hill across and out of the drainage and onto level ground. Sure did give this old buck a shot of confidence that I have been lacking!

After we finished the ride and had the sled loaded into the bed of the truck, I noticed a cool snow formation that had developed around the tailpipe. It kind of reminded me of a picture of a black hole. I awoke with some pretty sore muscles, the good kind of soreness and something I have not felt in quite a few years. I have a couple more rides planned this season, including one in the MN Arrowhead in early March and yesterday’s ride has got me even more excited for all of the rides yet to happen this season.

Now, onto that snow idea for tomorrow and Tuesday. It’s the same storm that I was talking about in my forecast last week and it now puts the Keweenaw square in the band of heaviest snow. Perhaps not the top of the list of snow totals, but one idea calls for Jacobsville to get 18″ of snow, while the other is at 23.5. So it is looking quite promising that the missing “big storm” for this season might be headed our way. For a sneak peak at snowfall totals for the rest of the Midwest, you can check this map out. That will do wonders for the Northwoods and it a great note to close on!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

Chilly….freezing….frigid…..frosty….snappy…..Yep, it’s snappy! Take your breath away cold. That’s sort of the bad news…the good news is it was sunny today. The days of winter can feel especially long when there isn’t much sunlight. So even though the temps didn’t get much above 10 degrees here in Jacobsville today, the sun was shining brightly.  Bleau doesn’t seem to mind the cold much and he takes his normal sweet time going outside to take care of his business. But, retired sled dog Kashi has other ideas….she went about 15 feet from the door, did her business and came running back to the house. It’s nice to imagine she loved her mushing days but I am 100 percent certain she is enjoying this retirement gig! I imagine Bleau will one day love staying home and not going to school….for now he’s all in! We didn’t go to school on Tuesday due to an appt. and on Wednesday when he arrived at school he ran down the hall at full speed. Stopping at lockers to greet students….The kids get a bang out of him because he likes to pick up his own leash and “walk himself”. Lucky dogs, lucky humans.

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed about living in Jacobsville is the change of weather. It can be a blizzard in Calumet  and down the hill it’s blue skies and sunshine. These 2 pictures were taken 15 minutes apart. I know John loves living here but he does miss the big snows of Keweenaw county. I’d say we have had a snowy winter here in Jacobsville though and that’s been good for the old boys spirits!

When we first moved here we bought a nice, sturdy, TALL bird feeder. Unfortunately, I was one day late in pulling it this spring and the bear got to it first. We were able to save it but we lost about 4 feet off the feeder. Now the birds don’t mind, but being shorter means the deer have easy access to dinner. The tubular feeders work best as far as the deer cleaning them out of food! So I filled the feeders mid week and the deer came in that night and cleaned them out. So on Saturday I went out and as I was filling the 4 tube feeders the chickadees were landing on me, my boots, feeding from my hand even. Everything was filled and within 15 minutes we had lots of birds and even some new ones. Chickadees, pine grosbeak, HUGE white breasted nuthatch, rose breasted nuthatch, hairy woodpecker, sparrow, blue jay and 2 redpolls! The redpolls were a first for us. It’s warmer than yesterday but the feeder has been pretty quiet. They must have full bellies from yesterday’s haul! 

The deer are hanging around and still look pretty good. There is a mom who has a pretty young deer with her always. They don’t come as regularly as some of the others. They know where to look for food as that is the spot we put out things the deer will enjoy like apples etc. 

John asked me sort of short notice to write the journal. He decided to take Gracie to Tech skating today and writing the journal was the trade off. So I was looking through my latest photos to see if I had any material at all. I stumbled upon this oldie from one of the ride-in’s. Gosh time goes by so quickly! If you look close you can even see everyone’s buddy Big Vin in the background. Loads of great friends were made over the years at the ride in. 

Looks like the coming week will be typical winter weather for this area. Thursday looks to be cold per the Weather Channel…lol….I don’t have my handy weather guy handy right now 🙂  John was to ride with some friends this week and a series of events kept him home….stuck truck one day, next day dead battery….and then somehow on Thursday he broke his toe of all things! The weather was super bitter cold so as unfortunate it was he couldn’t get out, I was happy to know he wouldn’t be out in those cold temps. 

Well, that’s all I got folks……here’s to a great week! 

Good night from Jake

 

This happens from time to time. I sit down to compose a journal entry and pretty much come up blank. I guess I can put a good chunk of the blame on the weather, as it has been cold and windy and that has kept me from doing much adventuring outdoors. It was not bitterly cold all week, in fact we popped above the freezing mark for a high in Tuesday, we even had some sunshine, but I had a doctors appointment in the afternoon that kept me from being able to get out and enjoy things. I did take a moment to stop, close my eyes and put my face in the sunlight as I was walking to my truck to go to the doctors. It did feel very good and even produced a brief moment of spring fever. 

The warmth did not last too long, as we were back down into the single digits for highs for Wednesday and Thursday and like just about all winter long, the wind was blowing at 20-30 mph. I have probably already mentioned it, but this has been the windiest winter that I have ever experienced up here and I am now on my 23rd one. For a long time, the winds kept the snow from piling up on the roofs too much and so the roof clearing activities were not called for. About a week to ten days, that changed. Finally, enough show started to pile up and just about all at once there were folks up on their roofs removing the snow.

We do not have to worry much about that here in Jake. For one, we really do not get enough snow to need it to be done and in our case, all of our roofs are metal, so as soon as we have a couple day warm up, the snow comes off by itself. The shop roof cleared earlier this week, but the house roof still has about 12-15″ on it. This old house does not have much insulation in it, so we do end up with some rather large ice dams, but I do not concern myself too much with them either, as the water cannot back up and get into the house with the metal roof.

With the colder air came some snows. Nothing big, at least on a 24 hour basis, but it seems like 2-4″ have fallen in the higher terrain every 24 hours since late Wednesday and we have picked up around an inch or so every 24 hours. The exception as been in the last 18 hours or so when a fairly steady snow has put down around 5″ of fluff. Over time, that all adds up and in many cases, that is preferable way to get it. I do not spend all day moving it around and left with no time for anything else but the website and any other chores. Although this year we have really been void of a big, knock-down storm and it sure would be neat to have one or two of them before spring comes.

Here is a shot taken out our backyard window in the den. It was taken around 30 minutes ago and is probably the average snowfall rate for today. Sometimes harder and sometime lighter. I believe we have officially given up on the ice rink for this season. It turns out that after the flooding around a month ago, only about 25% of it had ice thick enough to support the weight of a human. So when we walked on the rest, the ice cracked and slipped around on the plastic liner. Trying to remove the snow was difficult with that situation and it would have taken a bunch more water to get it completely flooded, so next year we will try again and apply what was learned this season and hopefully get there! To tell you the honest truth, even if we had gotten good ice on all of it, the weather would have kept us off of it for much of the time. So no great loss.

I guess that about covers it for this one. It does not look like too much exciting will happen in the weather department until possibly the end of the week and next weekend, but no snow loss either. So we just keep kicking the can down the road.

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

 

Well, the past week has definitely been one of typical January weather in the Keweenaw. Lots of cold, lots of snow and lots of wind. It seems that the flakes have been falling more minutes than not for just about all of the week. We did have some sun pop through from time to time as well, just to sort of let us know it was still there above all the clouds and falling snow. 

Such was the case Tuesday morning. This was the sight as I looked left coming out of the front door of the house on my way to the office. “Red skies in morning, sailors take warning”. The old mariners saying, meaning when you see red skies in the morning off to the west, it means a storm is coming. Probably not always right, but also probably not a bad relationship to be mindful off. The red skies are created by the rising suns rays being refracted and reflected by ice crystals and/or water vapor making up the clouds of an approaching storm from the west.

That warning ended up being valid, as we had snow commence by around midday and then keep up pretty good for most of the day and overnight and we ended up with around 6″ of fresh snow, as did much of the Keweenaw from around the lift bridge north. Some areas even saw as much as 8-10″ fresh.

A bit later in the week, I took a drive up north to my old stomping grounds in Keweenaw County. I did not go any further north than Mohawk, but also ended up in Greenland by later in the afternoon, so I did get to see quite a bit of the lay of the snow across the Keweenaw. The way things seem to work, the snow we have on the ground is close to doubled by the time I am just 8-10 miles north at the Dreamland Bar. The depth increases a bit more by the time I get to Lake Linden, but only by around 10-20%. On this trip, I headed up through the valley and the snow typically gets a bit deeper the further north I go in the valley and then at the valley, I have to climb the Copper City Hill, which raises me about 300-450 feet in elevation. That rise in elevation is all that is needed to put me into the true deep snow country of the Keweenaw. On average, Copper City will have around 2 times as much snow on the ground as Dreamland, which equates to around 4 times as much on the ground as here in Jake.

The mathematical formula seemed to be pretty much spot on by the time I got up to the top of the hill and into Copper City. The snow banks there were a good 5-6 feet tall and it felt really good to be traveling through the deep snow country. It immediately brought back the memories of regularly driving through there in winter. I did take the turn in Copper City that put me on the #6 Road that heads to Mohawk. That is the road we used to live on and the banks there were around 3-4 feet tall. Not because of less snow, but because the plows can travel faster and push their snow further away, rather than just up and in. A final turn onto Old Joes Road took me down the road I would take when walking the dogs on the 3 mile loop and also travel in Big Red to go and clear the ice rink in Ahmeek. All great memories!

Snow not nearly the snow in Jake as in Mohawk, but it is a “satisfactory deep” in Jake. I would love more. I would love to be able to watch it snow those big lake effect snow bombs more, but at least the snow is deeper than a foot and that is quite nice to look at.

Bleau has been enjoying the snow. Romping around in it and running the fence line trying to see if he can get any deer to play “cops and robbers” with him. So far none of them have, but they have learned that he cannot get past the fence, so some of them do not run when he comes at them like a bat outta hell, barking like there is no tomorrow. he others that do run do not go very far, just far enough it seems to let his voice not be as much of a nuisance. Kashi is much happier to just go out, do her business and come in. This indoor living has really hit her sweet spot. She spends most of her day on her blanket on the carpeted living room floor or on the couch, napping with one eye open! She is the sweetest dog we have had and never does anything to get herself in trouble. She is living the good live and knows it and that makes all of the human Dees joyful, as that I all we ever want to do for all of our dogs. I am starting to get the itch for a lab, but am going to hold off until Kashi passes. Her health is still perfect, with just a bit of stiffness in her hind quarters, so the lab could be a ways off yet. When the time comes, I may ask the help of you, my friends, as we will be wanting to do a rescue, rather than get from a breeder. Only for the simple fact that we want to adopt a dog who is without a family and give him the full Dee family dog treatment! There are not a lot of rescue organizations close to us and we were watching the Chicago Lab Rescue, but turn out you have to live close enough to them so they can do visits and check in to make sure the adoption has been a good thing for the dog.

My main reason for going to Greenland late last week was to pick up a cordless electric snow thrower. I had actually gotten one from Lowes online, but it ended up crapping out on my after going around 50 feet. I spoke with two tech support folks at snapper who were very nice, but it was their conclusion that the unit was defective in some manner. Pat’s in Greenland had the unit I really wanted to get, but could not find one ready to ship locally or on-line, so made the 90 minute trip south to pick up the Ego unit. It is just a single stage like the Snapper was, but has two large batteries rather than one. That gives it a lot more power and longer running life.

Yesterday when the snow had started to taper of some, Grace and I took the blower out onto the ice rink to give it a try. There was about 10-12″ of snow on the ice and the Ego had very little issues moving it. The wind was a different story, as it would whip the snow all around, including my face and the area I had just cleaned. Grace and I kept up with the clearing, but it did not take long to reach parts where the ice was not thick enough to hold fast and it cracked. This made moving the snow more difficult to move as I had to bring the bottom of the blower up, so that it would not chew into the ice or worse, chew into the plastic liner. We got about 1/3rd of the rink cleared and the batteries were nearing the end of their charge. I was really working the blower hard with the amount of snow on the rink so I was actually impressed with how long the batteries lasted at full power. They only took a little over an hour to go from nearly dead to a full charge too.

So I will clear the rest of the rink off bit by bit this week and then move on to putting more water on it to make the whole rink usable. Hopefully that will not take too long, as I no longer have my previous method available.

Today Grace had some important testing for her figure skating, so we all went down to the SDC at Tech and watched her and others go through their moves while the judges did their thing. Grace and her friend from the Calumet Figure Skating Club both passed their tests, so now it is on to prepare for a program competition, which is similar to they type of competition you see in the olympics. There is also going to be a spring skating show involving all of the skaters in the Calumet Figure Skaters Club that she will be learning a couple of routines for. It would be great to have our rink in full running shape to give her another place to practice.

My final picture is of the street gang I came upon while driving home the other day. I don’t believe I have seen so many deer on the road in one spot in my life. They were right next to the home of someone that feeds them through the winter, but I don’t even remember seeing that many in his yard at one time. There were even more that cannot be seen in the picture because they are hidden by the curve in the road.

That covers it for this week. The week ahead looks a bit quiet for snow early, but then some chances for snow in many areas by the end of the week and next weekend, so it looks like this good, but not epic winter will continue to do its thing!

Good Night From the Keweenaw..
–JD

 

Before I get into the meat of this shorter entry, I will mention that I have an appointment in Marquette tomorrow, so will not be able to do a forecast tomorrow. My apologies.

The past week seemed to fly by. The girls did not have school last Monday, due to the snow, winds and cold. we never got warmer than 4 above and the winds that gusted to 55 mph created windchills of -25. Not really a non of new snow, but enough that when combined with the winds, created near zero visibility at times. We had off and on snow most of the week, but never really more than a couple of inches ever 24 hours or so. This really has been a weird winter so far. There have been almost no big snow events, rather just creeping along with a few inches here and there. It is starting to become more and more noticeable to everyone up here. The absence of deep snow on the level and gigantic banks on the side of the roads.

The snowmobile and ski trails have been able to hold up pretty well so far. The little bit of fresh that we have been getting every few days is managing to keep most of the snow just fresh enough. It seems like traffic has been down the past week or so. Typically this weekend is one of the busier up here because of Martin Luther King Jr day on Monday, but I was out riding with friends yesterday and then ended up at the Parkview in Twin Lakes for dinner and there was hardly a soul in the place by the time we were finishing up and that was only around 6 pm or so. 

The ride yesterday was good. A bit on the chilly side, especially when it was time to hit the trail to end the day, but the backcountry was not too beat up, just needed more snow to amp up the fun scale while out there. Today Grace and I finally made it to the field by us. She had an absolute blast zipping around the field. We’re the only ones that can get in there to ride, so it had no tracks in it and about a foot of snow on it. She nearly got stuck at first and I was wondering if the lugs on the track were going to be too short for her to get around in the powder with, but it turns out that she was just being cautious at the start and once she found here grove, the sled had no problem getting around. I don’t know who had more fun, her racing across the field, or me watching her! What I do know is that a biler was born today!

I guess that about covers if for this one, the forecast for the week is looking OK, but not as good as it was on Friday. There is still a clipper for Tuesday, but it is now indicted to bring around 2-4″ to the northern 1/4 of MN, all of the UP and far northern WI (around the northern most 2 counties of the state. Another 2-5″ of lake effect in the UP for Wednesday, then pretty quiet until the weekend when another 2-4″ looks to fall in northern MN, far northern WI and most of the UP. No melting to occur in the Northwoods anytime soon.

Until next time…

Good Night from the Keweenaw..

–JD