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Sometimes I wonder…How can someone not like snow?! I get the fact that is has to be cold for it to occur and cold weather is not a lot of fun to a certain amount of our population. However, snow makes everything so beautiful. Not just when it covers everything in a magnificent white frosting, but as it falls from the sky in an icy dance. It quiets the noises of the day and the night, it helps to light your way on a cloudless night and most importantly, it makes the cold FUN!

When we were kids, almost all of us loved the snow. Not just for the chance that school might be cancelled, but for the new canvas it gave us to play on (and in) while outside. If you were like me, you stayed out and played in the snow until you were soaked through on every square inch of your body. Gloves were probably the first to become soaked and by the time you went inside, the outside of them would be frozen solid. Your feet were frozen from the base to the tip of every toe and your cheeks would be as red as an apple and they and your nose would sting when they started warming up once inside.

Somewhere between then and now, many started to feel different. At first snow was something you were just indifferent about, then as time progressed, it became a nuisance. Finally, it became a disliked thing, something that brought sadness or anger, rather than joy and excitement. Perhaps it was the fact that as you grew older, snow also brought some work with it. You shoveling the driveway for your parents and/or your elderly neighbor. Perhaps you were involved in an accident brought on by the slipper nature of snow, or you are worried about an accident happening while on a snowy sidewalk or road.

However, most of these things are just an attitude change that we allowed to happen. If you shoveled your driveway and maybe that of your elderly neighbors, then you probably had to cut those grasses as well (your parents should be commended by the way). Accidents will happen with or without snow. The trick with snow is to just slow things down. You do not have to crawl across the parking lot or across a frozen sidewalk, but just slow your pace by a half or so. Don’t lift your feet so high, so you can catch yourself if you need to, buy a pair of ice cleats for your shoes/boots.  If you get cold easily and are wearing jackets and boots and base layers that are more than 10-15 years old, time to upgrade! Do not wear cotton! Especially in a shirt(s), socks or base layer (the item of clothing nearest your skin. Cotton absorbs moisture and hangs onto it. Even if it does not feel wet, it will be damp enough to speed up the drawing of heat from your body. Synthetics are the way to go in the winter, especially when going outside. 

I guess the point I am rambling on about, is there are ways to turn every reason for your dislike of snow back into a love for it. The cold and snow is not going to change its ways, so you must do the changing to be happy! Unfortunately I have no idea how long it takes or how hard it is, as I have not had to do it, but I have had to turn other things in my life that I saw as a negative into a positive and it took some months, while others were almost right away.

So where did this thought evolve? Well, to be honest, I have always wondered that! I have always loved the snow and loved to play in it, so when I would see others complain about the snow, I always thought: “how sad”. However, as I sat inside and watched the flakes fall all through the day yesterday and coat everything in a layer of white. It hit me again, how can someone not think this is one of the most beautiful sights in the world? The same thing happened when I woke up this morning and looked out to see it still snowing and a fresh 4″ on top of the 2″ that fell yesterday!

I almost, ALMOST fired up the new ride and took it for a spin, but even though I was planning to stay on our own land, I did not want to bother any hunters who still might be trying for their buck these last 3 days of the season. Plus, I was not 100% sure that there was enough snow down to keep me from risking doing any damage to the sled. We’re getting ever close to the sledding season. T-58 hours. So I can wait a bit longer!

The weather has been very early winter-like this past week. The snows of last Sunday gave us about 2-3, but we had some very strong winds Sunday, so getting an exact measurement was hard. The strong winds caused the big boys to take shelter in the lee of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Monday morning saw three taking shelter in Keweenaw Bay and at least 3 up north in Bete Grise Bay. One of the ships in Keweenaw Bay was just off the coast of “downtown” Jacobsville, while the other two were further away. Two of them were 1000 footers and the other was a slightly shorter “salty”.

Tuesday was quiet, but cold, with a high of around 24. A bit of light snow fell Wednesday, just enough to coat the ground and give us a White Thanksgiving (our White Christmas is pretty much a given). Friday was quiet, but cool and then we had the light snows yesterday and again early this morning. I don’t know what the monthly total is for Houghton County, but Keweenaw County looks like it will be a bit behind the 24.5″ average for the November, long term average. 

The forecast is looking good. Not great, we do not have any big storms seen until possibly the first half of next week. However, it does look like we will see a couple of light snow events this week and temps do not look to melt off much of what we have on the ground. So this may be the snow that sticks around for the rest of the season! Speaking of snow and snowmobiling, the Keweenaw Convention and Visitors Bureau had a video done to highlight and advertise snowmobiling in the Keweenaw. This is kind of late news, as the video hit the web about two weeks ago, but I thought I would mention it in this part of my site as many that come here might not view the other avenues it was being talked about since it was released. So even if you are not into snowmobiling, check it out, because it has some beautiful footage in it and you can see my contribution to it as well!

My final item to share is a picture of Grace decorating the Christmas tree. It was a little later in going up this year, but Grace really wanted to be the one that did the setting up of the tree and putting the lights on it and she has a VERY busy schedule with extracurricular activities, so it took some time for her schedule to be free! It was worth it though, it’s nice to sit and watch most of the work being done after doing most of the work for the past 25 years or so! Nora did most of the other decorating and I did help Grace a little, but mostly watched!

Have a great week everyone!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

It’s that time of the year…the point in which time seems to creep by. The first few years I lived here, it moved incredibly slow! These days, it still moves slower than most other times of the year, but not as slowly as it did 20 years ago. Why does it move so slowly? Waiting. I’m waiting for the big snows to arrive. I’m waiting for main firearm season to end so that we can have the freedom to go where we want to walk or explore and last, but certainly no least, I am waiting for snowmobile season to start!

As far as the snowfall goes, we have gotten snows since I last wrote. Lake effect fell on Thursday and again today. Not much piled up on Thursday, about an inch and the verdict is still out on the current event, but so far we have picked up and an inch and a half and are not suppose to get much more than that. Other areas picked up more. I know Calumet picked up around 3″ on Thursday and other areas, both to the west and east of us picked up at least 3″.

I don’t mind the lower totals we get this time of the year, because it is still questionable if it will hang around. However, by the time we get to the second week of December and beyond, then I get envious of the big snow areas of the Keweenaw and wished that we could be in them. I still am happy that we moved, but sure miss the big snows of the high country.

The first week of snowfall forecasts went pretty well. Some challenges with appointments arose, especially with the videos, but even Friday I was not able to do any forecasts. Most of the appointments that caused the issues were either made well before I decided when to start the forecasts, or were spur of the moment and I could not choose the time. In any rate, I am now doing my best to keep my mornings wide open. When the snow gets deeper, all day wide open!

The start up of the forecasts and videos were enough to keep me pretty busy, so I do not have a lot to share with you this go-around. I do want to thank those of you who have donated to the legal fun for Troy and Cathy Westcott set up on Gofundme by a friend of theirs. There is still time to donate and if you do not know what is going on, you can check out my previous entry for Nov 14.

There is one more fund raiser worthy of note. It is for the Keweenaw Snowmobile Club. They have a Gofundme page to raise funds to finish their groomer barn. You may recall I was on the board of directors of the club for at least 15 years and the last 3 of them as it’s president. This fundraising campaign was started many years ago, as the current building they are in is literally falling down. The club has an enormous amount of responsibility. It is unlike no other in the state of MI and perhaps the country. The club is responsible for 233 miles of trail. The average miles of trail groomed each 4 month season is over 25,000! That is more than 10 percent of all the trail miles groomed in the entire state! Despite this incredible work load, they receive no funds from the local tourism council or chamber of commerce. The money they get from the state is no different than the other clubs in the state of MI. Running this club is a full time job, there is plenty of work to be done all year long. To handle that, the club has an office manager that is paid by the club and receives no reimbursement for that. It has to pay its groomer operators because there is no way to groom 25,000 miles in 4 months with volunteers. Trust me. I joined the club to try and change how some things were done and once in, I was educated that this is just too big an operation to be done by volunteers. 

They do get support from some of the local businesses, but not all. It is really sad that some businesses that reap the financial rewards of the snowmobile program do not support it, but that is just the way it is. So the club REALLY DEPENDS on SUPPORT FROM SNOWMOBILERS! I know that there are 10’s of 1000’s of snowmobilers that come here a season. You may think that your trail pass covers the costs needed, but it falls far short, especially for the large trail systems. The system in MI just does not take into consideration of the duties of the different clubs doing the work.

So please head over to the Gofundme page for the club and help them finish their new groomer barn. As you can see on that page, they have a building with a roof on it, but need the walls, insulation, floor, heating, plumbing electrical and doors. It is a commercial building, so it cannot be occupied until it is finished! Even if you donated in the past, it is a new season and time to help out again. If you haven’t yet, now is the perfect chance! Do it, support some very hard workers and a great program!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

 

Forgive me, but I am going to step atop my soapbox for a little bit here. I do promise to step back down before this entry is finished, but there has been something nagging at me all week and I really feel the need to share it with you and help get it off my chest.

Some of you may already know of the latest hot topic to hit the Keweenaw and others not. It involves the Lac La Belle Lodge/Bear Belly Pit Stop and the Black Bear Inc. the parent company of the Mt Bohemia Ski Hill. I must preface things by saying I do not know ALL the facts of what is going on. However, it seems as though the “owner” of the ski area Lonnie Glieberman filed for several trademarks for “Mount Bohemia”. I did a trademark search and found the four applications, two are for his logo and two are for the name Mount Bohemia. All are live trademarks. The lawsuit revolves around the Lac La Belle Lodge selling merchandise with the words Mount Bohemia on them.

For one, I am a bit confused on how the name “Mount Bohemia” can be trademarked, as it is suppose to NOT BE POSSIBLE TO TRADEMARK A GEOLOGIC ENTITY. Type in: “can a mountain be trademarked?” into your favorite search engine and you will see that the answer is no. So someone at the trademark office messed up, but stopped me when I tried to trademark “Keweenaw Kamo”. Go figure.

I am most certainly not a lawyer and know that if enough money is spent, good lawyers can many times find a way around the law. Which brings up the need to help Troy and Cathy Westcot, the owners of the Lac La Belle Lodge/Bear Belly Pitstop, be able to keep up with the extremely deep pockets that Mount Bohemia has. 

The case will be going to court a few days before Christmas, so the time is now to donate to the Go-Fund-Me account that has been setup for helping them with their legal bills. This is the link to the GoFundMe account for the Westcotts. As you can see the account has been cleverly and appropriately named : A David versus Goliath Story. However. I think there is another descriptive phrase that fits and that is the name of this entry. I will preface by saying that the Westcott family are very good friends of the Dee’s. However, they are because of the nature of their character. They are honest, hard working and generous folks, who have give the shirts off their backs for me several times and others many times. They hosted an event at their restaurant/bar which helped raise funds for by SnowFest charity ride-ins that benefitted the Make-A-Wish foundation. Troy is currently the longest seated director for the Keweenaw Snowmobile Club, having been on that board for around 20 years. Nora and I even held our wedding reception at their restaurant and they went way overboard to make sure our special event was perfect and memorable. They are the kind of folks that are always happy to help someone in any way they can. 

My dealings with Lonie Glieberman have been the exact opposite. While involved with the snowmobile club up here, we were constantly being asked by Lonie to either re-route our trails, put up fences, signs or other things to satisfy HIS objectives. While the opportunity was always there to support the club, he never once did. 

OK, I am about to step down from my soapbox, but just want to say that this is a very important cause to support. The Keweenaw has really had enough of Lonie pushing folks around. Mt Bohemia is an awesome ski hill and I would never tell someone to not go there. However, I think folks can send a message to him by supporting the Westcotts regardless of if they ski at Lonie’s resort or not. 

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

The march towards winter continues up here, with the snows of last weekend giving way to quiet weather for early in the week and then more snows this weekend. Nearly all of the snow so far this season has been lake effect and the Keweenaw has, so far, avoided the bulk of the larger accumulations. There have been areas, especially the higher terrain south of Houghton, that have seen more than 3-4″ fall with the episodes, but for the most part, snow accumulations in the Keweenaw from Houghton north have been in the 1-2″ range per event. We picked up 1.5-2″ of snow Friday night into Saturday, while many areas did not see much at all and then last night, we were one of the few places that did not see around 2″ of snow fall. The ground here has been white for almost 48 hours and we have som e snow showers currently falling, but should not amount to much.

The week ahead sees a brief warm up to the mid 40’s for Tue-Wed and then back to freezing to below for daytime highs the rest of the week. Some more snows are possible by the second half of the week. For more details on the forecast, you will have to check back tomorrow. I will be firing up the forecast engines for the season tomorrow and it’s nice to be here in the middle of November and have some snow to forecast for!

Ahead of the snows, we did have a decent November gale occur on Thursday. Winds blew as strong as 66 mph on Isle Royal, 60 mph on Stannard Rock and 53 both at Big Traverse and the Houghton County Airport. The unusual thing about this wind event was that the direction of the winds was out of the ESE. Most of the big blows in November have winds out of the NW. I did get down to White City to check out the wave action Thursday afternoon and was pretty impressed. Some of the bigger waves were able to roll right over the pier there, that is the first time I have seen them that big. Here is a video I shot while there.

The day before, my friend, Tim and I cut down the remaining two trees that were dead-standing between the house and the shop. I had not cut them down because they were a threat to the powerlines and I thought that the tree trimming service that the power company hired to cut such trees were going to do it. I really did not want them standing all by themselves any longer, so we took them down Wednesday. It’s probably a good thing we did, as the strong east winds on Thursday could very well have brought them down right on the shop.

The larger of the two trees and the largest of the group of five that were there had a bit of a lean towards the road and powerlines and that is the main reason why I was really hoping the tree trimmers would come back and do it. I have coaxed other trees that were leaning the wrong way to fall where I wanted them to and with the use of some steel cable and a come-along, I was able to notch and then fell the tree right where I wanted it to go. It also helped that there was no winds Wednesday morning. I did luck out in guessing that it was not tall enough to fall on the old shed in it’s path. Even though the shed is falling down all on it’s own and will be demolished in the next year.

The other job knocked off the list of things to do was the installation of the flooring in the office. It is so very nice to be rid of the concrete and have some nice laminate down and spruced up with an area rug. The final things to do in the office is to finish some trim work and then build a new desk and credenza. However, before the building of the furniture will take place, I want to get the shop in full working order, meaning the central dust collection set up and all the loose items put in their place.

Not much else to talk about this week, but be sure to check in tomorrow to read the first forecast of the season and watch the first video of the season I also hope to record and introductory video. I may have to come out of retirement so that I can get some rest!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

 

 

 

As promised (for the second time), I have resumed the Sunday night writing. I am going to do my best to stick with it. Sunday is a busy skating day for Grace. She has ice time at the MTU rink from 2-3 and then at the rink in Calumet from like 5:45 tp 6:45. Because of the distance to both of them from our house, it does not pay to go to Tech, then come home and then to Calumet. So for whoever is taking her, they are gone from around 1 pm to 7:30 pm. Today Nora took her, but on day’s I take her, I will have to get creative or have lots of energy saved up to write when I get home!

Anyway, things are pretty quiet up here at the moment. All but one snowbird in the Jacobsville area have flown south for the winter. The last one is a very good friend of mine, so I am happy he is still here. Although he will be leaving in around 10 days. The trees are pretty much bare now, with just a few leaves hanging on here and there. After the snows earlier in the week, the weather also quieted down and looks to remain that way through Wednesday. Even the deer we had roaming around the neighborhood have disappeared. I heard that one was harvested in the last week by a bow hunter. I think I even heard it was a 6 point buck, which most likely would have been the deer I posted a picture of in a journal 2-3 weeks ago. 

So at the moment, things are calm and quiet, but nothing stays the same around here for too long. As mentioned, the weather looks to turn on us around Thursday. First rain and then some snow looks possible by around Friday or Saturday. It does not look like a big dumping, but does look like the low will have a fairly deep central pressure, which would make for some strong winds up here. A few inches of snow may fall into the weekend, to whiten the ground for the hunters taking to the woods on the 15th. It then looks to stay fairly cool for most of next week as well, so hunters will not have to rush their kill to the processor right away either.

The snows of earlier this week did not take anyone by surprise up here, but I know quite a few that were not 100% ready for winter to kick in for good either, so the warm up the end of this week was good. I suppose no one is 100% done with things before winter arrives for good either, but most have the really important things done. I can be counted among those. I still have some things to do, but nothing major and nothing that cannot be done with a few inches of snow on the ground and sub-freezing daytime highs. There are a few more logs I would like to cut for firewood, but our fires are ornamental and not needed for heat. I also still need to put the blower on the front of Big Red, but that is usually done inside where I keep Big Red and that is heated. 

Speaking of Big Red and logs, she and I were very busy for much of the day today. My friend Tim, as well as two seniors from Tech all helped me cut down 8 trees and then haul the branches and trunks to a burn pile on Tim’s property. They were all softwoods, so could not be used for inside firewood. They were all along side the road and were cut because the power company sub contracts out a tree trimming service to keep the powerlines free from trees and limbs that could knock out the power. It does not guarantee that the lines will not be taken down by a falling tree or limb, as they only take the limbs that are above the lines and any trees that are dead and could fall on the lines. So living trees that could fall on the lines are left. in our case, they just “topped” the trees. Cutting just the tops of them that were near the lines. I don’t know who planted the trees, but it was not a good idea to plant them directly under the lines in the first place!

The trees were pretty ugly and many of them were struggling health wise due to the way that they were cut, so Nora and I decided to just cut them down completely. We still have some pines and some hardwoods in our front yard and they will likely be healthier as they will not have to compete for water and sunlight. I was kind of disappointed to have to cut down one of the pines though, as it was an extremely rare variety. It was a coniferous gluteous maximus, otherwise known as a Kardashian Pine. Everyone in our house just called it the “Butt Tree”. We actually only cut it down to the top of the burl and plan to turn it into a planter. It will likely rot in a few years, but before it does, it will remain a conversation piece!

I think I mentioned in my previous entry how I had picked up a grapple attachment for Big Red, but I know I did not have a picture of it, so here it is in action earlier today. It’s hard to explain just how handy it came in today, moving all of the trunks and some of the limbs to the brush pile! Tim and one of the boys from Tech used his work truck to move the rest of the limbs to the brush pile. I did get low on fuel, so was not able to move all of the trunks over to the burn pile, but will be going to town tomorrow morning to pick up 10 gallons of diesel to finish moving the trunks. 

The only other outdoor task I have to do is to hook up the new Woods cam. It did arrive, but with the weather poor earlier in the week and then other things taking precedence later in the week, I did not hook it up yet. It should be pretty simple and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon it will be up and running. I can then finally return my focus to the office and shop. Finishing off the office and getting the shop is good enough shape to be able to fully use it.

I guess that covers it for this one. Perhaps when I write again next week, I will have some more snow photos for you to see!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD