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If I had to guess, one of the least favorite things for most folks to deal with while on the phone is to be on hold. For one, you never how long it will be before you are taken off. Secondly, if you are holding like that, it is likely for an important reason, otherwise you would just hand up and try again. Lastly, while you are on hold, you cannot really do all that much. Sure with the phones of this age you can put the call on speaker and do some paper work, or other office type work, but you cannot leave the phone and go off and visit with friends, or head to the store or for a walk. You are pretty much chained to the phone and any documents involving the call.

I’d say having to wait for the snow to arrive in earnest this season is like being on hold. We do not know exactly when it will come, but know that it eventually will. That is a guarantee up here. The snow may not be as important as a call you are on hold for, but the desire to have both taken care of is likely equal in proportion. Also, without the snow, there are many things you want to do, but can’t. Sure you can go for walks, or do some other outside activities, but you have been able to do them since spring and are anxious to mix it up and add snowplay to your list of available activities. Also, the lack of snow is impacting businesses owned by my friends and that is disheartening to me. I realize that the weeks leading up to Christmas are typically not too busy, but any income to those businesses would be a nice shot in the arm, especially since the past 4-6 weeks have been very quiet.

Ever since moving up here, snow has been an important factor in getting me into the Christmas mood. Just last night Nora and I were cuddling on the couch, looking out the window and remarked on how it just did not seem like in two weeks, Christmas would be over! We still have bare ground! How can the two even exist at the same time!

With all that said, I am by no means depressed that the snow has not come yet. I feel as blessed as ever to live where I do. I know that a lot of snow will be falling between now and spring. More than anywhere else outside of the lake effect belts have seen in a season EVER. Those that are not as fortunate as I am to have the ease of clearing the snow have not had to struggle with that task either. The driving around has also been quiet easy, with the roads clear of any snow or ice. So there are some silver linings.

This past Friday, we experienced another silver lining. Friends of ours invited us to a bonfire Friday evening and as we sat and stood around the fire in the 30 degree air, looking out over the south end of the Keweenaw waterway and having joyful conversations with good friends, all I could think of was that this is something that is not likely to happen under those conditions at that time of the year very often or perhaps even ever again.

Other than the lack of snow, there really is not much to talk about. It was a quiet week as far as activities go. Nora and I have been moving towards the conclusion of our Christmas shopping. This Friday I will be driving down with my brother to pick up the last two items from the house of my brother who passed in July. Then we will head to my mom’s house to spend the night and then we will be bringing her up to the Keweenaw with us to be with us for Christmas. This will be the first time in over 60 years that she will not be in her own home for Christmas, but only one of her 3 children were able to make it down there and with the covid still going on, the Christmas gathering with my aunts and uncles and their children and grandchildren is not happening, so she would have been all alone for Christmas. Not gonna happen.

So we are all looking forward to having her up here for Christmas and wish the rest of my immediate family could have come as well, but they are not able to get away to the great white north.

The week’s weather was also very quiet. Of course it did not snow, but it also did not rain and each day was very similar to each other. The stand out was Wednesday, when we had sunshine all day and warmed into the low 40’s. I got a little bit of outside work done, but most of the work I need to get done is inside. It does look like we should get enough snow tonight and tomorrow to whiten the ground down here and add to the snow that is on the ground in the high country north and south of Houghton/Hancock. Not likely enough to play in, but it will be nice to be white down here and fresh white elsewhere!

So I guess that about covers it for this one. Hopefully the next time I write we will have picked up some snow and perhaps be looking at a nice big snow cycle to kick in! 

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

It seems like weeks since the Keweenaw picked up any new snow, but the reality is it has been less than a week. Just as misleading is the fact that the ground has been mostly bare down here for 2-3 weeks, but that is not the same for the higher terrain both north and south of the Houghton/Hancock megalopolis. Those areas have anywhere from 2-5″ on the ground and have had that much for at least 2 weeks.

None the less, the growing talk of the town up here has been where is winter/ or where is the snow? Snow is about as regular from December 1st through early April up here as the sun rising. It does not matter if one loves snow or is not too fond of it, when it has not come in significant portions through the first week of December, it is a pretty big deal. Those that love it are anxious for it to arrive and those that are not a fan of the snow are wondering how badly we will pay for this later on.

I don’t have the answer to how badly we will pay for it, but there will most certainly be some reciprocity going forward. How can I be confident? Well, lets say that we will not get much snow for at least the first half of this week. That puts us at December 10, one third of the month without much snow for the season to date. Our area averages around 250″ per season. The least is 130″. So it is safe to say that we should anticipate somewhere between 130-250″ of snow by the time it all ends. That’s a fair amount of snow to cram into around 3 1/2 months. 

So I am not concerned at all. Anxious, YOU BET, but not worried. I also personally like to have more snow fall from the second half of December through the first half of March than to have most of it fall in November or December. I do think it is safe to say we are not going to have a record season for snowfall, but average to even above average are still easily in reach.

As far as activities up here go, it is pretty quiet. Typically this is the time of the year where, if we have enough snow, there would be snowmobilers and some skiers traveling here to play in it, but the real influx starts right after Christmas and continues through mid-February. Without covid there would be Christmas events going on, like lighting of trees, or sleigh/wagon rides with Santa, school events or even parties to attend. Those have obviously been canceled for this year.

So it is quiet. That might be a factor as to why the talk of the lack of snow is getting so popular. Folks are not spending minutes or even hours moving snow around. That and the covid restrictions gives them more time to pay attention to other things in this pre-Christmas period. 

We also had a pretty quiet week at the Dee household. Grace went back to school on Monday after their 2 1/2 week online schooling. Even when the kids were not in school, Nora had to go in, but Bleau stayed home. So this week Huck and I got back to the quiet “bachelor” mode. The week went well and the region is not getting any worse with it’s covid cases, so they will be in school again this week and perhaps the entire period until Christmas break. 

With no snow on the ground, there have not been too many interesting things to take pictures of. I was in the woods for a brief period today and snapped this shot of a mostly bare Dreamland snowmobile trail. Directly behind the Dreamland Bar, the trail crosses a small bridge where there is a small pond on one side and a slowly flowing creek on the other. I noticed some cool ice formations on the stream side, so I snapped a shot of them.

I guessing that many of you jumped here this evening hoping I would give a sneak preview of the forecast. Well, I cannot let you good folks down. I am not going to get into the exact details, but there is hope for some areas of the Northwoods to get some meaningful snows by later this week. A low looks to form in the southern Plains Thursday and then head into the Midwest for Friday. Rains will fall in many areas, but it looks like at least the northern 1/3rd to 1/2 of MN, far northern WI and the western 1/2 of the UP could see snows fall. All of this is still too far to have a load of confidence, but I do like what I see in the next 10 days across the US, as far as getting us into a more wintry patter.

So let you head hit the pillow tonight with visions of cruising down a snowy and cold trail through the Northwoods.

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

This is Grace. Yes, I’M BACK! I suppose my break’s over. I’ll give my dad a break today.

Monday: On Monday, we pretty much had a normal day. Except for the part that I had school at home. The strangest part of the day was when Bleau and I were playing after I finished school.

Tuesday: On Tuesday I went to school with Mom. I went with her because I was supposed to have a appointment at 2:30, but it got canceled so I just went home when Mom and I were done. 

Wednesday: School was a little tricky on Wednesday, since the site I use for it was being a little finicky. I still managed to get everything done, though. 

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving! On Thursday ( # Turkey Day ) my uncle came over for dinner. We went and played the new racing game that my dad has in the shop after dinner. Then, we came back over for dessert. After he left, I took out my robot and played with it for a little while. Bleau was terrified. 

Friday: On Friday, my parents and I went to a bonfire at our friend/neighbor’s house. Flora and I played for a little while, then we went home. When we were at home, I took out my robot again.

Saturday: I cleaned my room on Saturday. It really needed it. Anyway, the Chickadees were going crazy at the feeder outside the shop, and I went over there. I put some feed in my hand, and some Chickadees actually came and ate out of my hand! IT WAS SO COOL!

Sunday: Today Flora came over to my house and we played for about an hour. When we finished, I had lunch, then came over here. Now, I’m sitting at Dad’s computer, writing this journal.

Other cool stuff: Lately, we have been having a young buck show up on the webcam. Other than that, nothing really cool has been happening.

Well, that pretty much sums up the week, have a good one!

–Grace

Jacobsville is mostly a summer community. There are a few that live here year round, but the vast majority of residences up here are not set up for cold weather living. The date at which folks head somewhere else for the winter varies. Of course with the virus, this season has been different than others. Some folks arrived early, while others later than usual. Same thing with departing. Some left early, while others hung on. I believe we are now at our typical winter population. Not everybody announces when they are leaving for the winter, but there is an easy to tell if they have left for good and are not just out of town for a few days. The mailboxes disappear. They are not stolen, but taken in. Even though Jake is one of the banana belts of the Keweenaw, we still get enough snow that when the plows run, you stand a chance of the mailbox becoming a victim of the wave of snow off the plow’s blade. The full timers have their mailboxes rigged in a way that they will withstand the snowplowing. Plus, the plow drivers are nice enough to slow down and create a less destructive surge of snow when going by the year round residences. We have only lived here a year, but do know which folks live here through the winter and I believe the final two mailboxes disappeared this past week.

So Jake is now in full winter mode. Quiet as it gets, except for the occasional gun shot. Deer season is in full swing and one of our neighbors harvested an 8 point buck on Monday. It was a big buck with a smallish rack for having 4 points on each side. I had told he and his son that if they were able to get something, I would come over with the tractor to lift it up and carry it out of the woods to where they were going to gut it. I got the text Monday morning, so I fired up Big Red, only to find out that the right front tire was flat again. It went flat a few weeks ago and I took it to one of the tire shops to get it fixed, but it looks like the hole was not fully plugged. I still went out there and we loaded the buck into the back of my truck and hauled it out of the woods. He and his wife were two of the final “snowbirds” to leave, just doing so yesterday.

Not much else happened this week. We did get new windows put into the house and I continued to chip away at things in the shop. We are still waiting for winter to show up. It was a very quiet week. Not warm, but little to no rain or snow fell. The Keweenaw got snow last Sunday and we saw flakes, but did not get any accumulation. The higher terrain picked up anywhere from 1-3″ with the snows. The cool temps and low November sun angle kept most of the snows from melting for most of the week. 

On Thursday I had to take a trip into Houghton/Hancock and as I approached the twin cities, I could see that there was still snow up in the higher elevations there, but down at “canal level”, the ground was bare. The most dramatic view of this was at Mt Ripley, the ski hill owned by MI Tech. It was pretty cool to see, it reminded me of the Rocky Mountains in the autumn, where the mountain peaks are all covered in snow and the valleys are bare. I went past the hill yesterday and all the natural snow was gone, but they began to make snow and there are large patches on the hill where the snow guns have covered things in white. 

On my drive home Thursday, I decided to take the long way and go on the upper highway to Calumet and then drop down through Lake Linden and onto Jake. As I drove down the upper highway between Hancock and Calumet, the scene out my windows was one that was more winter looking than autumn, with snow covering everything and even some snow in the ditch from the plows. 15 minutes later I was headed down Jacobsville Road and the view outside my windows there was most definitely autumn. It was like being in two seasons in 20 minutes.

So I bet many of you are wondering if I see winter arriving for the Keweenaw anytime soon. Well, the answer is not this week, but there are ideas that by late next weekend and/or early next week, we could get some lake effect snows and areas of WI could see some system snow. Not a major snow event, but perhaps enough lake effect to make for some early snow play. All of that is a long way off and confidence is not real high yet, but it would be nice to see the snow start to pile up around here. 

My only other topic I want to share involves helping out one of the local volunteer fire departments. The Ahmeek fire department has been chosen as one of the recipients of the “Giving Tuesday” that the Portage Health Foundation does the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. The Portage Health Foundation is a non-profit organization that raises money to help out varies causes in the Keweenaw and surrounding communities. The way the Giving Tuesday works is they will match donations made to the organizations that were chosen for that year. Here is a pdf file that explains more about how it works, but what is important for many of you to know is that they will be the guys and gals that show up in the middle of the woods at any time of the day/night to rescue you and transport you out of the woods should you experience some kind of misfortune on the trails in Keweenaw. So the butt you save with your donation might be your own!

I guess that about covers it for this week. Hard to believe that Thanksgiving is just 4 days away and the next time I write we will be T-2 days away from the snowmobile season opener. Do you Heikki Lunta snow dance everyone!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

For many of you reading, this is just an ordinary day. A Sunday. Perhaps you slept in, had a relaxing morning and are getting ready to meet up with friends or family or to just stay home and watch a game. Or perhaps you got up early went to church and then spent the rest of the day relaxing. Or perhaps you did something completely different, but otherwise unremarkable. It is also likely that the lead up to this day was rather unremarkable. I can admit that this day and the days or even weeks leading up to it were rather unremarkable for me as well. Not so for many other up here.

Today is the opening day for hunting deer with a firearm in MI. That probably does not sound too remarkable to a percentage of you reading this, but for a large percentage of the population up here, today is the first holiday of the cold season. After this the UP is in line with the rest of the country. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

This year, November 15th falls on a Sunday, so the impact is not as noticeable as if it were during a week day, especially a Thursday or Friday. In those years, the hunters will take time off for the hunt, leaving some businesses short handed or even closed. It is not frowned upon, in most cases it is fully expected. Just as taking the day off on the other holidays would be expected. My first few years living here, I was gradually baptized into the ways of opening day. The first year was mostly just the talk of things to do in advance of the hunt. Then the second year, I had made friends with many guys and some gals that were part of the hunt. By the third year, I spent some time at deer camp.

I have never hunted, nor do I have any ambition to. I would rather just take in the woods and enjoy the life that makes it what it is. However, I am in no way, shape or form opposed to the hunt. I fully respect it and those that are part of it. The hunt puts food on tables up here. The hunt brings families and/or friends together. The hunt allows people to get into the woods and spend hours, days or even weeks in the woods. Far enough away from the rest of the world that they can forget about all of it’s ills. I think in a way, I am envious of those that partake in the hunt, even though I could be part of it anytime I chose to.

The weather this year is not nice for hunting. It has been raining all day since sunrise. The rains have changed snow in most areas and are even accumulating in the higher terrain. The snow is better than the rains, but is a wet snow, so still makes it rather miserable to be out in a blind and even more miserable to be up in a tree stand. The rest of the week looks to be dry and that will allow for a much more enjoyable experience.

While I do not hunt, I still spend enough time in the woods to know what is happening with the local critters in the woods. Earlier this past week, I moved our game cam to a different location. The old one did not have good cellular reception and the camera I have is one that will upload the images to the cloud so I can see them without having to walk out to the cam and retrieve the memory card. The new spot has good enough reception that we have been receiving pictures every day. Huck went into the woods with me for the move and one of the first shots the camera took was of him eating some of the carrots I put out to lure in the critters.

The spot I moved it to could also be good for some other critter activity other than deer. Around 2 dozen feet away from the cam are the bones from a deer that died last winter. I do not know the cause of death, it could have been natural or predator. I am thinking the latter more than the former. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what the camera captures once winter fully sets in and Jacobsville becomes very busy with deer and other animals trying to escape the deep snows of the rest of the Keweenaw.

It did not take long for the deer to find the carrots I put out in front of the camera. What is a little surprising is that we are getting more activity during the daylight hours than at night right now. I guess that is really not too surprising for the does and it has not captured a buck yet. That might be a night time capture.

The carrots did not last too long, so I asked Grace and her friend Flora if they would haul the rest of the bag of corn out to the camera location and dump it there. It was right around 2 gallons of kernels, so not too much of a task for them. It is so cool to see her interact with Flora. The two of them are like two peas in a pod and both love the outdoors more than anything!

This past week we had a few days when the winds were blowing pretty good out of the south. When the waves are big, we can hear them crashing against the Jacobsville Cliffs. One day this week, Nora and I took a drive to White City Beach to take in the wave action and were blessed with this view. The things that spur me to feel so blessed in living where we do just never seem to stop!

That juuuuuust about covers it for this one. Other than to say my level of excitement to see the snows of winter arrive is climbing every day and will soon be at a crescendo. So far we have had rain and snow with the current storm and not a lot of activity is seen for the rest of the week, but I know it will be coming sooner rather than later. Another of the perks of living where we do!

I can also add that I had planned to start the snowfall forecasts tomorrow and then when it looked like it would be a rather uneventful week as far as snow goes in the Midwest, I decided to wait until there was something to forecast for. However, things can and almost always do with a forecast, so I have gone back to the idea of starting up the snowfall forecasts tomorrow. It’s actually something I am looking forward to doing again, for that is my favorite thing to forecast for! I may also have a surprise announcement this week! So be sure to check in!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD