First for Everything

Happy Mothers Day to all the moms! I hope you all are having a great day and being spoiled by your husband and kid(s). I feel like I have not really done too much special for Nora and still need to give my own Mom a call. I guess the reality is that Nora did get cards from Grace and I and we also went out for dinner, although I was not allowed to pay, the tab was picked up by our wonderful dinner guests.

It was a pretty nice day weather wise. We have been treated to a mix of sun and clouds and I also see that we are warmer than most of southern WI, lower MI and even northern IL, with temps around 60. Yesterday was also a pretty nice day, with the same kind of cloud cover and highs in the low 60’s.

The first few days of this week look to repeat that very same weather and Tuesday some folks around these parts might even see their first 70 degree temps of the season! It’s safe to say that we have turned the corner on the cold and unusually snowy pattern we have been in for the past 6 weeks. Sure we might still see some chilly weather for a brief period, but it looks like overall, our temps will be fairly mild through May 22nd and also free from any wintry precip!

Just about all of the naturally accumulated snow has melted from our yard, although there are still a few stubborn patches here and there and around 2-3 feet where it got moved off the driveway or slid off the roofs. Which brings me to my next topic.

The first winter I lived up here, I saw something that I had never seen before in my life. Actually, it was as the winter was ending and the snow melting. I saw folks that had spent all winter shoveling snow off their driveways and walkways shoveling it back into their driveways, walkways and yards!

I understood why, but have to admit I thought the process was a little nuts! After all, the extra shoveling they were doing was only speeding up the process of complete snow melting by a few days. Perhaps a week at the very most. It sure seemed to be a lot of work to get rid of something that was not really in the way and was going to be gone in a few days anyway.

With each passing season, I grew more accepting of the process, but still could not bring myself to even thinking of doing it myself. That is until the past few days. I have been looking out our front windows at the same darn pile of snow for over 6 months! The snow this time of the year is never pretty. It has all kinds of other things on it, including what the dogs have left behind over the course of the winter.

So I actually started to entertain the idea of firing up Big Red and using the blower one last time to eat into the pile and spread it into the woods where it would melt in a day or so. This afternoon, after our wonderful dinner, we returned home to sunshine and a 60 degree temperature and I did it! I hopped in Big Red, turned the key, fired her up and before engaging the mid-PTO to get the blower spinning, let Grace hop into the cab and join me.

I did not feel like I was breaking some snow-lovers sworn allegiance to protect the last remaining snow at all costs and actually rationalized it by knowing I was really not doing much physical work at all. Big Red was doing all the heavy lifting. I was just sitting in the seat and driving it back and forth to blow the snow into the woods.

It only took a few minutes and we were nearly done with what could be moved when the chute became clogged with all the wet and heavy snow. That has happened a number of times to me when I was clearing snow during the season and it is not the most fun to unclog. Since we were nearly done and I knew that the chute would clear itself in the sun and well above freezing temps the rest of the day, we called it quits.

I don’t have any strong idea of how long it will take the snow to all melt given it’s new arrangement, but it is safe to say I did not speed things up by probably more than 5-6 days. None the less, after 20 years, I finally moved snow that had been move already and was just going to melt anyway. Perhaps another step towards being a genuine Yooper!

Speaking of natural snow still sticking around. I did drive by the Laurium Glacier on Wednesday and snapped a shot of it. Needless to say it still has quite a bit to go before it is gone. It should make it very deep into May and perhaps even June, all depending on the daytime/nighttime temps and amount of sun during the day. I had officially forgotten to close out the contest on the discussion board, but did so earlier today and the last guess prior to that was back in early April. So safe to say the contest did not give any unfair advantage to anyone.

I suppose that does it for this week. Spring has certainly sprung in the Keweenaw and it’s about time!

Good night from the Keweenaw..
JD