Greetings and happy October everyone! This month is a month of pretty big changes. Not only to the colors of the leaves change, but then the come down and the woods go from fully filled with life to looking like all is dead in just a matter of a week or so. For me, it is those weeks between the color show and the snows piling up that are some of the slowest to past. I think that is why in many years, I am so busy with projects at that time of the year. It helps to pass the time!
This year, I have plenty to keep my busy, but thankfully all but a few of the projects are not “have-to”, but rather “want-to”. Even the have-to’s are not that big a deal. Things like mounting the blower to the tractor, put up the snow sticks to let me know where the edge of the driveway is and make a little firewood. All of the rest of my projects are indoors.
The past weeks weather was more like late October than late September. Lots of lake effect precipitation, mostly rain, but there was some snow that fell Thursday night and Friday morning. Most areas only saw some wet flakes, although there was some minor accumulation in the Toivola and Donken areas. I had to travel to Wausau Thursday and that is the exact spot the rains changed to very wet snowflakes. It then changed back to rain as I got to Painesdale. All we got here in Jacobsville was some sleet, even today a bit of sleet fell.
So the first winter weather of the season has happened in the Keweenaw and as mentioned it has been a while since we saw blue skies and/or the sun. Because of the cloudy skies, I did not take too many pictures. I was planning on a nice long tour of the Keweenaw to get some color shots, but they are just so muted with the overcast skies. There are some areas that are past peak, others that are at peak and others that will be at peak. The immediate Houghton/Hancock area, as well as down by us will be at peak in a few days. South of Houghton, they are past peak and areas like Calumet, Mohawk and many areas of the Keweenaw away from the lake are at or just a bit past peak.
We have had a few peaks of sun this afternoon, so Nora and I did take a quick little ride to enjoy the colors and take a few shots for you all. We really are so luck to live in such a beautiful spot of the country. For the most part, I think everyone in our family does not take if for granted, but there are moments when life is crazy busy where I think we might not fully appreciate how lucky we are. The drive home is always appreciated by all of us though. It’s hard not to feel blessed traveling down the Jacobsville Road at any time of the year, but especially during the color show or during a nice snowfall.
When we lived at the old place just outside of Mohawk, we could just look out the windows to see the color show in full fashion. We do have some colors to look at out our windows here, but there are just not as many trees immediately around the house and about half are conifers. However, we do have some trade off’s. We are a short walk to several beaches on the big lake and from sights like this.
Not much else going on up this way. I suppose there are some snowbirds packing up and getting ready to head south for the cold season. This weekend was probably the final big weekend for visitors to the area for the color show and next weekend will probably be the final week. Then things get pretty quiet up here until opening day for firearm deer season. After December 1st, the snowmobilers will be showing up, assuming we have enough snow. It’s been a very busy summer for the businesses that cater to visitors up here, so I am sure that they will be enjoying the breather.
The weather looks to warm up and dry out for the the next week or so. After this week, that will be welcomed my me and probably a lot of others up here. It was not like we got a lot of rain from the amount status, but for the number of minutes with rain in them it was a lot. I will be releasing my seasonal outlook on October 15th. No early hints though!
Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD
