Friday, April 11, 2008

Winter's Last Blast?

It's not that we weren't expecting this blizzard, if a person listened to any weather report...
The winds from the northeast started yesterday morning and gusts (up to 30 mph) were soon buffeting the landscape and shaking any object that was vertical. Muir's canoe, which has wintered this year under an apple tree, was blown by the wind 20 feet to the bumper of our old GMC truck. Last night the snow and sleet started in and continued all day today and is still happening.as of this night.
The migrating juncos and red polls and robins are having a difficult time finding food. I threw down some sunflower seeds as well as filled the feeders and all day there were birds mobbing the area, in spite of the wind. Even some starlings at the suet.
Muir took off into the teeth of the storm , heading to Marquette for classwork that he had to do at the hospital there. He took his old 4 WD Toyota truck. He's staying at Fillmore's house for the 2 day trip.

At least for at least a little while I'll be skiing. Lynn is happily working as manager of the floral dept. at Econo Foods which is a relatively short drive from here, pays well and she really enjoys the work.

April 12---- Still mist snowing and gray mono chrome skies and world. No big wind gusts. Great for skiing!


Thursday, April 03, 2008

Ski Mornings


Morning is the prime time around here because of the freeze that occurs at night. If you linger abed or don't allow time before your day job, you will inevitably lose the frozen snow to the warmth of the day.
For myself, after I get back from a guiding journey, I need a number of days to recover from both trip and travel. As I've gotten older the time needed for recovery hasn't decreased. So it took me a few days after arriving back home from the Arrowhead of MN to get back into a healthy exercise regimen.
Good exercise at this season means skiing; either early morning Keweenaw crust through the bush, or the very controlled exercise of skate skiing at the world class, groomed MTU trails that are less than a mile from my house.
Today is supposed to go to 40 degrees Fahrenheit, so with the sun beating down, one must get in a ski while the temperatures keep the snow hard. So, for a few mornings now I've got in my ski by at least mid-morning. The MTU trails are freshly groomed and appealing in their wide lanes through the mixed hardwood and conifer forest. The trails wend through hills and forest, pass within sight, at this leafless season, of roads and a few buildings. I park at the Pilgrim Rd. lot, which is close to my house and usually nearly vacant, but the main lot is always with cars and local skiers coming and going. Though I am a solitary skier by temperament, I do enjoy seeing a few skiers on the trails who are invariably happy to be out. On the occasion that I see someone who I know, it is nice to stop our sliding and talk for a minute or two.
As the morning rolls on I begin to notice areas of the trail that have direct sunlight becoming slushy and slow - a sign that signals the time to head home for chores and correspondence.
Some of my thoughts as the ski season wanes begin to turn to the waterways that are beginning to open and show signs of the migrating spring weather, though as Dan at Downwind Sports said the other day, "Some are saying that this year we may be out skiing on the trails into May."
I don't think there is better exercise for my back than skiing every day. I'll reluctantly give it up soon as the trails and ground turns bare.


A typically wide piece of trail at MTU. The university invested into what were simple and unimproved narrow woods trails to turn them over the last 5 years into a world-class Nordic ski facility.


A freshly groomed trail for skate skiing on. My skis were the first to be on this trail the other morning. Like skiing in a park, which I guess the trail system is. Jeff Parker and an old acquaintance from Eagle, Alaska, Jim Meese, do the grooming of the trails.

At the trail head parking lot on the MTU Campus. The waxing room and other team rooms are to the right. The skiers, and later, mountain bikers enter the trail system from here.

A chery wood paddle blank that I cut out recently is being planed thin on our back deck. I cut out an ash blank as well, both of which I hope will see use later this spring on the water.
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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

April 1, 2008 After the Spring Snowstorm

STEPPING OFF THE TRAIL

Lynn coming back from the first clothes line hanging of laundry for the new year. Though the snow in the morning has the frozen boiler plate "Keweenaw Crust" that makes such good go-anywhere skiing, when it is thawing out the settled snow-slush will give way, sometimes even on the compacted trail.

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April 1, 2008 Snowstorm

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April Fools Day in the Keweenaw, after a spring snowstorm. The Upper Peninsula below us got the bulk of the snow. We got just 4 inches of wet, heavy fluff and a lot of wind to blow it around.
The picture above shows not just the paltry 4 inches of new snow, but also the last half of this winter's compacted-to-ice snow that has been slipping off the garage roof the last few days, and will lay in ice slabbed glory, to melt where it falls. The temperature today was a sunny 34 degrees with a prediction of 40 for tomorrow.


On the late afternoon of the last day of March (yesterday), as meteorologists predicted, the snow started to fall fast, adding to the thick, compacted snow that has been slowly, intermittently melting.
This is a winter that I feel relief experiencing - the first old-fashioned or "regular" winter in a decade - a winter that has held off from having regular thaws and instead has been cold and with ample snow that came early and is leaving late. Since my childhood I have felt a regular disappointment that our climate was warming when compared to what grandparents, parents and elders told me about their winters at the beginning of the 20th century. Now, with the irrefutable evidence of climate change shown in the news and in our environment, having a winter with regular cold and snow (both of which were lacking in the subarctic Alaskan interior for much of this winter) was a real relief. To the wimpy malcontents that I've listened to in the Keweenaw and Ely, MN regions, whining about the winter, " Please go south to the doldrums of heat and humidity. If you don't like winter, don't live here!"

Last night the wind started to blow gusts of 39 mph when I went to bed. Before I got into bed I remembered that I had left the extension ladder up against the chimney so moved it off the chimney before the wind blew it off.
In the morning the wind had diminished and the gray, stormy skies began to show sun by late morning. Lynn and I decided to bring the dogs and go skiing on the MTU trails up the road. Our no wax skis needed glide wax to keep the skis from slowing to a stop with clumping snow. The trail we followed was freshly groomed and it was a leisurely time for us as well as the dogs.

I cut out 2 canoe paddle blanks yesterday - one a cherry wood, the other an ash. I really like the deck for working on them during the spring, with its south facing orientation and its view of bird feeders, field fringed by woods and little creek valley. Lynn shoveled it this afternoon and it looks like it is ready for paddle carving and relaxing again.