Easy Winter, So Far

I haven't posted one of these NOAA Lake Michigan temperature maps this year. I haven't needed to. In a normal December, we are huddled under a couple of week's worth of dark clouds dumping foot after foot of lake effect snow. I monitor Lake Michigan surface temperatures, waiting for the day that the big lake gets cold enough to stop adding its moisture to the cold west winds and the lake effect machine shuts down.

The lake is still warm, over 40 degrees, but the winds didn't blow that way this year. After a few days of melt around Christmas, the wind started blowing from the north, from the east, from the northeast, making for cold and wind but no reason to run the snowblower. The rest of the country is seeing low temps and snow, but we are taking a break and even expecting a thaw next week.

Leland Harbor Renovation- Installing the Fuel Tanks

Folks returning to Leland this spring will see some big changes. The old Courthouse has been torn down, and there are plans for new housing in it's place. The Leland Library is undergoing a complete interior renovation and should be looking nice and new by mid-May. but the real nail biter has been the long-planned Harbor Renovation. It has been a challenging project, requiring cooperation between Leland Township, Michigan DNR, Michigan DEQ, Michigan Office of Budget Management, the US Army Corps of Engineers, Leelanau County Road Commission, Leelanau County Construction Code Office, and, no doubt, some other agencies that I've forgotten.

Today it was a pleasure to see a big part of the project successfully put into place. The fuel tank in the pictures and video will hold both diesel fuel and gasoline, providing boaters with the only fuel stop between Frankfort and Northport. Behind it, rather lost in the mayhem, you see our pretty little playground. I was happy to see the fuel tank nestled deep into the ground. When the area is back filled and sodded, it will be a nice venue for "king of the Mountain."

It was a warm spring day, with beautiful blue water framing Whaleback. The construction guys are hoping for more weather like this to make up for the time they lost fighting blizzard conditions early in the project.

P.S. As I left the site, I saw an eagle soaring above, too high for a photo, its white head gleaming in the sun.

Produce Under Snow

The garden at 8 pm -- not yet dark but certainly dusk.

We had yet another snowstorm early Sunday, with a fresh new 6 inches of wet snow. The sun is high these days, as high as it is at the end of August, but it never seems to burn down to the bare ground of the garden. under that snow there are parsnips and carrots overwintered, arugula, parsley and French sorrel ready to poke through, and a big crop of rhubarb gathering up all the snow melt moisture. I have already been cutting chives, thyme, and oregano from the bed up by the house, but that got covered again on Sunday.

The warmest bed, down by Richard's shop, had lettuce and arugula already sprouting from seeds that fell off the bolted plants last fall. I'm trying to figure a way to start parsnips inside (in toilet paper tubes?) since they grow so slowly that they tend to get lost in the weeds. Spring harvested parsnips are a sweet and tasty treat, even if they didn't come in early spring when we are craving garden produce.

We are still eating canned tomatoes, dried tomatoes and peppers, apples held in the basement, dried apricots, pickles from the gallon jar in the fridge, frozen blueberries, cherries, and pesto, and garlic from the basement. I'm ready to plant peas as soon as I can find some bare ground. The chickens are really thinking spring -- they're laying at full tilt and I'm hoping it warms up enough to put a broody hen on some eggs.

Riverberg

They got out the chainsaws and the beer last Sunday and cut a "partyberg" out of the ice of Lake Leelanau. The big berg got hung up somehow and wouldn't float down the river, so the chainsaws came out again and pretty soon there were two partybergs. Liz took this picture near the end of the ride. She saw one guy jump completely into the river to "save the beer". Soon after this the dog in the picture bailed out and swam for shore.

Ice Castles

The beach at Reynolds Street in Leland.

I spent most of the day driving down to Kalamazoo to pick Liz up from the train station. I was irritated to find that snow had fallen again, glazing the pavement from Bingham to Cadillac, allowing me to drive about 45 mph at most. Her train was early and I was a few minutes late, but we met and enjoyed conversation the whole ride home.

Living in the snow, I tend to think about how to best get from here to there. Coming from Chicago, Liz wanted to see what the beach looked like. We gathered up Anna and headed off to Leland to find ice stretched almost to the islands. Anna wanted to climb the ice foothills, but we know that those lumps are often hollow and if you fall through you will be in a ice cave filled with icy water and the roof far above you.

This winter has dragged on and on, but these late winter scenes are more and more extravagant. The landscape is transformed daily, if not hourly. It's nice to have Liz here for a few days to drag me out to see it all.

Snow Totals

Our four foot chain link fence with our 4+ accumulation of snow.

The weather varies wildly, up to 46 today and down to the teens tomorrow with 50 mph winds. The good news is that there's not much snow predicted in the next storm. The bad news is that the last storm was predicted to be "2 to 6 inches".

The reality, here in Leelanau, was as much as 23 inches (just north of Leland) in our yard well over a foot. It fell at a rate of 3.5 inches per hour, or as my neighbor Kathleen put it, "It fell like cement." Kathleen is just back from two years in Thailand in the Peace Corps. She found the snowfall to be thrilling. The rest of us are sick of winter, but I saw more than a little pride in how fast roads, driveways and sidewalks were cleared. Shoveling snow when it's 40 degrees and sunny is far superior to shoveling when it's 10 degrees and bleak.

Thunder Snow

On the eastern edge of one of the Great Lakes, a thunder snow is often the first or last snow of the season. Last night was just a lot of wet snow, coming fast and furious for about four hours. Somehow, the snow was greasy on the bottom and blowing on top.

We kept table games open an hour later than usual, to accommodate the people who had stopped in because they couldn't make it home. I wasn't in a hurry to leave, as I wanted to wait until the plows could get out and make a dent on the main roads. As I dug my car out of the parking lot there was a front end loader clearing big bites of snow. At one point I saw it sliding backwards and sidewards down the driveway, dropping its blade to try to slow down. I inched down that driveway, sliding, but slowly, coming to a stop on the frozen chunks that were M-22.

I crept over the top of M-204 hill, not wanting to have too much momentum on the long downhill slope. My rider had to walk the last four blocks home though the village of Lake Leelanau, as there was no place to turn off the main highway. By that time it was a pleasant night, not too windy and surprisingly warm, so I wasn't too worried about him.

My heart sank as I got to French Road. There seemed to be no lane plowed at all, but at the last minute I saw a narrow lane in the snow bank and went for it. I had hoped to break through that last bank at my driveway, but my luck ran out. I ended up on top of the bank, wheels barely touching the ground, and I had to dig for the better part of an hour to get that last 12 inches of my car out of that narrow plowed lane. I was about done when the sheriff deputy came by and helped me back out and then push it the rest of the way off the road.

Richard got up at dawn and ran the snow blower, rescuing my car before the plow came by and buried it further. You can see where I strayed off the path last night, into thigh deep snow.

The Ice Report

Seems like reporting on ice all is I do anymore. I've had a big uptick in blog traffic from folks looking to know how much of the Great Lakes are iced over, so I've posted a new graphic and will let you all click here to stay updated. Lake Michigan is cold. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, there may be ice as far as you can see. Suttons Bay is frozen over at the foot of M-204, but I haven't seen any fishermen out there yet.

Last night the temperature was below zero at dawn and it didn't move out of the single digits despite the clear sunny morning. The good result of a nearly frozen Lake Michigan is the end of lake effect snow that comes from dreary lake effect clouds. The days are brighter, sunnier, and longer.

I'm doing another sort of ice reporting as well. The people in the condo next to my parents' place left their heat down too low when they left town and the pies froze, burst, and then leaked unattended for quite some time. It had been cold enough that the leak wasn't discovered until a contractor turned the heat up in the place below and melted the ice upstairs. What a mess! As it turns out my parents' place is pretty much OK but the neighbor's place must be completely gutted and rebuilt. Paying a cottage care service to keep an eye on things is a small expense in comparison.

Great Lakes Ice Cover

I'm not sure if this is a year that Lake Michigan will freeze over, but we certainly have a candidate. This is the ice cover map from last Friday, showing Geen Bay, Georgian Bay, and most of Lake Erie ice covered. Pretty good for only halfway through January.

Winter Weather Report

This is yesterday's depiction of Lake Michigan temperatures, and it explains a lot. Those big blobs of green are surface water in the 40's. They explain why we, so near the lake have not had the sub-zero temperatures that people in the middle of the state have experienced. They also explain why it just keeps snowing, lake effect snow, two or more inches every day. The flakes are very fine lately, but they add up anyway.

Liz, down in Evanston, has that dark blue, 32 degrees water off her beach, which is rapidly turning to ice. She sent me their weather report, 7 below zero this morning with a windchill of minus 27. They have about a foot and a half of snow, more than her roommate has ever seen.

I'm cheering the cold weather, imaging the squash bugs dying in their underground hiding places for the first time in a few years. I'm also looking forward to the lake cooling enough to shut off the lake effect and give us some weeks without constant snow.

Come On Spring!

When I switched to my winter blog background, the one that derives from bare tree branches, I was calmed by the stark simplicity and soothed by the prospect of resting my eyes with winter landscapes. Now I could stand bare branches no longer and so I did a quick renovation while waiting for my Easter ham to bake.

Two days into spring and two weeks into daylight savings time, my yard looks like a demonstration project in glacier formation. The temperature peaked today about 11:30 at 37 degrees, and then it dropped to 32 in about ten minutes. Right now it's approaching dusk with almost clear skies and 22 degrees. I walked right across the foot of snow that has thawed and refrozen so many times that its consistency approaches solid ice. The inland lakes are thick with ice. Richard is still ice fishing on Lake Leelanau; a few days ago he saw a driver take a real shortcut by driving onto the ice just south of Honke Road and crossing over to the landing on the east side at Bingham Road.

I had to dig in my files to find a picture of another year's crocuses. I just needed to see some spring, even if it was a few years old. When the weather warms even a little the flowers are going to pop right up. I am anxious to see the glacier in front of my garden gate melt away so I can start another season.

While looking for some links about local llamas, I found this interesting blog written by a young Swiss family who has been biking through North and South America. Lots of pictures and accounts of toilet training on the road. At the point that I found them, they were transversing a Bolivian salt flat and being accosted by a roaming llama.....

Watching for Northern Lights

I understand that there were Northern Lights sightings in the county last week. I missed them, but I'll be watching out for them for a while.

If the night is predicted to be clear, you can check for the location of the auroral oval on this site from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The arrow indicates when the sun is right now; the oval sort of drifts away from the sun as the earth turns. A good night is when the yellow and orange section drifts away from the poles enough to cover your latitude.

Tired Of Winter

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We're all tired of snow, but the animals are doing something about it. The red squirrel and the grey squirrel are both done hibernating and back to raiding the bird feeders. Our cats and the dog are back to chasing the squirrels; the cats are coming close to success.

The tracks in the snow tell stories all over the yard. Above we have the dog's big tracks, a cat's smaller tracks. and the tiny tracks of a mouse that came out from under the lilac and wandered in skittering paths all over on top of the snow.

I'm doing something about the snow, as well. This is a flat of lettuce and arugula, planted from the seeds of last year's crop. I'm growing them under lights and in the window on sunny days for cutting greens. They were doing well until Shelagh and Jordan brought their cat home for spring break. He found this flat to be a fine place to curl up in the sun. and watch all the action in the yard.

I try to plant peas on St Patrick's Day, but this year it seems unlikely. Lettuce, radishes, carrots, peas, and parsnips will go in as soon as the ground thaws; a little snow won't hurt them as much as the hot sun of June does. I will have a few of last year's parsnips to eat as soon as the ground thaws and they will be a treat.

Lunar Eclipse

Lunar Eclipse photo from www.eclipse-chasers.com
The predicted storm pretty much passed us by, although it dumped a foot of snow on Ludington, about 100 miles south. Tonight the wind is expected to shift to the north, which may set us up for the lake effect snows.

But tomorrow night the skies are supposed to clear. I hope it happens in time for us to see the lunar eclipse, which will peak at 10:26 pm Eastern Standard Time. You can read more about the event at the NASA website. There is a wealth of scientific information, and some descriptions that approach poetry:

Although total eclipses of the Moon are of limited scientific value, they are remarkably beautiful events which do not require expensive equipment. They help to cultivate interest in science and astronomy in children and to provide a unique learning opportunity for families, students and teachers. To the nature lover and naturalist, the lunar eclipse can be appreciated and celebrated as an event which vividly illustrates our place among the planets in the solar system. The three dimensional reality of our universe comes alive in a graceful celestial ballet as the Moon swings through the Earth's shadow. Hope for clear skies, dress warmly and enjoy the show!

Mom's Snow Day

I started out for work at 11:15 this morning. Although it had been freezing rain, the salt truck were out and traffic was moving. There was no "state of emergency" banner at the bottom of the TV screen, so I left the house. I had to get gas, and found that I couldn't make it back up the incline onto 204 from the BP station; I had to go out the back entrance and come around on the highway. By the time I got to M-204 store, I realized that I could probably make it over the hill into Suttons Bay, but making it home again tonight was questionable. I pulled over and called work to tell them I was turning around and heading home. They had been trying to call me to tell me not to come in.

Above is the current weather map as of 3 pm. That is a big paw of snow looming over us, but I'm preparing for a power outage as well. The barometer is down to 28.6 and the outdoor temperature is inching up to 36. We have the indoor heat up to 68, getting a head start, since we will have no furnace if the power goes out. We are baking pies and filling water containers and locating the matches and candles. If we lose power we will shut off all of the rooms except the kitchen and living room and get a little heat from the gas stove.

Snow Day

It was a storm for a perfect snow day. When we went to bed, it was still around 40 degrees. In the morning it was minus 3. The wind kicked up in the night, sending the last frozen slabs of snow skittering down the roof with the biggest gusts. I laid in bed, wondering what was happening to my new roof.

Richard shovelled the driveway with the big scoop instaed of running the snowplow. He needed the physical activity to stay warm. Still he had a few times when he blinked and his eye froze shut, so he had to go into the shop to warm up.

I'm reading Joseph Bruchac's The Dark Pond to Anna. I wanted to read her Dawnland, Bruchac's epic about prehistory couple with a primer on dog/human relations, but the book was culled from the Leland Library a few years ago because it was infrequently checked out. Now it seems to be out of print.

The wind died as the day went on, so I ended up going to work last night, where there were a few hardy souls to entertain. This morning the sun is out and the wind has calmed, so Richard is on the ice seeing if the fish will bite.

Before the Storm

Today was a warm January day, with a wicked cold front expected tonight, so I let my chickens out to forage while they could. The one red hen who always pecks my hand came up on the porch and pecked at the door, like she was knocking. Then she settled down on the porch next to the cat, watching the snow melt. They reminded me of the cat and hen that shelter the Ugly Duckling for a while in the old Hans Christian Anderson story.

I watched them from the kitchen, where I was making enchiladas out of the meat, fat, and stock from a spent laying hen that we butchered last year. That frozen chicken, tough and skinny as she was, will still feed us four more times: chicken pot pie, enchiladas, chicken soup with egg noodles, and egg drop soup. I had to cook her in the crock pot for six hours before I could even pull the skin off, let alone the meat, but the stock is extraordinary.

The chickens were much calmer this evening, having enjoyed the day outside. I locked them in tight, as the temperature is expected to drop from 45 degrees at dusk to a low of 9 degrees tomorrow morning, with 40 MPH winds.

Anna wore her PJs inside out tonight in hopes of a snow day. I could use one, too.

How Cold Is The Big Lake?

OK, so it's getting so I do this every year. Last year, on December 26th, and in 2005, on December 13th, I published pictures from NOAA, of the current Lake Michigan surface temps. This winter has been closer to normal, with snow cover since Thanksgiving an ice on the inland lakes for Christmas.

Still, a look at the big lake, our main weather maker, shows that it is warmer each year. This is bad news for lake levels, as a warmer lake loses more water to evaporation. Ideally, we would like to see the big lake freeze over early and keep all of its water for a month or so.

It is easy to look at lake temps and point to global warming, but there is more going on. Zebra mussels have filtered the water to a new clarity, and sunlight is now penetrating Lake Michigan to greater depths than we have ever seen before, changing the physical characteristics of the lake.

We could also consider the sun. We had a sunny day on Christmas, and a sunny dawn today. We have been treated to more of our usual share of sunny days this December, although the sun doesn't rise very high this time of year.

We watched the sun set over frozen Lake Leelanau last night as we exchanged presents at my brother's place. The sun descends at an oblique angle, reflecting back and shining onto the clouds long after it has disappeared beneath the snow and ice. I don't know how you could have a photo of that sort of sunset, as it is really a series of scenes, with new and more improbable colors every time you glance up.

A Thermostat Poll

Over Thanksgiving, I spent the a few days taking an informal poll of the people at home and at work, asking the question: "Where do you set your thermostat?"

The range of answers was interesting, as was the range of thought that had gone into the decision. A good many people just automatically said "68," as if there were no other alternative, much the way they said "72" when I was a kid, before the energy crisis of the 1970's. The people who heat with wood, of course, have no thermostats, or they leave the thermostat on the backup heat set really low --45 or so-- and sit closer to the stove if they are cold.

People who have electric baseboard heat know that their heat is pricey, but they make up for it by only heating the rooms that they are actually using and turning the rest off. People with fuel oil furnaces are facing a 22% jump in fuel costs this year, but most of the people I talked to have already switched to natural gas or (in the remote areas) propane. Propane has also risen in price, by 16% according to today's newspaper, but nobody mentioned this.

One woman told me that her mother complained and wouldn't stay to visit if the thermostat was below 70. Parents of young toddlers were the most likely to set the thermostat at 68 despite worrying about the cost. As the ages of the kids rose, the setting of the thermostat dropped. One smart dad said that he starts out the winter with the thermostat at 65, but dials it down one degree a week until the kids get used to wearing socks and sweatshirts and he can run closer to 60 as a daytime normal. (He still turns it up to 65 for the hours worth of "getting up and getting dressed" time in the morning.)

Among the people heating with natural gas, one guy was keeping his thermostat at a whopping 78, for economic reasons. He shares the heat bill with the larger apartment in his building and pays one third; the neighbors of the monthly bill. Nate calculates that they only way to make sure that he's not subsidizing his neighbors is to turn the heat up high enough that his neighbors subsidize him. He has to strip down to his underwear to be comfortable, but he thought that wearing a sweatshirt around the house, as I do, must be awfully constricting. They also split the electric bill in a similar way, so in the summer, Nate cranks the AC up and wears clothes.

Most people turn the heat down at night, and a few mentioned how much they liked a gadget that I had never heard of, an electric mattress pad that preheats the bed and keeps the foot of the bed warm, even if you move your feet to a different spot.

The winners of my informal poll were Shelagh and Jordan, who had still not even turned their heat on as of Thanksgiving. Living on the south side of the apartment building and with their neighbors all turning the heat up, they found that the place stayed reasonably warm without it. "Around bedtime the temperature goes down to 60," said Jordan, "but we just go to bed."

Liz, the environmental science major, lives in an old dormitory with steam radiator heat. Although she turned her radiator completely off, she was still opening her window to cool the place as the radiator in the hall, with no shutoff valve, cranked out heat like nobody's business. I sent this article about radiator maintenance. It turns out you're supposed to bleed the radiators and level them, to keep the steam flowing more evenly, otherwise some rooms heat hotter than others, and the super ends up cranking up the heat to suit the coolest areas, while the people in the hottest areas open windows. Based on my own poll, I'm thinking that the problem is not the temperature, but how people think about the temperature.

These past few days it has gotten cold and windy. Hearing the furnace turn on every half hour sounds like wasting money to me, but such is winter.

Fall Color

 

Fall has been so late. I was starting to think that the leaves were going to just color and fall off instantaneously, or fall off while still green. After last week's wild thunderstorms with tornadoes, we had a rainy Friday and then on Saturday, on the way to work, the rain cleared from my windshield enough to see that we had colors, lots of them.

One of my blackjack players claimed that the storms "scared the colors into those trees." It works for me. The newlyweds were home this weekend, and Shelagh took this one on the way to Pyramid Point.