Greetings and welcome!
The warm weather continues.. Today we are only up to 66 so far, a paltry 29 degrees above normal. The NWS is looking for a high of 74 for both days over the weekend, though there is a minor chance of showers and thunderstorms tonight into Saturday. That does not look like an all day rain, more of a chance of a passing shower or storm.
The ground is firming up in the driveway and in the back yard. The only places that still hold patches of snow are the south banks by the pond, the treeline in back and one sheltered spot in the driveway. Those probably won’t survive tomorrow.
There are still some people parking cars at the ends of driveways and walking in because of the frost-out mud. Most of those have shaded driveways. The sunny ones are mostly passable.
Chris asked if there were any frogs sounding off in the pond yet. I heard a few croakers this morning, but no vreep vreep of the Spring Peepers.
Yesterday I had a first for the year when I went over 24 hours without the wood burner running. My last fire was Wednesday night a little after dark, and I started it back up last night about midnight. It was only down to about 66, but I warmed it up anyway.
I don’t know about up in the rapids, but at the bridge by Kosir’s the Peshtigo River has blown out the ice. It is running at about a +15 right now. When I went past Caldron Falls Flowage yesterday it had water on the ice and it was looking distressed, but that has not melted down yet. They also have not dropped the level yet, which they sometimes do to break up the ice or make room for a rush of melt water.
This Saturday is St Patrick’s Day. So far I have seen parties at Fisher’s Camp and the Curve Inn. At the Curve it is also the owner’s birthday, and I heard something about karaoke, but I am not sure about that. They will be giving away some corned beef while it lasts.
The warm weather is expected to last a while. Looking at the GFS I only saw one day out of the next 16 that stood a chance of being about normal for temperatures. There are a few chances for rain, but no chances for snow.
The mosquito count is up to three. I had another one try to feed on me after I filed my report Wednesday. Hopefully those were the mother ships, I killed all three.
While the warm spring was a bad thing for snowmobilers I am not mad about the fast transition to warm weather or missing out on a month of the mud season. Another week like this and I might be able to start cutting firewood, doing Spring yard clean-up, and spending more time on outside projects.
The next question is when the world will start greening up. Normally it really gets going the first or second week of May. Maybe that will come early too.
Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB