PRESIDENTS' DAY

A N EARLY US FLAG

OLD GLORY, THE WISCONSIN FLAG AND THE POW/MIA FLAG

REMEMBER THE ALAMO

GARDEN FLAG

CONSTRUCTION FLAG

TAKE A GUESS FLAGS

WAR OF 1812 FLAG

Monday, President's Day, 4:00 PM.  24degrees F, wind calm, It is snowing moderately from cloudy and overcast skies, after depositing 4"-5 of snow yesterday and today.  We had an unscheduled trip to Duluth which necessitated several nights stay but we are back home, In spite of bad roads, offering a Presidents' Day post of flag photos I have taken over the years

OK, OK, I'LL TURN THE WATER ON!

THAWING OUT A WATER LINE

FROZEN FOUNTAIN IN FOUNTAIN GARDEN PARK

MEANWHILE, IN  A NORTH CAROLINA NEIGHBORHOOD...

Friday, 9:00 AM.  5 degrees F, wind NE, very light with a few stronger gusts.  It is overcast and the snow has stopped after depositing several more inches of the white stuff.  The humidity is down to 81% and the barometer is up, to 29.93".
   I reported two days ago on a water main break on Sixth Street, and that the City has asked residents to turn on a faucet to let a trickle of water run to help prevent water  lines from freezing. I was a bit skeptical of this, since our water bills are unconscionably high, but yesterday I spotted the City rig above, on Ninth Street, and stopped to talk to the worker.  The conversation went something like this:
   "Whatcha doin'?"  "Thawin' out a water service, got lots of 'em to do."  "How do you do it?" "Hook a welding machine to the line and let the current run through it."  "But the water lines must be eight feed deep?""Yup."  "And they're still freezing up?"  "Yup.""I'll go turn on my water.""That'd be smart."
   Meanwhile, Almanac reader Douglas P.  from North Carolina sends a photo from his front yard.  He says he's "staying home." Until spring, Doug?
 

BAYFIELD'S INFRASTRUCTURE TAKES A HIT IN THE EXTREME COLD

WATER MAIN BREAK ON 6TH ST.

ALMANAC  READERS AT THE ICE CAVES

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  17 degrees F, wind variable from the south, light to moderate.  The sky is overcast, with freezing fog,  and it is snowing, becoming heavy as I write.  I shoveled several inches of snow this morning and it looks like there will be much more.  The humidity is 91% and the barometer has fallen to 29.60".  I and fellow Tree Board member Grandin were going to hike out to the Ice Caves today but that doesn't look like a good idea at present.

   The arctic winter is taking its toll on Bayfield infrastructure, as water mains break and sewers freeze in the extreme cold.  A water main break occurred on 6th St. yesterday, and the City has requested residents to leave a faucet running, a stream about the thickness of a pencil, to keep water moving in water mains and sewer pipes to prevent freezing.  A lot of repair and construction has been done to Bayfield sewer and water lines in recent years but a lot of the city's infrastructure remains ancient and subject to failure.  All this while Lake Superior may actually freeze over for the first time in decades.

   The Ice Caves remain a tourist magnet.  Blog reader Pat W. and family came up from Madison two weekends ago.  They braved hazardous roads and  extreme cold.  The temperature on their hike was two degrees below zero and the wind was a steady 35 miles per hour and they had never been so cold, but all ended well and they were glad they did it.

TAKE THIS CHAINSAW SAFETY QUIZ

THE PROPERLY EQUIPPED WOODSMAN

WHAT CHAINSAW SAFETY ERRORS  ARE BEING MADE HERE?

Wednesday,  8:30 AM.  14 degrees F, wind SW, calm to very light.  The sky is mostly overcast and it is snowing lightly, large fluffy flakes parachuting gently down.  The humidity is up to 83% and the barometer is trending down, now at 30.13".
   I have gone to considerable lengths to be sure that I have all the proper safety equipment when operating my chain saw, as evidenced in the top photo.  I have offered several posts on chainsaw safety, and now offer the following safety quiz.
   The chainsaw operator in the second photo has made some safety errors.  Take the chainsaw safety quiz to see if you can find them. Eight is a perfect score; six...call the EMTs; four... call the morgue.
   Does the chainsaw operator have: helmet ( 2); face shield ( 2); ear protection ( 1); gloves (1 ); boots (2 ); chaps ( 3);  the operating manual ( 1); Obamacare (0 ).
 

"POPPLE"

ANOTHER ASPEN IN WINTER...

BIG TOOTH ASPEN (POPULUS GRANDINDENTATA)

A GROVE OF TREMBLING ASPEN (POPULUS TREMULOIDES)

BIG -TOTHED ASPEN

TREMBLING ASPEN

PAPER BIRCH

Tuesday,  9:00 AM.  -8 degrees, wind SSW, light.  The sky is clear, the humidity 77%, and the barometer high and steady at 30.47".  We have gotten so used to the cold that well bellow zero in sunshine and no wind is almost balmy.
   In Sunday's post I talked about the similarities between the white bark of paper birch and the often white bark of trembling aspen, which can be confusing, especially in the winter.  On the way to Duluth yesterday I was constantly reminded of another aspen which has a more gray, often yellowish or greenish bark when young, the large-toothed aspen, Populus grandindentanta.  It pretty much occupies the same range and habitat as the trembling aspen and birch in Wisconsin, and they all often grow together.  Big-toothed aspen is not as easily confused with paper birch.  Both the aspens have leaves with flattened petioles, which allow the leaves to move constantly in the wind.  The trembling aspen is the most widely distributed tree species in North America, from northern Canada to Mexico, and coast to coast.  The big-toothed aspen is native to southeastern Canada and the northeastern U.S.  The latter is more often found on drier sites than the former.
   In the Northland, P. tremuloides and P. grandindentata are often lumped together under the general common name of "popple."  The two species of poplar make up a huge percentage of the woody biomass harvested for paper and particle board production (with birch and other species included in the mix).

THE NEW PUMP

FARM WELL PUMP; FROZEN IN TIME

ALL GONE WITH THE WINDS OF TIME

Monday,  8:00 AM.  -6 degrees, wind SSW, light.  The sky is lightly overcast but clearing, with some light fog over the channel.  There are some high, fish scale clouds but I think it will be a nice day for our trip to Duluth.  The humidity is 79% and the barometer is way up, at 30.47".
   Seen from the road a hundred yards away the upright object standing in the open field might be momentarily mistaken  for a human figure, perhaps a smallish man, or a boy.  But it stands still, far more still than a living thing, even a deer, can stand.  It stands within a circle of weeds and grasses that have been left by the mower, which has gone around it.
   Straining to see the object in the shadows of the setting sun, focusing and refocusing one's eyes, it becomes a familiar object of memory...a cast iron farm pump, replete with handle.  Iron wheels emerge from the snow on each side of it, wheels to which a shaft was once attached to harness the power of a windmill.
   But it makes no sense; this piece of long ago technology is standing alone in an empty field. Where is the house with the laughing children and their loving mother?  Where is the barn, with the horse, and a cow and heifer?  Where is the chicken coop with the laying hens and the rooster to greet tomorrow's dawn?
   They are all gone to dust, and to distant, dusty memories, the few that may remain within an old, old man or woman, perhaps a grandchild of the farmer who bought the pump from Sears or Montgomery Ward.  But the cast iron pump endures.
   Amazingly, no one has taken it for scrap iron over the years, or cannibalized its parts.  Perhaps its nuts and bolts, frozen tight with  rust,  have rendered it too difficult to dismantle.  How deep were the pipes driven into the sandy soil to reach the water table?  Knowing the fall of the nearby river, I would guess something over one hundred feet.
  " This is an old fashioned winter," we are all saying, even if we don't really know what that means.  But if the winter a century ago was like our present winter, it was brutal.  The snow piled along the paths between the house, the barn, the pump  and the outhouse must have been higher than the heads of the children which ran down them.  It must have been a cold walk to the school house, and a frigid wagon ride or walk to town.
   If the wood pile had not begun the winter almost as high and as long as the house there would have been little left by now. And it must have been a constant worry that the pump, not draining properly in the bitter cold of night, would freeze up and it would be almost impossible to thaw out and draw water for the animals.
   A century ago the Great War was raging across Europe, and the farmer and his wife were glad that they were here, and their children were here, and they were not in the midst of all the madness.  And it was no colder here than the far off place they had left, and there would be no soldiers coming on the morrow to take away the cow and the horse for the army.
   And there were potatoes and apples and carrots and cabbages and salted pork enough to last until spring, and enough milk each day for the children. And the kitchen with its cast iron cook stove was warm, even if the water froze solid in the bedroom wash basin over night.
   And the new pump was a marvelous thing.
 

IF IT HAS WHITE BARK IT'S A BIRCH TREE..WELL,"IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO..."

QUAKING ASPEN...

... WHITE BARK, BUT NOTE THE GNARLED, GRAY YOUNG TWIGS

PAPER BIRCH...

...WHITE BARK, AND  NOTE THE STRAIGHT, REDDISH YOUNG TWIGS...

...ALSO DORMANT  CATKINS...

....AND CHARACTERISTIC, BUT NOT ALWAYS PRESENT, EXFOLIATING PAPERY BARK

QUAKING ASPEN GROVE; BARK WHITE IN THE WINTER SUN

MIXED PAPER BIRCH AND ASPEN,  REDISH YOUNG BIRCH TWIGS STAND OUT

Sunday, 9:00 AM.  4 degrees F, wind N, light to moderate.  The sky is mostly overcast, with some fog over the channel and Madeline Island. The humidity is 74% and the barometer more-or-less steady, at 30.29".  We are just on the eastern edge of a polar air mass, which has temperatures in northern Minnesota in the -20's again. They can keep it.
   Paper birch, Betula papyrifera, is easy to pick out in the winter landscape because of its white bark!  Well, as the old song says, "It Ain't Necessarily So..."
   I have often been confused as to whether a grove of white-barked trees was paper birch or quaking aspen, Populous tremuloides, especially when viewed from a moving vehicle, or at a distance.  Particularly in bright winter sunlight, with white snow on the ground, trembling aspen can look just as white as paper birch.  And both species have characteristic black markings on the trunk, particularly under branch crotches.  As for the exfoliating bark of paper birch, it is not always present or not very obvious.  To add to the confusion, both may inhabit the same terrain, and often grow mixed together.  So, I have come to rely on other cues for more dependable winter identification, at least if I can't view the trees close up.
   I look to the young branches at the top of the trees.  The birch branches are straight and reddish in color, the trembling aspen are gray or grayish green and gnarled, or crooked.  Once one gets the hang of it it is pretty easy to see the difference, even at a distance and even if the trees are growing mixed together.  Closer up, the birch trees have pendulous dormant winter catkins that can be quite obvious. Birch trees often shed seed during the winter, and the minute, triangular, wafer-like seeds  may be found on the snow beneath the trees.
   Of course, paper birch are so-called because of their exfoliating, papery bark.  The problem is, that characteristic is not always present.  Of course, when it is, the identification is certain.  But if not,  "It Ain't Necessarily So,,,"