LAKE SMOKE AND LIFE IN A SNOW GLOBE

"LAKE SMOKE" YESTERDAY MORNING

Wednesday, 7:30 AM.  7 degrees F at the ferry dock, 4 on the back porch.Wind WNW, mostly light with strong gusts.  The sky is overcast, with fog over the lake. We got several inches of lake effect snow during the night, and we now have six or eight inches of snow on the ground.  The humidity is 75%, the barometer 30.01" and rising.  The forecast calls for a wintry mix, and continuing cold for the next week, then warming into the twenties.
   The weather has been wild; extreme cold, snow, wind and of course "lake smoke," the fog caused by evaporation of the open water of the lake, which continually rises and condenses into lake effect snow, which falls almost constantly under current conditions.  Once the surface water and the air temperature are pretty much the same the cycle will diminish.
   Wind velocity, direction and temperature also play a big part, but we are likely to have "lake smoke," lake effect snow and life in a snow globe here by the shores of the Big Lake for some time to come.

LOWER BAY FROZEN; GEESE GONE

LOWER CHEQUAMEGON BAY, FROZEN AND SNOW COVERED

Tuesday, 8:00 AM.  -2 degrees F at the ferry dock, -4 on the back porch, and -7 at neighbors up the street one block.  Buddy, the short-haired dog, shivers and says Brrr. Time to find his jacket.  Wind WSW, gusty at times. The sky is partly cloudy and overcast (it was clear at dawn) and it is snowing; fine, crystaline flakes, and dense fog covers the waters of the channel. The humidity is 82% and the barometer is falling, currently at 30.11" of mercury.  The week ahead is forecast to be very cold and overcast, with intermittent snow showers.

   The lower Chequameqon Bay, at Ashland, has suddenly frozen over and is snow covered (I wouldn't venture out on it, however).  The water is shallow a long way out there,  and must not have received the wind, waves and restless currents that have been prevalent further north.  New snow on thin ice will make for treacherous ice for a long while, I fear.

   The geese have left, perhaps gone south, or perhaps to the Saint Croix or Mississippi Rivers down around Minneapolis/St. Paul. I doubt they will return any time soon.

LEGENDS AND LIES

CRISPUS ATTUCKS
 

 THE MASSACHUSETTS 54TH AT YORKTOWN (Google file)

Monday, noon.  19 degrees F at  the ferry dock, no back porch reading as a gust of wind dashed the thermometer to the deck last night and broke it.  Wind SW, light with stronger gusts.  The sky is clear and mostly sunny with a few clouds, the humidity 74%.  The barometer stands at 29.94" and steady for now; we got about 4" of new snow last night.  The coming week will have snow showers and mixed skies, with low temperatures around 0 and highs mostly in the low teens.
   Sunday, after the Packer's rout of the Sea Hawks, we watched a new segment of Bill O'Reilley's Legends and Lies series, about the mostly unsung black heroes of the American Revolution.  More than 5,000 black soldiers served in the Continental Army, and in many ways were crucial to the American victory, including the battle at York Town, in which the famed  all black Massachusetts  54th Regiment played a pivotal role, and which ended the war.
   Additionally, the first person to die in the Boston Massacre, and perhaps in the entire conflict, was Crispus Attucks, a black American Patriot.
   This is a wonderful way to teach history, to adults as well as children.  The story of Crispus Attucks is well known now, but frankly I don't remember it being told in any American History course I ever took, much less the rest of the stories presented. Much of our national history has been forgotten or poorly told, and it is time to tell it fully and correctly.  Properly taught, history is a unifying and uplifting subject, no matter when we learn it.

TREE BOARD CHRISTMAS PARTY AND A WOLVERINE SIGHTING

TREE BOARD CHRISTMAS PARTY AT THE ODE'S...

WOLVERINE (Google photo)

DITTO

...IT WAS A GOOD TIME!

Sunday, 8:30 AM.  19 degrees F at the ferry dock, 13 on the back porch.  Wind E, mostly moderate with some stronger gusts.  The sky has a low overcast and it has snowed lightly off and on.  The humidity is 74%, the barometer 30.13" of mercury and falling.  It is significantly warmer today than yesterday but will cool down again tomorrow and continue getting colder, with more of the same clouds and snow.  We did see the sun yesterday, which was a very welcome releif from overcast skies.
   We hosted our annual tree board Christmas party yesterday evening and everyone had a very nice time.  Joan worked hard getting food prepared and the house ready; I helped, but the credit is hers.
   The conversation eventually trended to observations of wildlife, what it was in the past and what it is now; the general consensus was that years ago bears and coyotes were seldom seen, and are common now and lots of fun to watch.
  Jim and Sarah, who own a small acreage immediately north of the city limits, are regularly seeing a wolf pack; they seem to stay pretty close to the lake shore but make themselves visible on the edges of the woods and ravines.  Of great interest was their recent  possible sighting of a wolverine in their yard, just outside the back door (behind which they stayed until whatever it was it left).  Wolverines are creatures of the far north and not supposed to be here, but they are sighted by reliable observers from time to time. The Wisconsin DNR reports three possible wolvering sightings in northern Wisconsin in 2014, but considers the species long exptirpated from the state, as does neighboring Michigan.  It is fun to speculate, though.  Now, about Bigfoot...
   I have read that in the old days in the UP of Michigan, which is close by, when a wolverine was sighted the school was closed until it was dispatched.

PHRAGMITES

REED GROWING ALONG FRIENDLY VALLEY ROAD AT THE SIOUX RIVER BEACH...

...REED FLOWER PLUMES

Saturday, 8:45 AM.  7 degrees F at the ferry dock, 6 on the back porch.  Wind SSW, mostly calm with light gusts.  The sky is cloudy and overcast, with fog over the channel and fine crystalline snow falling lightly.  The humidity is 77%, the barometer 30.51" and falling.  The next ten days are predicted to be more of the same and somewhat colder.

   Reed, Phragmites australis (synonym P. communis) is a very aggressive, tall (to 20') invasive grass that spreads by runners and stolens and can form large monotypic colonies in disturbed wet areas. It out-competes other species and has little, evidently, to offer in the way of animal and bird habitat. It has become an almost universal species, with several varieties that are more specific to some locations (var. amricanus is considered native to North America).  It is very moisture loving and is used to de-water sewerage sludge at morew advanced treatment plants, such as at Bayfield, Washburn and Red Cliff, and has  escaped from those sites.   The native ecogtype is rather rare, and is considered non-invasive.  The State of Wisconsin and the federal government have eradication programs targeting the escaped foreign species.

   I find it rather ironic that one environmental actor plants Phragmites  while another attempts to destroy it.  I also find it highly improper that a favored method of control of reed is Roundup, a glyphosphate toxic to fish and which should not be used where it can contaminate water (such as at the beach, where I am sure it has been applied).  

   I have been wondering if the native ecotype could not be used in sewage treatment plants rather than the supposedly invasive species.  I have also been concerned that there are no warning signs or flags posted when spray materials are used by governmental entities, since they are mandatory for citizens and businesses. 
   These are the types of issues that most folks know nothing about and that are left to the bureaucrats to regulate, and their track record is not particularly good.

   We are often our own worst enemy in this environmentally complicated world we live in; as the comic strip character Pogo Possum used to say, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

A RANDOM ACT OF COOKIES

WHAT'S THIS, LEFT ON OUR FRONT PORCH?...

...A BIG, BEAUTIFUL CONTAINER OF COOKIES!

Friday, 8:45 AM.  16 degrees F at the ferry dock, 12 on the back porch.  Wind WSW, calm with light gusts.  The sky has a low overcast, it is foggy and snowing, the visibility very poor, the humidity 85%.  The barometer is steady at around 30.55" of mercury.  The ten day forecast is for more of the same, and becoming very cold, 0 and below. We have about 6" of snow on the ground and it is rather slippery.  We had errands to run in Ashland yesterday afternoon, and as the snow picked up again it became quite slippery,  and it was an unpleasant drive back to Bayfield in the early darkness.
   We were saddened by the passing of John Glenn; astronaut, senator and quintessential American hero.  I was twenty six years old and working high on a scaffold during the construction of a new hospital in Milwaukee when he orbited the earth.  Our earth-bound crew listened to radio accounts of his flight high above us as we worked, proud we were at last catching up with the Russians.  It was a great time to be an American.

   Yesterday, while scraping snow from the front walk I noticed a container sitting on the Aldo Leopold bench by the door.  I don't know when it arrived or how long it had been there, but upon opening it I found it chock full of home made cookies.

   Now it might have been left by Saint Nick, as December 6th is his saint day; that's what Joan thinks.  Anyway, it reminded me of the long ago tradition in our family, when the kids were little, of hanging small treats..cookies, oranges,  children's books, etc...in their stockings on the fireplace mantle for St. Nick's Eve, as a prelude to the real Christmas.  St. Nicholas was celebrated in both our families when Joan and I were children, a charming Old World tradition now pretty much abandoned, I fear.

   I thought it more likely to be one of those Random Acts Of Kindness we hear so much about these days, as there was no note with it to identify the giver.  Maybe it was left because we are on some organization's list, as oldsters in need of encouragement and cookies.

   I am going to cover all the bases, and call it A Random Act Of Cookies, and much appreciated.

PIPELINE PROTEST

INDIAN ENCAMPMENT AT STANDING ROCK RESERVATION, NORTH DAKOTA (Google photo)

STRAIGHTS OF MACKINAC BRIDGE (Google photo)

Thursday, 8:30 AM.  24 degrees F at the ferry dock, 20 on the back porch.  Wind NNW, mostly calm with light to moderate gusts.  The sky is overcast and cloudy, with heavy "lake smoke" fog, the humidity 88%.  The barometer is now rising, currently at 30.21" of mercury.  The ten day forecast is for more of the same, with much colder temperatures.  It is snowing heavily, with four to five inches of lake effect snow already on the ground.  Biboon, it is winter.
   Most folks have heard  of the Dakota Access protest,  the standoff between Indian tribes and crews of the Enbridge Corporation project trying to finish the last leg of a pipeline from oil fields in North Dakota to refineries in Illinois.   It is a good example of the hazards of trying to simplify very detailed and complicated issues.
   The Indians and their environmental supporters are protesting and trying to block the completion of the pipeline project on the basis of it being inherently hazardous and likely to be subject to future damage and a catastrophic oil spill into the Cannon Ball River.  The countervailing argument is that there are thousands of similar pipelines criss crossing the North American continent; that their safety is very great and in any case far safer than shipping oil by rail.
   My initial opinion has been to support approval of completion on the basis of the more logical argument, and the fact that the project does not go through Indian Reservation lands (one would assume that fact would reduce, at least, their standing in the case).
   The problem with my initial opinion is that one doesn't have to read more than a few news articles to understand that many of these pipelines were built half a century or more ago and are actually becoming prone to failure.  Today's protest is really more  about the past and the future than the present.  This doesn't usually fit well with our (read "my") "get 'er' done" typical American attitude.  The Indian attitude, it seems to me,  is as much based on off-reservation treaty rights signed a century and more ago as it is on immediate environmental concerns. So we have here an inherent conflict between a dominant culture with an attitude of "do it now and fix it later if we need to," and an ancient culture that values tradition and caution.
   We have crossed the Straights of Mackinac on the marvelous bridge between the UP of Michigan and lower Michigan many times. The straights separate Lakes Michigan and Huron.  In each of those times I thought more about the beauty of the bridge and the water than about anything else.  Now that I know that there is a fifty year old oil pipeline at the bottom of the straights I will be thinking about a possible oil spill as well.
   We are a nation of laws.  Treaties are laws.  We need to respect the treaties we have made with the Indian nations, and respect their cultures.  They in turn are obligated to protest peacefully and to respect the judgement of the courts.  If this slows things down a bit, so be it.