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Deep Winter III: The Coldening

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January 17th through 23th, 2022

Last week started off a little thaw-y and then back to Deep Winter. There was some snow, even more wind, and most of all, cold. Most of the snow occurred early in the week and did not add up to more than 3 inches. Then it was the wind's turn. Gusty gales picked up snow from flats and dropped it into big drifts around the lake. The sky cleared many evenings, leading to the extremely cold mornings that we have come to know and loath. On the plus side, there are very few mosquitoes. With morning lows of -17°F and -22°F on Thursday and Friday respectively, there was a calling to heat water to boiling and then fling it into the air.  The resulting snow adds to the base of the bar's lawn and is fun to watch until the cold begins to penetrate your bones. Then it's less fun to watch and more fun to flee back into a warm cabin. The roads are frozen. They're covered in snow, ice, and turkeys. Drive carefully. When trying to get your 10,000 steps a day in this icy wonderland, the FCP field house is a 65°F blessing. The Forest County Potawatomi held a fishing contest on Bug Lake just North (and a little West) ) of Lucerne. They attracted over a dozen fishermen despite the less than 65°F high on Saturday. It got so cold on the weekend that some of the bar's turkeys began to think they were Flamingos. They got the pose right. They still need to work on the color. If you did not pick up on the subtle clues in the previous slides, it was cold last week. The kind of cold that has many here in the northwoods considering snowbird-ery and other forms of flee-dom. The worst part of it all is that the marathon that is Winter is only on mile 14 or so. Still, those left behind the great October migration  will be fine as long as the hats, propane, and spicy foods hold out. And then there's the Annual Lake Lucerne Bottle Rocket War (Saturday January 29th at 6:30 PM on the North end of Lucerne). The hardy few that have come this far will be warmed (at least metaphorically) by the fort building, artistry, and pageantry of this seminal Winter event; also, there'll be explosions.<br><br><br>-Nemo's subtle as a sledgehammer.

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