Christmas in January

Usually you need to employ a Gregorian calendar to have a January Christmas. Not this year. January, in all its sub-zero-ness, wind, and general tetchy nature has come to the northwoods 2 weeks early this year. Huzzah? January rules are now in effect. Someday we'll enumerate them all, but for now a few of the more important ones are; wear a hat, no swimming, and do NOT put your tongue on a boat lift (even if triple dog dared).

All the snow, wind, and January gave the northwoods a horrific holiday feel. Very much like if the film Alive was remade as a Hallmark Holiday movie.

It was cold last week with single digit highs (one day with a degree-less high (0°F)) and sub-zero lows, but the wind was the real event. Many days saw 20 mph+ blustery-ness that picked up a midweek snow and produced some impressive drifts.

The wind also had snow devils dancing on the lake and crashing into Lucerne's shoreline.

The sun tried to come out for much of the week, but didn't quite make it for much of the week

Eventually the clouds lightened up on the weekend. This made a fun sunset and special cold evening.

A few weeks ago, there were more pine cones on the ground than I can ever remember. Last week on Knott Lane, we had the same thing with ash seeds.

The Bar's turkey population seems to be enduring the early January just fine.

During the colder parts of the week, the bulky, feathered bouncer kept the bird feeder mostly squirrel free.

Mostly squirrel free. Shortly after the bouncer's shift ended, the increasingly tubby reds feasted.

Many roads ended the week with an ice coating made from repeatedly packed snow.

Knott Lane has less ice, but deeper snow.

We finally got to the first Lucerne ice thickness check. As of Sunday, there's 8.5 inches of very questionable ice on the lake.

The big, wet snow and then cold created an insulating layer on top of the true lake ice. This made for a very crunchy, creepy trek to the drilling spot. The two inches of "good" ice under the "bad" should be enough to prevent a late season involuntary swim, but all the crunching and a slush layer between the good and bad can be unnerving.

Adding a dozen or so days to a northwoods January has some squealing with joy. For normal humans, any squealing due to this event contains much less delight and considerably more dread. Despite the early polar-ness of the season there's still some glee to be panned from this river of Winter. The 32nd Annual Lake Lucerne Bottle Rocket War is just 4 short weeks away, some nagging Summer injuries could use a little extra time to heal, and that early season insulating layer on top of the lake could result in an early ice-out.

-Nemo favors a more Julian calendar

Christmas in January

December 19th through 25th, 2022