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Deep Winter II

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January 30th through February 5th, 2023

Last week started off cold. A little bit of Deep Winter goes a long way. By week's end, we had a heaping helping of heatlessness. Sub-zero lows and single digit highs (°F) gets old fast. In a warmer, more normal year, early February can grow thoughts of tree tapping. A few test holes can even be made. We had no thoughts of spiling maples last week. No trees were tapped. It got cloudier early in the week. Normally It'd get warmer when the sky de-cleared, but the fresh overcast offered little if any relief from the mind numbing cold. The cold has somehow made the wild turkeys that populate the north end of the lake more active. We've put small piles of seeds out to try to keep the little balls of evil out of the bird feeder. They <a href='/WeeklySummaryPages/2022/1106/SquirrelFacts.html' class ='defaultlink2' target='_blank'> inhale the piles</a> and move on to empty the feeder. I'm convinced that if we put out more food, they'd eat until they explode. Lucerne's Red squirrels, now with voracious appetites and report! The sky cleared near the weekend. We wanted to see the Green Comet, C/2022 E3 (ZTF), before it wanders off. We awoke at dark o'clock and found it not so dark. An almost full moon lit the lake's landscape to the point where flashlights were optional. A 15 second exposure captured more blue sky than a once in every 50,000 year green comet. The close to -20°F air didn't help. I'm not sure why, but by the end of the week, the wild turkey population on the north end of the lake tripled. The final task of the week was to check the lake ice. The second last task was to check the condition of the bottle rocket war forts. I've never seen such bendiness in a fort before. It's like Salvador Dalí's "Persistence of Memory" with snow forts instead of clocks. The southern fort is the clear winner of this year's Winter Limbo contest. Currently, there's a foot of ice covering the lake. The top inch is a little iffy, but the rest is hard and clear. On Sunday, the morning low was 4°F and the high was above 20°F. It looks like Winter's nadir is ending and the third sub-season, Thaw, is almost upon us. Before you know it, the penguins and polar mice will be migrating north (or south, whatever) and tee times and ice-out will be here. Huzzah! All this good and hopeful news has been somewhat overshadowed by Punxsutawney Phil's prediction, but he made "<a href='/WeeklySummaryPages/2014/0210/StupidGroundhogN.html' class ='defaultlink2' target='_blank'>The List</a>" back in '14 and has since been widely discounted and despised. As made clear back in '14, let us reiterate that it would be wrong to seek revenge on Punxsutawney Phil no matter how high the reward on his pelt. That being said, the free drinks, pickled eggs and no questions asked policy for fresh groundhog pelts is still being honored on the north end of Lucerne.<br><br><br>-Nemo's really looking forward to Thaw.

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