Here in the sticks, all is not always sunny, verdant, and bursting with fresh life. If winter is coming somewhere, it has come here already. So far, not with the vengeance of other recent winters, but with enough force to silence the woods except for an occasional “Dee, dee, dee” of a chickadee (Gee, I wonder how they got their name.), the haunting hoot of an owl, the panicked rush of a flock of turkeys flushed from their roosts, or the drumming of a woodpecker.
The picture above is what we would call a dusting. As of mid January, we haven’t had much more. In fact, we have yet to match in total the freak snowfall of October 20. There is no such thing as a “normal” winter around here. There’s always something different as when over a week’s worth of cool, foggy days left the trees coated with a rime that persisted for days.
While some residents of lower latitudes may long for the gentle white blanket of new fallen snow, those of us in the “frozen tundra” of Wisconsin may be quick to remind them of the cliché regarding taking care about what one wishes for. Two years ago we enjoyed a mild start to the season, only to suffer through the snowiest single month on record, the notorious February of ’19.
In December, the new snows add to the festive atmosphere of the holiday season, but now that feeling is long gone. Yes, in the hopelessness of January, when we feel the lament of Narnia where it was always winter and never Christmas, we seek a cure for cabin fever, especially with the added isolation of a pandemic. We turn to skis, snowshoes, skates, and shovels. But we in the sticks, at least my corner of them, have a secret weapon. More on that soon.
