April 2010

Thursday April 8th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

3pm Update

It did indeed snow last night. I cleared between 2-3 inches off of the car this morning, and people as little as 10 miles southeast reported 4-5. When I was in Lakewood and Townsend it was an inch or a little more. Here are some pictures from 7am..

The snow did add up on roads and it was indeed slippery this morning. The snow did not last long and there are only random patches of it left on grassy areas. Most of those will be gone before the sunset and mid-20s overnight can save them. I am sure that there will be some slippery spots when the temp drops into the 20s with wet roads tonight.

There has to be some novelty to wearing long johns and a jacket today knowing that in a few days I will be riding in the boat at 65-70 degrees and looking for shorts. It does give some verification to the standard up north car wardrobe; a spare set of shorts, long pants, coat, and gloves, and you can skip the gloves in August. Maybe.

Overnight Update

Let’s start the day with a birthday shout out to my brother Robert. Happy B-day!

The weather guy goes whoda thunk it, yet again… The rain storm was a bit of a disappointment around here. It came out with totals about as predicted around here, while it rained much harder south of Hwy 64. We did get some, and so did the Peshtigo River Watershed, but it wasn’t as much as happened only 30 miles away.

The storm was moving south and east yesterday and I had it pretty much written off as over other than scattered stuff. Guess again Guitarzan.. it is snowing pretty good outside right now (12:30am). There is 1/2″ down, grassy areas are white and covering fast, and the radar says it might come for a few hours. Whoda thunk it? I will take all of the surprises like that we can get if it brings more precip. The pond is a little low this year, reflecting a dry winter and spring..

The water levels change quite a bit from year to year. Last year it was almost dry, a couple of years ago it was above the ring, and probably 6′ deeper.

Also a little strange, when I looked outside at the snow, the frogs in the pond were still sounding off. Hmm. Shouldn’t they be getting a little groggy if it is cold enough to snow?

Anyway, it was a cold and dreary few days since our last visit. It did not rain the whole time, it was more off and on waves and overcast days. Wednesday I had planned on getting a little firewood and exercise and was repelled by a windy and 40 something day. There was inside work to be done too, and with much nicer temps ahead, I made a management decision.

I did make it outside for a few spring pictures of the first green grass-new since the rain, the maple flowers, the first cherry buds, and the pond picture..

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The other plant that I spotted budding was not a raspberry, I am not sure what it was. I will have to look again.

The rain did knock down the fire danger, and snow kinda does that too. It is now low, but high fire danger should return next week next week when temps go into the 60s and 70s. The rain and snow should boost river levels at least a little, and probably well timed for the weekend.

The weather today looks chilly again, with temps in the 40s and some pretty good winds. Friday finds it’s way up into the 50s, again with some breeziness. The weekend looks great, with partly cloudy and about 60 degree days. Beware sunset though, those same partly cloudy skies mean mid-30s at night.

Next week the nice weather forecast trend continues with some 70s expected early and mid week, followed by possibly a storm.

On the short list of stuff to play with outside is the boat. If it is going to be in the 60s and 70s, and the lakes are ice free, maybe it is time to get started on summer fun. Everything else seems 2-3 weeks ahead of normal, why not?

I am looking forward to the weekend with the nice weather. Also much anticipated its the flashback thing at Fisher’s Camp. Saturday they roll back the clock and Glen and Debbie, Mark & Sallie take over Fisher’s Camp for a day, and do things the way that they used to 4 or 5 years ago. It should mean a lot of old friends and a good time for sure. It is also a good chance to meet the new owners, who are nice folks and obviously have a sense of humor.

That is about it for now, more to follow. Have a good Thursday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Tuesday April 6th, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

The weekend turned out pretty good for weather. We saw a little rain before Saturday morning and then it turned to a cloudy weekend in the 50s with a breeze. It was not bad for early April.

Monday was again cloudy and the wind had a little cold and damp  edge to it. You could feel that it was going to rain. It was raining on radar, but it was not reaching the ground. Finally it started as some wind driven mist or drizzle right before sunset. Since then we have seen a few waves of rain and a tenth of an inch or two of rain.

We have a weather system coming through the region that sports multiple low pressure areas, and should hopefully bring rain over the next three days. The QPF on the storm from the GFS and NAM are in the 0.75-1″, with the HPC coming in about 1/4 inch higher. Hopefully it gets very carried away.

As happens at this time of year, we have high fire danger. The rain will temporarily squelch that somewhat, but probably not for long. It has been a dry spring, and the rain will be welcomed. Until the new green growth comes in and we get some regular rain, the spring breeze and the dead vegetation will be a fire hazard.

There are signs of the great greening of the lands and forests. The maples are starting to get their red flowers, and Monday I saw some black raspberry bushes starting with some new growth.

Cleaning up the yard a little Monday I picked up or overturned stuff and encountered frost on/in the ground, and 10 feet away there was an ant hill already active, with ants scurrying around mad that I picked up that piece of bark. I am sure that I am not the only one with some spring cleaning to do, so here is a link to the MARCO  Marinette/Oconto County landfill.

It is getting a little noisier outside. Apparently we have a pair or flock of sandhill cranes nesting a ways back. They are squawking up a storm all day. They are the lead singers for the chorus of frogs coming from the pond. Supposedly the turkeys should be gobbling too. I have seen toms with a harem, but haven’t heard them sounding off.

Spring in Silver Cliff is a marvel if you take the time to look at it, and the show is about to really pick up.

There is a youth turkey hunt this weekend. Here is a link to the DNR page about it. The hunt gives youth hunters a chance to hunt a few days early. Also in DNR news, the DNR Spring Wildlife & Fisheries Proposed Rules Hearing and Annual Conservation Congress County Meeting is coming up Monday 4-12 in every county in the state. Again here is a link.

This weekend is a big deal at Fisher’s Camp…

Fishers Camp Flash Back
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Remember When…. 2001-2004
Glen and Deb will be running the bar and the kitchen.
Sallie and Mark will be bartending.
Come join us for a great time !

I also have an event listing for a Near North Trail Riders banquet, but will have to call for details in the am.

Last weekend was the opening weekend for rafting on the Peshtigo River with Kosir’s. As usual there were a few dozen hearty folks who took to the river, and had a great time doing it.  The water was low, but it was over 50 outside.  The hope is that the rain will get really carried away and bring the river way up for this weekend. Any will help.

Technohick Holler

The Ubuntu Linux testing has gone very well. There have been some lessons along the way, but I like it a lot. Most of my fleet of computers will not be running Windows this sumer. I am using it now.

It remains to be seen if I can professionally edit video on it, but I have high hopes. I have a new 15k rpm SCSI 320 drive on the way for a scratch drive for my current set up, and the plan is to try movie editing on that under Linux before it gets put into service on the Windows based editing system. I found a nice editing program, and if it is stable, I might not go back.

I also have an itch to upgrade my video camera, putting my helmet cam set up on the auction block. I want to go to a flash memory camcorder to make getting the video into the computer a file download of 3 minutes instead of a recording in real time for 30. It would save me a lot of production time, and people aren’t far behind me when I get back from the river. It is also a really nice camera with a great picture, so I am hot for it.

Being early in the season and late in the wallet, that means a little horse trading. I decided that my really nice Viosport H2O Adventure Cam helmet cam needs to go on E-Bay, complete with the Pelican Box, LANC remote, and Sony Mini-DV Camcorder to record it. Give me a shout if you are interested. The Viosport H2O Cam was a very nice piece of video gear (>$300), and this one has seen about 10 hours of use. The camera got replaced for the 08 season but the rest of it has been around.

That is about it from here. Have a good week and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday April 2, 2010

Greetings and welcome!

We had an unusual week this week. It did indeed get into the mid and upper 70s. We couldn’t believe it yesterday when we were at the Peshtigo River Resort, sitting on the deck watching the sun set in total comfort on April 1st without a jacket. It was very nice weather. Athelstane Weather  marked a high of 78.3 degrees yesterday.

The warm weather took a lot of ice off of the lakes this week. When I checked yesterday the big bay on Caldron Falls Flowage was wide open, and the bay by Fisher’s Camp only had a little ice left on one side. You can easily drive a boat out. Likewise, Waubee Lake was approaching ice free when I drove by yesterday morning. It is pretty huge to have ice free lakes on April 1. Some years we sweat getting boats in for the opening of fishing in early May. This obviously won’t be one of them. They did not even draw down the flowage.

Another WOW recorded, I haven’t started the wood burner in 3 days. We go into the upper 60s at night, but it is a comfy 73.4 in here now. That is not normal for April 2.

With the warm weather the insect kingdom is awakening. I swatted the first mosquito of the year Wednesday afternoon (hopefully the mothership), and several people have reported ticks on their dogs. I actually saw one today from someone’s dog, and I promptly Bic-sterminated it. Neither bug was common, but rather the novel first sighting of the year variety.

For the last few days I have been trying to pin down a date to say that it is more like ______ than early April. I am going to have to go with late April or early May. The trees aren’t out, and bugs are still a novelty. At the same time, most of the ice, snow, and frost is gone from the ground and lakes.

The next question is, will the greening of the lands and forests come early this year? If it does will it be spanked by a snow storm>? It might be 75, but it isn’t August, so it could snow.

A side note, the weather guy in TV said that Green Bay set a record for March with zero snow. Blame it all on El Nino.

After my early week load of firewood I was pumped up to get back out and make more, but the week really filled up. One scramble is getting all of the computers ready for this weekend when rafting opens at Kosir’s.  The Linux based box works great, but I still have to get the movie editing computer running right. That will be today’s project, which is a real shame. It is in the mid-70s again, and I’d really rather be outside..

The weekend weather looks better than expected, unless you wanted a lot of rain. It looks like the storm will bring some rain early Saturday morning, and then clear up with only scattered showers remaining for the balance of the weekend. According to the HPC QPF, we should see about 1/10th of an inch between midnight and 6am, and another 1/10th between 6am and noon. With temps in the mid-60, it might turn out to be a pretty decent weekend.

In the tech department, the Ubuntu experiment to convert some of our computers from Windows to Linux is going very well. I tracked down the problem with the one, and it was a worn out hard drive. According to the system info, it had a year and a half of run time. That translates to 3.4 billion platter rotations or about 13 thousand hours. I guess I’d be tired too. A replacement drive found that box fast, stable, and nicely functional.

Well, I better get back to work. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB