2017

Wednesday August 9th, 2017

Headlines-

Silver Cliff Picnic & Parade this Saturday

Nice weather this weekend

The whitewater rafting and river tubing continues to be good

Greetings and welcome!

Last Saturday’s weather didn’t quite go as planned. We were expecting mostly clear and pleasant weather. Saturday afternoon pop-up thunderstorms came our way and gave us some downpours. It was interesting in that they were very localized. I looked one way and the sky was menacing and black, and the other way it was blue with harmless puffy clouds. The USGS rain gauge by Kosir’s showed about 1/2″ each day.

We are again looking at a nice forecast for the weekend. The NWS is looking for sunny and mid-70s weather both days this weekend, and low temps in the mid-50s. A look at the various forecast models supports that with high pressure dominating our weather. Like last weekend, summer can produce some pop-up storms just from the heating of the day, so as always, be ready for anything.

We have some rain coming for tonight through Friday with the focus on Thursday. Thursday looks pretty wet. Looking at the GFS QPF it is only showing us in the 0.25-0.5″ range, but the 0.5-0.75″ bands are close both to the north and south. Thunderstorms can up those totals significantly, but it is hard to guess where that will happen.

The whitewater rivers continue to be above normal, and Thursday’s rain should keep that train rolling. The Peshtigo River is running at 364cfs right now, well above the normal of 200cfs. Likewise the Menominee River is running at 1840cfs, again above the mean of 1410. Get it while you can.

The higher water has also extended the lazy river tubing season at Kosir’s. The river can get too low and rocky for tubing, and that hasn’t happened yet this year.

On a related note, the TV weather guy on the morning news said that this was the wettest year on record in Green Bay.

A lot of people have been asking and commenting on this wet year translating to a snowy winter. I am skeptical. I have seen this before, and my recollection is that a wet summer does not always translate to a wet winter. I do point out that the June rains estimated at 6-9″ would make a very interesting January. With a 12:1 snow to rain translation and a couple of storms coming as rain, we would still be looking at 4+ feet of snow in one month. That would indeed be an interesting winter.

The paper wasps support a good winter. The legend goes that low nests mean a low snow winter. Last summer you could walk into a nest face first because they were 4-6′ off of the ground. This year they are high up in the trees. Hmmm.

Events- This Saturday is the Silver Cliff Picnic and Parade. Here is the info on that and the other events this weekend.

August 12
40th Annual Silver Cliff Fire & Rescue Aux. Picnic – Silver Cliff Memorial Picnic Grounds
Parade line-up at 9 AM, Parade at 10 AM – Picnic from 11 am – 5 pm  – Food & Drink, Games & Raffles, Fun for the whole family

August 12
Annual ACA Duck Run at the County V Park west of Amberg
Starts at 11am, public is invited. Paddle wheel, raffles, food and refreshments. Ducks for sale at Mathis Hardware, Driftwood Sport & Fuel, Amberg Pub.

Aug. 12, 13, and Aug. 17-20
Oconto County Fair – Zippel Park, Gillett
Demoliton derbies, horse, truck and tractor pulls, animal judging, exhibits, bands, family entertainment and carnival

I am looking forward to getting outside to start on my fall work. I am hammering away at catching up on my inside work and making good progress. It is kicking my butt having all of these unusually comfortable late July and early August days get past me, knowing that in about 6 weeks I will be happy to have a 70 degree day and an 8pm sunset. On that note I am going to run along.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

My latest GM dashboard instrument cluster colored LED upgrade. I now have green, blue, red, and white LEDs in stock for these as well as the upgraded motors. Contact me for instrument cluster repairs and upgrades.

Found- Kayak paddle near Lakewood 8-2-17

I found a nice kayak paddle on the road near Lakewood last night. If you lost one use the contact form in the top menu bar to recover it.

RJB

Thursday 8-3-17

Greetings and welcome!

A couple of things..

First of all there is a new contact form on the top menu bar. I tried this before and got madly spammed, but your input, comments, and events are important so I am going to give it another go.

Weather-

The rain for today is looking pretty good on the radar. We cold use some.

What I neglected to mention yesterday was that with the rain will come cool weather. The forecast is for a high of 65 today and 63 Friday. Our normal high is probably around 78F.

I am going to make a separate post about this so it gets a headline, but I found a pretty nice kayak paddle on the road near Lakewood & Waubee Lake last night. If you lost one use the contact form. I also have this posted on Craigslist and Facebook. Hopefully we can find the owner.

Have a good Thursday and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Wednesday August 2nd, 2017

Greetings and welcome!
Last week a friend suggested that I minimize my updates. We aren’t doing that today.

First up, the weather has been pretty typical for summer. Pop=up thunderstorms have happened here and there. Sunday afternoon one hit with a ton of rain by Kosir’s. Some areas got hit, some didn’t. Yesterday I was in Wausaukee when a cloud opened up, but the roads were dry in Silver Cliff.

Looking ahead I think that we are in for more of the same for the foreseeable future. It isn’t anything organized, it is just atmospheric instability from the heat of the day.

The TV says that we could see heavier rain tomorrow and tomorrow night. At one point they were predicting 2-2.5″ of rain for our area. The NWS is on board with some rain and storm, but without the dramatic totals.

Hopefully it hits the Peshtigo River watershed and keeps our unbelievably good whitewater season going. The river is getting close to hitting the zero mark for the first time all year.We are still quite a bit above normal though. Our normal flow for today is 215cfs, and we are at 335. I consider anything above 300 the fun zone, and 250 rocky but good enough. With any decent rain tomorrow we should have yet another good weekend of playing in the whitewater.

The tubing at Kosir’s has been very popular in recent weekends.Not everyone wants to play in the whitewater, and the tubing is only $5 (Cheap!).

There is also the much larger Menominee River, which being dam controlled, usually has good water levels into August and beyond. That has been pretty consistent at about 2,000cfs, a very fun level, and above today’s mean flow of about 1,500cfs.

Weekend Weather- In a word- Fantastic! The forecast is for temps in the low to mid-70s and not much for rain. We can always get those afternoon pop-up thunderstorms, but nothing organized is expected until late Sunday.

Weekend Events-

August 5
10th Annual Rustic Fest – Rustic Inn, Silver Cliff
Featuring Rok Candy – 7 to 11 pm in the Pavilion – cooking corn on the cob, brats and burgers starting at 5pm – bring a lawn chair

Lakewood Arts & Crafts Show (Link)
Date: Aug. 5, 2017
Time: 9:00 am – 3:00 pm

39th Annual Lakes Country Arts & Crafts Show 268 booths occupied by 204 vendors offering original work. Free admission and free parking. Located at Lakewood Town Hall and Activity Center. No pets allowed. Sponsored by the McCaslin Lions Club. (715)276-3956

Annual Wabeno Art & Music Fest (WAM Fest) (Link)

Personal-

I have been a busy boy as usual. My fiscal year for Work-Sport-Adventure Sales ended last week, I have 3 web sites in process and a couple of instrument clusters to fix. That is the short list. I have my work cut out for me.  The fiscal year end is a big one. Inventory, sales taxes, annual report, and a P & L statement are coming up next week or in process. Hopefully I will be getting on outside work soon. I have a lot of ground to cover before it gets cold outside.

Last night I had about enough at sunset and went for a ride in the woods. There was a pretty sunset, which I gladly snapped away at. I get back into the car and check the rear view mirror and about 30 feet behind me is a Momma bear and cubs right in the road. I have seen them quite a few times before.

So I grab the camera and turn it back on. I stick my head out of the window into a cloud of hungry mosquitoes and promptly got mauled by them. I am anxiously trying to get the camera to work as Mom and cubs are heading for the high grass. I think the camera was scared or something. It wouldn’t focus, zoom, nothing. In the meantime I am losing a lot of blood, and the bears are wandering into the tall grass.

If I didn’t like that camera so much it probably would have had an encounter with the 4# sledge in the trunk. I was pretty mad.  Sure it has twilight settings and stuff like that, but the bears weren’t waiting around while I fiddled with dials. I finally got the shutter to fire and at least got a blurry shot. That wasn’t very relaxing, but the rest of the ride was, so it was a nice sunset ride.

Yesterday on the way home from the grocery store I think I made a guy’s day. He was pulling an empty firewood trailer in the oncoming lane with a flat tire that just happened and it was getting shredded. He pulled into a logging road and I pulled in behind him. He asked, do you need to get down this road? Nope. I stopped to help you.

I popped the trunk and whipped out a floor jack, a hammer, and an electric impact with the right sized socket. We had him on the road in probably less than 10 minutes. He says what do I owe you? Nothing. Help the next guy. I had the tools to make a potentially ugly job an easy job and was glad to pitch in.

I had a battery cable come loose on the Bonneville a couple of years ago and I ended up on the side of the road. Before I could get the hood open 3 cars had stopped. One offered a ride if I was still there when she came back in a half hour. Another followed me to town after I got it running. No one wanted money, they wanted to help.

That’s the kind of neighborhood that I live in.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB