2019

Friday 5-17-19

Greetings and welcome!

I guess that I do this on Fridays now. I usually shoot for Tuesday bit the world has kept me a little busy the last few weeks.

Anyway..

The grass is very green now and heading for needing the first cutting. Down in Crivitz they have dandelions and it is ready for the first cut on a lot of lawns.

The dogwoods, choke cherries, and marsh marigolds are in bloom. The cottonwoods are getting their first light green leaves, putting on a little bit of a show. The birch have their tubular catkins. You can still see pretty far into the woods, but that is not going to last long.

The whitewater season from heaven continues. The Peshtigo River is down to about +16”, a really fun and rowdy level. It won’t be staying there for long.

Late this week I managed to take some forest roads. They were dried up enough, but they had not been for long. Earlier in the week they were still a little muddy and there were a couple of washouts.

The ATV trails open in Marinette County this week, actually they opened today. I just checked the Red Arrow web site and the Oconto County trails open today too. They will have some detours in Townsend and near Crooked Lake as they continue to repair trails.

I mentioned that the Peshtigo River won’t be staying at +16” for long. That is based on the weekend forecast. The rain is expected to start Friday night and go off and on until Sunday night. On the NAM forecast model there are some heavier waves Saturday, Saturday night, and Sunday. According to the TV we could see 3” of rain. Look for highs around 50 and lows around 40.

Speaking of weather, we had some warm days this week. Thursday I was overdressed after a cool morning. I was roasting pretty good. I was still surprised when I got home and looked and we had a high of 85. Wow. Athelstane Weather also marked 80 on Wednesday.

Yes that brought some bugs out. The bug of the week is the gnat. They were not swarms like they can be, but they were present. There are some ticks too.

It has been a very wet spring. Small ponds like mine and some lakes are above normal for water levels. It is also the first spring that I recall not having to worry about fire danger between when the snow goes away and the grass greens up.

I still have some catching up to do on this update. I have a few pictures that I hope to share, and I have been gathering up events. Hopefully our wet weekend will let me get some computer time in and get that done.

One final parting thought… Every year is different, but here is a little advice. Years ago when I tried my hand at gardening around here I fell into the trap of planting stuff in mid-May when the weather got nice. Every year my garden got frostbitten. Every year. Now my rule is that anything that I want to plant outside goes either in trays or portable containers that I can put inside, or they don’t go out before June 10^th. It seems a little goofy in light of yesterday’s 85 degree day, but two and three days ago I had heavy frost on my cars at sunrise both days.

Time to get some Z’s. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday 5-10-19

Greetings and welcome!

I had a brutal week for time demands, car problems, and other challenges. Today I am not dealing with any of it until I catch up here.

First up Marinette County ATV trails will NOT be open this weekend again. The official opening date is Friday May 17^th. Oconto County remains closed as well, but they have not announced an opening date. People are urged to stay off of the trails while they dry out. People that violate will likely be called in by people who would love to ride but are honoring the closure. Just stick it out. It is only a week away.

Item two is the Wednesday-Thursday rain storm. Golly that was a good one. It started here about 3pm Wednesday and got really heavy overnight. There were quite a few times that I could hear it pounding on the roof over the TV and heater.

There was a big storm to our west. We were in the river of really heavy moisture feeding it from the Gulf of Mexico. The radar showing the river of rain was dark green, yellow, and orange most of the night.

Driving to work at 5am Thursday morning was a challenge. It was a pounding downpour. Even with Rain-X and good wipers I had very little visibility.

We should be glad that it was rain. The western UP and far northwestern WI got snow.

The USGS gauge by Kosir’s put the storm at about 2” of rain. I would say that is close but maybe a little understated. Rivers, ditches, swamps, and low areas are all totally flooded again like they were when the snow melt hit its peak.

Naturally whitewater rafting will be exceptional this weekend. Typically we would expect the Peshtigo River to be at +6 or +8 inches above zero today (zero being the river’s typical summer flow). It is at about a +26” right now and clearly on the rise.

As far as volume of water our mean flow for today over the past 20 years is 601cfs. Today we broke the 20 year record of 1,530cfs by 50cfs for a morning flow of 1,580.

Bottom line, that is some REALLY exciting whitewater. Call Kosir’s at 715-757-3431 or go to Kosirs.com and book your trip on line.

As far as spring getting here, it seems a little late but we are greening up. I am seeing new plants and trees getting in on the act every day. We are not at time to cut the grass yet, but it is coming in a week or two. Right now it is a good time to clean up the stuff that was hidden by last year’s tall grass or ferns. It will again soon be buried.

I have not been pestered by the insect world yet, but that day is right around the corner. Some people are reporting their first tick encounters of the year.

Monday night we had a really nice sunset. I managed to grab a couple of pictures to share.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Wednesday May 1st, 2019

Greetings and welcome!

Hooray hooray the first of May…

We have a very soggy morning in Silver Cliff this Wednesday morning. We had a rain storm overnight that brought heavy rain. Looking out of the window I would estimate it to be easily between ¾ and 1” of rainfall. I wasn’t expecting quite that much. I hope that my car window was closed..

Anyway.. my various rain gauges that I consult are showing between ½ and 3/4”. My puddles and erosion disagree.

The rain did hit the Peshtigo River watershed in a big way, and it is perfectly timed for the weekend. Weekend whitewater paddlers and rafters will have some great water to play in this weekend. The river is running at a delightful +22” this morning, and this rain should take it into the upper 20s for Saturday morning. Whitewater rafting will be excellent this weekend.

Peshfest (4th annual..) was a smash hit. There were tons of people and Kosirs/Rapids Resort was a whitewater central last weekend. The river was huge and a lot of people came and had a great time. Everyone is looking forward to #5. Thank you to all of the people that made it so fun.

Normally at this time of year I start talking about fire danger. The dead vegetation from last year dries out and becomes tinder for wildfires. Added to the spring breeze that is frequently here and a nice sunny low humidity day and fires can get out of hand quickly.

We have dodged that bullet this year. There was a lot of moisture from so much snow, and now we have soaking rains and high humidity. The grass is starting to green up, so we just might have a very uneventful spring wildfire season.

The Marinette Co ATV trails remain closed. It can happen when they open back up the first weekend in May, but according to my sources it isn’t happening this year. There is no set date for the ATV trails to re-open. It all depends on how the ground progresses in drying out. We will need to wait at least another week.

They close the ATV trails when the snowmobile trails close in March or April. The ground gets really soft while the frost comes out of the ground. Even a couple of riders can do a lot of damage, so they close the trails while the ground firms up. While there was not a really deep frost this year we had a tremendous amount of snow to melt. Look at that in the context of some of the deep forests up by Hwy 8. I was still seeing a little snow last week in really sheltered spots around here. Farther north they likely still have a little drying out to do.

You can ignore the trail closures, but be ready for some fat fines and no shortage of people that will pounce on you or call you in. They want to ride too, and don’t want to see trails lost because of some inconsiderate riders doing damage. Don’t do it.

The opening of game fishing comes this weekend. Bass is catch and release until the third Saturday in June, but most other species open Saturday morning. The lakes that I have seen were open and ice free last week already, so that should not be an issue this year. Trout fishermen might not like the high water in the rivers, but otherwise we are headed for a good start on the fishing season.

One season that hasn’t started yet at my house is the bug season. Usually by now we have at least one pest showing up. So far this year there has been nothing. No gnats, mosquitoes, or ticks at all. I am a little surprised by that, and I expect that season to start any day now.

We have had a wet and colder than normal week. Yesterday we only got into the mid-40s for high temperatures. Our normal high temperature is close to 60 degrees. The weekend will finally bring some improvement on that. The TV says that we could see 60 and sunny Friday and 67 and sunny Saturday. Sunday brings a chance of morning showers and a high of about 60. I am ready for some of those 60s and 70s.

That wet and soggy weather has snubbed my plans for spring cleanup around the yard. It would be ideal for burning brush and leaves, but it has been too soggy to get that stuff gathered or to run the tractor and wagon to gather it all up. Hopefully that will turn around next week.

I am off to work. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday 4-26-19

Greetings and welcome!

A very quick update this morning.

River levels- The Pesh is still crankin’ but it has dropped a couple of inches since Wednesday. It is in the low 30s. My wild guess of +24 to +30 for Saturday was a good one. If you get a chance check out the Menominee River. That has been running between 12 and 15 thousand through the gorge.

PeshFest- I forgot to mention that the band lineup changed slightly, but there are still two bands tonight and the same music shown on the poster Saturday night. I asked Todd what is for dinner Saturday night. He said that he was going to slow smoke some pork shoulders and some chickens. Add in the traditional fixin’s like mashed potatoes, veggies, biscuits, and so on.

Weather- After my update Wednesday the forecast changed. Thankfully it changed back. At one point they were showing snow all of the way to the U.P. border. Now the snow will not be anywhere near us, it will be all well south of Green Bay. The TV just showed a winter storm watch for IL/WI border counties. This morning they showed northern IL getting as much as 5″ or more.

Here in Silver Cliff we are expecting increasing clouds and mid-40s for Saturday and sunny & 52 Sunday.

There is a snow storm showing up for Northern WI for Monday tho.. that one could be 3-6.

Have a great weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB