October 2022

Friday 10-28-2022

Greetings and welcome!

It looks like winter has been delayed for at least another week. We are in for a beautiful weekend with sunshine and temperatures in the upper 50s and low 60s. I am also happy to report that our nice weather is not expected to come with a howling wind as happens so often on nice days in the spring and fall. Get out there and enjoy it!!

News that you need to know..

The Red Pine BP on Hwy C and Parkway Rd is in the process of replacing their gas pumps. They have the plumbing, wiring, and cement in, but the pumps won’t be installed until at least Monday. The C-store will be open but you will want to make other plans for getting your gas.

There are many Halloween activities in the area this weekend. I haven’t paid much attention to all of them but I know that Rapids and Parkway Inn are having Halloween parties with live music. The Nimrod is also having a Halloween party with a costume contest. I have seen quite a few others advertising parties, DJs, or live music. It should be a wild weekend. When I was out yesterday and last night there was already an unusually high amount of traffic.

We had a few cold nights this week but most stayed above the danger zone for freezing pipes. We did have one night get down to 21F though, clearly a heads-up to work on winterizing.

Now that the leaves are down and we are having some cool night bow deer hunting is getting into its prime. A couple of neighbors have taken some very nice bucks.

The deer have been really heavy up by the roads. Be really careful when you are driving, especially at dusk and after dark. There were plenty of blood splatters on the road over the past few days. They can be very unpredictable now that the bucks are chasing the does. I had a fork horn chasing a doe cross the road twice in front of my car last week. The doe was more worried about the buck than me, and the buck only cared about the doe. I know that it’s early, but I have already seen them chasing. That can make them very unpredictable along roads.

That’s it for today. Enjoy the nice weather this weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday 10-21-2022

Greetings and welcome!

This week started out with a big cold wave that brought high winds and daily temperatures that didn’t get out of the 30s. The winds were relentless with 25-35mph gusting to 45mph. Lake Superior had 25 foot waves and gale warnings. All of that cold air going across the relatively warm lake brought heavy lake effect snow to areas around Hurley and around Marquette.

This is a picture from last Monday in Hurley..

Here is the snow forecast for Monday-Wednesday for Marquette..

Thankfully the snow that fell here did not add up enough to even get the grass white. We sure had wind though. A lot more leaves came down.

I am happy to report that the wind and cold have moved off to the east and we are expecting a nice weekend with above normal temperatures. We are heading for a high of 66 today, and could add a couple of degrees on Saturday and Sunday. There is rain possible for Sunday night into Monday, followed by a return to more normal temperatures. Our normal high temperature right now is in the low 50s.

This week was pretty ugly for weather. Did I really want to go outside and work on winter preparations when it is 35 with a howling wind and occasional drizzle? Nope. I can do that in November and December. This weekend I will be making up for lost time.

I don’t have any events for this weekend, but the corn maze south of Wausaukee and the Camp 5 Haunted House are very popular at this time of year.

That is it for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday 10-14-2022

Greetings and welcome!

We have a very typical mid-October day under way this morning. It is 34ºF heading for a high of 39. There is a pretty steady drizzle, and every few minutes it changes over to snow. One minute it is light rain, then a lot of small flakes, and 5 minutes later it is big sloppy flakes. I guess that we are living on the edge with the first snow of the fall..

The fall colors have passed their peak thanks to our fitful weather bringing rain and wind. There is still a lot of color out there, but there are a lot of bare trees too. The big stars of the show are in the aspen/cottonwood/popple family. (Terrible phone pic but it gets the idea across..)

We have a fun event coming up tomorrow. I wish that I had known about it sooner.

We have some cool weather ahead this weekend with highs only getting into the mid-40s. So far I don’t see any nights threatening exposed plumbing, but it is time to start thinking about winterizing it. A lot of years we can wait until late November. Some years it is a lot sooner. I will probably be on that once the weather clears up.

Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday 10-7-2022

Retraction/revision- I wrote my update based on a short ride around my neighborhood. At sunset I traveled to Lakewood and a lot of the color survived and it was a magnificent show along Hwy F. That’s good, there are really a lot of people around to see the leaves. If they aren’t nice where you are go a few miles down the road and the show will be in full force.-RJB

Greetings and welcome!

This week the fall colors hit a magnificent peak. It was the best show in years because almost all of the species changed color at once. It was really something to see.

Then, as happens every year, a cold front came along with crappy weather and high winds and stole our show before the weekend people could enjoy it. It is so maddening and disappointing. The show that we had Monday though Wednesday was really something. There is still a lot of color out there but the really spectacular early maples and some cherry are already on the ground.

The cold front dropped our temperatures too. We had some overnight lows in the 30s and today we are only in the upper 40s. That is a big change from the mid-70s early in the week. Tonight we will go into the mid-20s, and the weekend high temps look to be in the upper 50s.

Reports from fellow snowmobilers on Facebook said that they had their first snowflakes of the year in Hurley and Boulder Junction. We did not get that here, but we did get a little rain.

This weekend there are four events that I know of. There is the Octoberfest celebration in Crooked Lake, The Near North Snowmobile/ATV Club Brat Fry at Firelane Bar, a craft show at the Crivitz High School, and the Legion Club gun & knife show in Crivitz.

For some crazy reason the Packers decided to play in England this weekend. They are 6 hours ahead of us. That means Sunday’s game starts at 8:30am. Many of the bars around here will be opening at 7 or 8am for Packer fans, and all of them will have some kind of breakfast food available. I have no idea if there will be large or small crowds. Personally I will likely go for the Tevo option.

Earlier in the week I was outside getting some warm weather chores done and the Asian lady beetles started making their annual appearance. I hope that the big temperature drop killed every one of them, but that is wishful thinking. More likely they will be back when we get back into the 60s early week.

That is the news today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB