Greetings and welcome!
It is a pretty morning outside this morning with the mist from last night’s rain and a lot of new green things growing.
We had a line of rain come through early this morning that showed up as yellow on the radar. It rained hard enough to hear it on the roof for a while but didn’t last long. We had a similar line of rain come through Monday early morning. According to the USGS gauge by Kosir’s each brought about 0.15″ of rain.
We are expecting a little more rain today and Wednesday, followed by clear weather and mid-60s right through the weekend. The GFS scenario for the weekend has a little light rain well to our west and southwest in MN and IA, and the closest edge of it stops at about Wausau and Madison. I don’t see any suggestion of a wet weekend. The NWS has daytime temps in the mid-60s and overnight lows in the low to mid-40s.
There is an active sunspot on the sun that has been putting off impressive solar flares and CMEs. So far it has been pointed away from the earth. About Saturday it would be pointed close enough to offer a glancing blow if it did have an eruption. It has been just about daily, so there is an outside shot at some northern lights this weekend.
The past week has brought incredible changes to the area. The underbrush in the woods has filled in tremendously, and the hardwoods are getting leaves unfolding. The ferns are popping up with their fiddleheads and will unfold soon. The trillium are coming in as well as some early violets and marsh marigolds. The plant growt in the past week has been incredible, and the rain will really set it off. It does seem like we are a little behind this spring.
The gators (mosquitoes) haven’t been bad yet but are due any day now. The wood ticks are present in the usual numbers. The bug of the weekend was the gnat. They weren’t bad Saturday but weren’t hard to find Sunday.
The first fawns were spotted this week, and several reports came in yesterday alone. I dodged a porcupine in the truck the other night, the second of the season.
Silver Cliff made the news with a bear attack last week. It went after the dog, the owner went after the bear and it turned on him. The Mrs. smacked it over the head with a shotgun as he was being attacked, and they got away. The bear got killed, the guy will be ok, but had to get stitched up.
I don’t know much beyond the news report. Someone at the bar said that it was north of Old J. Other than that all that I can offer is that it is the first that I have heard of a bear attack in my time here (since 99). I have had plenty of bear encounters and they always ran away.
One of the many jobs on the list today is to get the lawn mower into the shop and get started on the lawn. It is time to cut grass, and before the underbrush fills in, time to establish the cut area and clean up anything on the sides that I don’t want overgrown.
I have plenty of cleanup to do in the wood yard. There is some left over wood to cut, and shards to rake up so that I don’t hit them with the lawn mower. Usually there is a big campfire with the leftover and irregular wood, and I have been holding off on that because of fire danger. With the rain this week I’d expect fire danger to return to pretty normal levels.
The whitewater rafting for this weekend is looking good. The Peshtigo River is at about a +5″, a little above normal, and the rain this week will help.
The Kosir’s outpost on the Menominee River opens this weekend and they will be running trips on the big river too. That one is running above normal too, and will be a great time this weekend. This would be a good weekend to do the two rivers special, and maybe catch a few waterfalls on the way.
I really dropped the ball on the event listing yesterday. When I was in town I walked out with my groceries and meant to walk back in with a pen to write down events. I got distracted and never went back in. At that point I don’t have a lot of specifics.
The McCaslin Lioness Faire in Lakewood is Sunday. Silver Cliff and Waubeno are having memorial services and picnics. Silver Cliff’s is Monday, presumably Wabeno’s is too.
Last year’s list had a rummage sale at the Ranger City Rider’s Clubhouse in Amberg, and an Auction in Crooked Lake.
I know that there are more events and I will scour the papers and posters to find and many as I can. I expect to follow up late week with that, the latest weather, and anything that I missed.
For now, have a good week and thank you for visiting!
RJB