(Written Tuesday night, posted Wed Am)
Greetings and welcome!
I am running a little late today, my apologies.
It looks like I blew the forecast for last Saturday pretty bad. The models showed rain coming in at about 9-10am and staying through the day. We ended up getting a little wet on either side of a pretty nice day.
The clouds from Saturday night’s storm hampered our ‘Super Moon’ a little. We didn’t get the big giant clear moon rising off of the horizon as was hoped. It was still big and bad enough to shine through the clouds a little. There was also some confusion on the moonrise time. My solunar tables said that sunset and moon rise were 8:11 and 8:13. The TV news had moonrise close to 11pm, and it happened somewhere in the middle according to Chris.
Anyway we ended up with a pretty nice Saturday. Chris and I took a ride to a couple of parks and waterfalls, and there were a lot of people around. Some were fishing, some were boating, some were just enjoying the day.
Along the way I saw the first trillium of the year, the marsh marigolds are up and in bloom, and more than a few other wildflowers are starting up. I also spotted my first fern fiddle heads sprouting up. I saw today that the trillium are now much more abundant, and they should be common by the weekend.
Also new this week are the chippies. The chipmunks are pretty common around here, but I just saw my first couple of the year over the weekend. Other sightings included the deer, bear, squirrels, and a lot of different birds. There was a picture perfect family of geese down by the boat landing the other day, with Mom & Pop and a gaggle of little fuzzballs in between.
The grass needs cutting pretty badly now. It is definitely time. I tried today but the hit and miss rain cancelled that plan. The day progressed and it became more hit than miss, and we ended up with a lot of rain for the day. Based on the puddles and runoff alone I’d call it close to an inch.
It has been a rainy week or so. We have gotten a lot of water and a lot of it was nice soaking rains without a lot of runoff. Today’s rain had breaks between the waves, but there was definitely runoff and puddles mid-day when I went to town, and the rain got heavier later in the day.
With all of the rain that we have seen recently the whitewater rafting this weekend will be very fun. The Peshtigo has come up about 6″ to about +5, and the graph is going up. We are definitely in the fun zone, and there is more to come. Weekday trips this week will see a spunky river, it gets pushy and feisty when it is rising fast like this. Weekend paddlers will probably time out just in time for the peak flow. A wild guess would be +8 to +12 for Saturday morning.
The Menominee River will be prime this weekend too. That one is running at about 3,000cfs and like the Peshtigo, it is on the rise. The watershed for that river saw some heavy rain bands, so I would expect big water for the weekend. The Menominee gets really big and bold at about 3,000 and beyond, and is a Grade A adrenaline rush. It should be a good ride this weekend.
This weekend is Mother’s Day weekend. It is a tradition at Kosir’s that Mom gets to raft free on Mother’s Day. Now they have extended that to Friday-Sunday of this weekend. All weekend Moms get a free raft trip with a paid trip. They will even set her up with a wetsuit and booties at no charge.
Take Your Mom out(side) for Mothers Day!
For taking Mom out to dinner I would start at Peshtigo River Resort or Hilltop Resort. Both have Mother’s Day dinner specials. For someplace different you might try Whispering Pine Lodge by White Potato Lake. The cabins are very nice and the gardens are beautiful.
A hat tip to Dan Sanchez for his comment on the power line project.People WILL want to know about this.
Dan Sanchez says:We own property in Pound and received a notice in the mail this week from American Transmission Company regarding some new utility lines that will be going through Marinette county. They have several public meetings that are scheduled, in the next few weeks. Is there a thread somewhere on the site where people are discussing the proposed route and private land that the new wires are going to intersect? I feel like this is a major project that will affect many land and home owners in Marinette county and should have some public discussion.
http://www.atc-projects.com/BayLakeProject.shtml
Click Northern Wisconsin, Bay Lake Project. A semi detail PDF map is included.
I looked into it and a lot of the possible corridors for the power lines land between Hwy 141 and the western boundary of Marinette Co, and from Athelstane south to 64. Take a look at this map (PDF).
There is a local meeting about it Wed May 16th from 1-7 at Shaffer’s Park Resort near Crivitz.
That’s news for today, be back soon! Have a good week and thank you for visiting!
RJB