Yesterday was the average ice-out date here over 40 years of record-keeping, but it’ll be a little late this year. With 6" of fresh snow last night to insulate the ice, the loons will have to wait a bit longer.
Alice, where is “here”?
Wisconsin’s “Northwoods” … not far from the Michigan (UP) border.
No asparagus, but there is probably half an acre of sandy wetland behind my camp in ME that gets covered by ferns in the summer. In the next couple of weeks, it’ll be “fiddlehead” season. My understanding is that the locals will come onto the land and pick fiddleheads. The fading ethos of ME woods is to let folks onto private land for hunting and gathering, although this giving way to increasing postings of “No Trespassing.” As long as folks leave with the fiddleheads and leave nothing behind (or break into the camp), I hope folks enjoy their harvest of the fiddleheads. I respect and wish that the past ethos 0f the Maine woods can survive.
sing
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I hope so too. Unfortunately, the unwritten code: “Take a little less than you want and leave plenty for others” is being trampled by the “I got mine so screw you” crowd.
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The azaleas bloomed several weeks ago so the pecan trees finally sprout new leaf cover…and regrettably, the common loons no longer greet me when I paddle in the MS Sound as they have departed N for their nesting grounds once more.
I’ve spent an lot of time in Wyoming, several family trips every year to Jackson Hole, several trips to our favorite fishing spot on Hamm’s Fork, camping and hiking in the Wind Rivers, and when I lived in Colorado we made several trips to Laramie area. Driving home to see family was always a long day’s drive on I-80. My uncle grew up on a ranch near Casper, and my Father In Law worked about 20 construction jobs in Green River and Rawlins where I have gone with him. My Uncle used to say that the snow doesn’t ever melt in Wyoming, it just blows around until it wears out. Wyoming isn’t a Free State, it’s tiny economy doesn’t support in taxes the amount of Federal Funding it gets for roads, rails and military spending, but it’s a good fantasy.
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Go back and re-read what I said. Words mean things.
And let me ask…aren’t you in Sothern California?
Haha, we used to have a neighbor who said he’d tried smoking the California poppies that grew in some fields. Nope, not the same plant as the opium source. Awwwwww.
Another fantasy is that NYC and LA do not benefit from military spending in Wyoming, or from the ability to move freight across Wyoming.
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I had forgotten about those. Thanks for the good memories of hearing them. Today we heard what must’ve been hundreds of spring peepers along the Animas River in Durango. After trying for several minutes to see one in the shallow water or among the dried reeds, I finally spied two tiny shiny dots sticking out of the water. EYES! Then my own eyes discerned the brown minuscule frog ensconced there, watching ME.
And not a single e-biker on the path; for the first time in years, it was all regular bicycles. Another nice memory.
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Is that somewhere on Earth?
Generalization. Stereotypes. Hyperbole.
… toxins to good conversation.
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I thought those were the basis for a conversations on thè internet.
Sometimes it seems so.
24 hr cable news too.
Yeah.
IT’S NOT ACTUALLY PLUTO ----DESPITE THE FACT IT LOOKS LIKE IT.
This winter was worse than most here in Wyoming.
We sometimes get super cold some winters.
Some winters we get high winds.
Some winters we get deep snows.
Some winters seem to last 1/2 a year
This winter we got all 4 at the same time.
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I recall a piece in the Atlantic Monthly mag about 20 years ago by a reporter who did some research and determined that the common red perenennial (papaver Orientale) garden poppies anybody can propagate in their yards is the identical plant to the one from which opium is harvested. He grew a batch and experimented with brewing a tea from the seed pods as well as scoring the buds to collect resin and smoking or brewing that. He reported getting quite a narcotic buzz from it.
Apparently this is why craft and floral supply shops no longer are able to sell the dried poppy seed heads, which used to be a popular dried flower arrangement addition.
At the time I read that article I was living in Michigan in a house that’s sandy, sunny yard had a recurring bed of vigorous p. Orientale poppies. I was curious about the journalist’s experiment, but not enough so to bother trying it out myself. I worked in construction at the time and figured it was not worth risking one of the occasional rounds of “pee check” drug screening of field staff.
Yesterday we set a new seasonal snowfall record of 118". Not so much compared to my years in the ADKs, but a lot for this neck of the woods.
As far as the face-ripping pain index goes, your frigid temps and high winds take prize.