Over the cliff

The word from our weatherman is that the temperature around here is about to go over the edge of the cliff.

Not tonight. But starting late Friday night, when the temperature goes below zero F, it's not going to rise above zero for a few days. This could be our coldest stretch of weather in maybe two or three years.

Right now, my aviation weather maps (no, I don't pilot a plane) tell me it's below zero in eastern South Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. In a day or so, everywhere on this map--from Winnipeg in one corner to Indianapolis in the other--is going to have a minus sign in front of the temperature. Even at midday.

That's what winter is like up here. Actually, this will be our first really cold spell this winter. We've regularly been having below zero nights, but the highs have stayed at least 10 above until now. But the people around here are well-trained: When they hear of a major snowstorm or a cold wave about to strike, they make a beeline for the stores in order to stock up for the next few days when they expect to be snowed or frozen in.

There's still very little snow to speak of here. We have maybe four inches on the ground, which is way less than normal. And though we should be getting some Friday night when the cold wave hits, it shouldn't be more than two or three inches. It should be blowing around pretty good. We're too far from Lake Superior for major lake effect snow, but the wind will still be huffing and puffing and making a big fuss.

On most mornings last week, we woke up with a fresh powdering of snow. This thin layer reveals the little dramas played out over the night before, told in the footprints you see in the snow the next morning. Rabbits. Cats. Birds, who usually come along in the morning. Even a deer from time to time.

Here are some prints from a feline visitor we had by the front steps the other day. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I'll share ...


Tuesday morning, when I was putting on my jacket to go to work, I looked out the back window and saw a crow in the back yard. (I thought at first it was a raven--looks more like a crow now.) Ordinarily, crows and ravens are wary of people holding cameras, but this one was preoccupied.

You see, my wife likes to throw out bits and pieces of old bread and buns and other things that get too old. Her bird friends who come over nearly every morning enjoy them. This morning, four crows were there, and this one stayed because he saw a good morsel in the snow.

But it was frozen to the ground. Sometimes he'd look up for inspiration ...


Sometimes he'd look down at the project ...


But most of the time he just kept at it, pecking away at it over and over, hoping to poke it loose or to tear off a morsel ...


At times, he would hold it down with a foot as he tried to get a nibble ...

It's not an easy life for our critters in winter. They gotta do what they gotta do.

I drove to Iron Mountain later Tuesday, to visit my mom and cover a basketball game that night. For the first time, I was able to get got some pictures of snow drifting off fields ...




I also took some photos of woods roads--where wood that has been cut to length has been stacked. It makes for a pretty winter scene ...


Especially when the sun is shining and the sky is blue ...


But when it's winter and the sky is blue like this, you know that it's c-c-c-c-cold out there. The wind out of the northwest that creates the drifts comes from the Arctic Circle.

FYI: This is the same stretch of road--Wisconsin Highway 70--where I got the fall color pictures a few months ago. And the snapping turtle pictures early last summer. It's a road that I enjoy driving. And I drive on it a lot.

I won't be driving on it this weekend, though. Too damn cold to go anywhere.