Colder Weather is Here to Stay

Tomorrow we turn another page on the calendar and usher in the month of October. That also means we creep deeper into the season of fall. And lately in the Upper Peninsula, it has definitely felt more fall-like. The first three weeks of September were much more summer-like. In fact, many U.P. residents feel we finally got our official taste of summer, even if it came three months late. However, it doesn't last forever. We were affected by a major fall storm this past weekend which brought with it drastically cooler temperatures and plentiful rains. One thing about the first three weeks of this month; we hardly had any rain. Only trace amounts were picked up in certain parts of Upper Michigan. However, with this fall storm, it was like a flip of the switch. The rains fell hard and steady. The winds were brutal, even knocking out the power at my house for nearly two hours Monday night. It was definitely the first true sign of the cooler season ready to take charge of our weather for the next six months.

This time of the year, one can't even rule out the possibility of seeing snow. This past Tuesday, the daytime temperature barely rose above 40 degrees. The warmest I saw all day was 43 degrees. That was a shock to the system after we had been treated to 70's and low 80's during the previous three weeks. Temperatures that cool can change any rain we get to snow. No, the snow will not accumulate because the ground temperatures are so warm and it would take a lot of snow to start sticking. Yet, even a few flakes of snow in the air signals the beginning of the season that many Yoopers dread. The months of driving in treacherous roadways, shoveling days on end, and bundling up as tight as possible are quickly approaching. However, despite our complaints about the winter season, we always accept the fact that winter is coming and adapt. And many of us also embrace the winter season and it allows many to get out and enjoy the snow - in the form of snow shoeing, skiing, snowmobiling, dog sledding, and ice fishing. Just because winter shows up, doesn't mean we can't learn to enjoy it, either.

Because of the warm first three weeks of September, the changing color of the leaves has slowed, too. However, seeing how quickly things have cooled down and more night are beginning to get more frosty, the leaves will start changing very fast. We should be experiencing peak leaf peeping conditions in two weeks in most northern locations in the Upper Peninsula. And the warmth won't be completely over quite yet. October usually does yield a few stretches of nice days here and there. That will allow many people to get some last minute projects done before the cold weather officially hits and doesn't leave until next spring. It's also a good time to pick up any fallen leaves that many start to accumulate on the ground. At my parents place, it's a constant battle to stay ahead of the falling leaves. Yet, I haven't known a fall season without leaves accumulating on the ground. As a kid, it was always fun to rake up a huge pile of leaves and jump into them.

The fall season is definitely one of change. Animals begin to hibernate, birds fly south, and much of the green vegetation dies off from frosty mornings. The northern hemisphere readies for the winter season. Here in the Upper Peninsula, fall is our one last moment to enjoy bare pavement and to walk in grass until several months. However, just because the seasons change, doesn't mean things get anymore ugly. With a fresh blanket of snow on the ground - that often provides the most picturesque scenery one can imagine. And you know something, it's rather neat to experience all four seasons. Imagine living in California or Florida.

Summer Flying By

It's already July 29th, meaning there's only one month of summer weather to enjoy.  Honestly, though, this summer has been one of our coolest in quite some time.  Many of the weather experts around here are comparing it to our last "year without a summer" in 1992.  That year we had a lot of rain and cool temperatures.  This summer, it's just been cool and dry.  I can't remember the last 80 degree day we had and I don't believe we hit 90 degrees yet this summer.  I'm not really complaining about missing the heat and humidity, though.  However, temperatures in the low 80's would be nice to see.  Maybe taking our cool summer into account, mother nature will bless us with an unseasonably mild autumn!  One can only hope.

It's been another very busy month of July - and I am happy to say I have now lived in my new house for a month!  So far nothing extremely wild or crazy has gone on at my new residence.  There is one incidence that was a little troubling during the first few days I officially lived in the house, however.  I had just got home from work around 11:30 PM from afternoon shift and was trying to get into my house from my garage into the kitchen.  I go to unlock the deadbolt, turn the doorknob, but the door would not open.  No matter what I tried, I could not get in.  I even tried getting into the house through the front door but even the screen door was locked!  So I took that door right off, got to the exterior door, and found out I didn't have keys for that door, either.  It was back to the drawing board; which then I finally started taking apart the door knob that was giving me trouble in the garage.  I got out the electric-powered drill and started drilling away at the problematic knob.  The thing is, it was around midnight at that time and the noise coming from the garage was getting pretty loud.  So after awhile I knocked it off - for fear of waking up one of my new neighbors.  I certainly didn't want to piss anyone off the first week I was hear!  And it's not like the house is all that close to the other homes around here.  There's a good distance between homes.  Still, I didn't want to chance it, especially around midnight!  Well needless to say, after about 45 minutes, I eventually got the old doorknob off.  It was certainly a struggle, but I never gave up from getting inside my house!  It ended up being a broken spring inside the doorknob that caused it to fail.  Why couldn't this have happened a week prior when the old owners were still here?

In addition to keeping up with the daily chores of my new house, I have also been busy helping out my dad put new siding and windows on his house.  The project is progressing quite nicely and we're now down to the last wall of this particular phase of the house.  But the last wall certainly isn't going to be the easiest, either.  It's the largest of the walls and there are many obstacles to put the siding around, including about four different windows and utility boxes/meters.  The electric power for the house comes from the roof and runs down the wall through a large piece of conduit, goes to the meter box and through some more conduit into the house where the fuse box is.  My dad put siding up on this wall 15 years ago so there is no more room to pull on the conduit and slide the new siding under it.  So we're thinking of creating a whole new box for all of the different utilities on this particular wall.  It's going to be a challenge and will end up taking a lot of time.  But eventually we'll get it figured out.  The rest of the house looks super nice and it really makes the house stick out as the nicest in the neighborhood now.  

From the looks of it, it doesn't seem like this hectic summer of mine is going to slow down anytime soon.  This weekend is my hometown's annual homecoming celebration - that along with the county fair.  And this is the first time in over three years that I'll be able to attend!  I'm actually looking forward to it, although I don't expect things to be all that different from year's past.  My niece and nephew will also be around, so we'll be busy taking care of them.  Then we'll continue to work on the siding project on my dad's house this next week and then the following weekend, we'll be making a trip down to Wisconsin to visit my sister.  We haven't been down there in six months!  It's been long overdue but you know what?  It's better to be busy than bored out of my mind.  Summertime is when you want to get out and make the most of it.