Chilly Today

The forecast was for “life-threatening” cold. So yesterday I drove north.

Here in Watersmeet this morning I woke up to -23 with a windchill of -37 thanks to a cooling breeze from the northwest. Actually, it’s not all that much colder than it is in Madison where it’s -17.

The dog stayed down there with Dianne who will have to walk Maple this morning, but on the other hand she gets to have her in her lap the rest of the day. There are trade offs in life.

I’m up here because it’s my annual cross country ski weekend with a couple of my deer hunting pals. They’re still gainfully employed (God love ’em!) and so don’t have the flexibility to reschedule this long-standing outing. Also, they’re rugged men cut from the same cloth as the durable and courageous pioneers who built this great nation. (Insert land acknowledgement here.) Like them, these guys will risk life and limb just to get up here to a supper club in time for brandy old fashioneds and fish fry. I tear up just thinking about it.

And, with temperatures soaring to -1 and the wind abating tomorrow, as God is my witness, we WILL ski!

Truth is last year we had the opposite problem. It was 35 degrees and the skiing was sketchy at best. If I had to choose I’d take the cold. This kind of cold is increasingly rare because of climate change. Some people actually welcome it because they assume that warmer is always better. But, for my money, the very worst weather is 40 degrees and mud-ice. That’s what late March is for, but January should be like this.

Anyway, fish fry tonight. Jordy’s venison stroganoff tomorrow night. Brad’s famous charcuterie board. I’ll make my jambalaya. A cocktail here and there. We’ll survive. May you do likewise.

That’s it for this week, kids. You can look forward to warming yourself by the light of a Quote & Quiz tomorrow.