New Year's Day 2023

The pond near my apartment on New Year's Day. © Dawn Nelson

 

The snow is now gone. It is hovering around 40 degrees Fahrenheit on the afternoon of New Year's Day. It is a wild swing from last week's weather of subzero temperatures, only to swing back later this week. 

Such a fun time! My only wish is that we get enough of a stretch of cold weather that the lakes freeze over long enough to walk out on the ice and appreciate the vast beauty of winter.

We shall see. 

After the Rain

Some very windy storms blew in last night to usher in the astronomical summer at 11:31pm, bringing with it half an inch of rain on my side of town.

Today I took a walk to survey some of the local damage. Unfortunately one of my favorite trees took a direct hit from a straight line wind and one of its major limbs broke away from the trunk. But more fortunately, this seems to be the worst of it. 

and life goes on:

A momma duck and her ducklings after the storm

and then they killed the tree:

experimental television

A few months ago I stumbled across this great broadcast app called Periscope. It was perfect for livestreaming from the field. Unfortunately, it is discontinuing (aka being absorbed by Twitter) but today I found this great new platform called Happs. I think I like it. Can I embed it? Let's find out:

The last of the snow and ice

It's been quite dry now for several weeks, with zero precipitation to report on the northeast side of the city. All the snow has finally melted away from the north side of the hill. It was probably gone by yesterday but I didn't take note of it until today. So now that the snow is rapidly fading from memory, I ventured a walk into the woods. This is probably the best time to walk the trails before the rains storm in and turn everything into a mud pit. 

It was there I found the last of the ice in the dry, dry swamp.

A small patch of snow and ice center right

A small joy to find this patch, as I was slightly sad I missed the last snow photo op pondside.

A snow and ice free pond

The temperature is around 65 degrees F (12:00pm EST) with a west wind blowing in this morning and early afternoon, hinting at gale force at times. Fewer geese and ducks around today as I assume they are finding cover. This concludes my hyper-local report for the day.

 :-)

A clear blue sky marks the day

Okay so today was the day for official ice out of the pond.

view of the pond facing east

Aside from that I felt compelled to visit the Lake Erie shore before all the ice melts. The temperature was in the 50s and the sun was out nearly all day in the company of a clear blue sky so I knew there was no time to lose. I headed straight to the shore to visit Sterling State Park on the western basin and got a fair bit of footage. So much, in fact, that I finally filled the data card for my Nikon. 

Fortunately I take the Android Blackberry along with me now, which is actually the camera that makes sharing these photos much easier. And the blogger makes it quite simple to share my videos from YouTube. Altogether, this seems to be a good depiction of the state of the west shore. Well, at least the mile or so that I walked today.

from the mud to the horizon, I present to you: Lake Erie

the largest patch of ice and my favorite smokestacks

Ice out date log

I think I may be able to mark the dates March 1-2 for when my local pond ices out. It's the southern edge of the pond, where it edges into the hillside, that is taking the longest to thin out. Otherwise known as the snow side of the hill. You can see this on both the west (photo left) and east (photo right) sides of the pond.

My goal for this week will be to visit the lower river where it lets out into Lake Erie. Hopefully I can make it there before all the ice melts, as it is supposed to be a fairly sunny week in the 30s and 40s. Right now it is a cold start to the day at about 26 degrees F at 10am. The clock is ticking.

So my plan is to head out to the shore soon, likely tomorrow.

--- 

Update at 3:30pm: It appears there is a thin sheen of ice from overnight low temperatures and windy conditions, so the ice out dates have been postponed until further notice :-)

View of the pond facing south southwest

the March begins!

So, so close.

A little colder today though, only 35 degrees F and a bit windy so that will slow things down after yesterday's spring heat wave (which was in the 50s).

I made a trip to document the ice cover further down river yesterday and was reassured there is still plenty of it, although much less stable now. This was really such a short winter recreation season on the ice. The ice fishing folks probably have a thing or two to say about it all, I'm sure.

But the March begins! I guess March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion now? All these folklore sayings simply don't stand a chance against climate change. The cultural impacts on what constitutes 'common knowledge' is only going to get weirder over time. 

Taking this into consideration, I can appreciate that I have had the opportunity to live in one general watershed region nearly my entire life. As much as I may fuss about it some days, the benefit is that I have a core of knowledge gained from the lived experience of the seasons in this region for decades. I can sense the changes more instinctively. If this is the consolation prize for not having lived in more places across the US, and beyond, it's a pretty good one. 

Here is my recommendation for the day: take a moment to really listen to the birds that you hear outside today. Another beautiful aspect of this region is that it is central to several major North American continental flyways. This means we can observe a lot of migratory birds as they pass through. It's an exciting time for the birding community. In fact they dedicate a whole week to it, called the Biggest Week in American Birding. Only two months until the biggest week begins in early May, so it's time to get ready! 

In the meantime, check out this cool birding blog where they discuss why ornithology should be taught in high school: 10,000 Birds.

Creek Life

A foggy mist out there this morning.

Just a trace of precipitation over the last day. I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon walking by the creek and river. The creek is working overtime doing its job. It's always so beautiful to see it functioning in top form. So often throughout the rest of the year it is a tiny, quiet tributary, but in the season for snowmelt, it shows off.

As I was walking along the creek I thought about how fortunate I am to live so nearby that I can see it from my balcony. A two minute walk and I can quickly gather the status of its condition. Knowing this little creek will ultimately flow into the Huron River, and then on to Lake Erie, is such a lovely blessing. It is a very simple way to feel connected with nature and the Great Lakes, even an hour inland from the nearest shore.

I decided on my walk that my goal will be to capture as much of the river's journey throughout the spring season as my capacities will allow. From creek to Great Lake.

North edge of the hill

There may not be any snow left for tonight's full snow moon! Of course the snow always melts much slower on the north side of the hill, so maybe. 

Tuning in to the actual pace of melting ice and snow into water really slows down your sense of time and equilibrium. We always feel so compelled to rush around and do so many things on any given day.  I think finding a natural process to follow along as it unfolds can be very therapeutic. 

Yesterday as I went out to check my rain gauge, I heard a woodpecker not too far away. It made me realize how often I might tune out the sound of a woodpecker, but this time I really listened, and it reminded me of summer, as if a promise. 

This early spring thaw is a little disorienting to me, this is weather I expect sometime in mid to late March so my sense is that summer will arrive much sooner than it actually will. 

Perhaps there is a benefit to living on the north edge of a hill. It tempers the personal impact of climate change on your sense of season's change.

Slow melt

A slow melt proceeds. As an advocate for long winters, it was nice to see the sheen of ice on the newly open water on the west end of the pond this morning. 

It does seem like we only had winter for about 3 weeks, and certainly not for three months like I remember while growing up near a lake. Now an early spring thaw before the end of February... is unusual. So a slow melt is just fine with me.

Driven to precision

A bit of a colder start this morning so the natural world can say a long goodbye to the ice. I finally revved up my Android Blackberry device to take some photos -- it is a phone I bought aftermarket and quickly realized it functions much better as a field camera than as an actual phone. Here are the results: 

This is the west end of the pond as seen from my main balcony. A lot of the ice cover is gone from this side because the water drains into the creek, as you can see. 

The more I write about what seem like mundane details about the time of year the ice melts, the more I want to go out in the field and document and share more observations. It is an excellent motivating force and one most welcome. It drives me to be ever more precise, which I find rewarding.

A view of the pond facing north-northeast

26 degrees F at the airport on the south side at 9am this morning and 29 degrees F on the northeast corner of the city. I'm sure the variation is due in part to different sensors, but also the difference in elevation (about 70 feet farther up the hill on my side of town). 

And there is a lovely clear blue sky this morning; it seems we can look forward to more of this over the next several days (finally!). 

Update: A peek at the Huron River this afternoon around 3pm:

As the pond thaws

This week is about watching the pond thaw and noting the exact date it 'ices out' -- when a body of water is 90% free of ice. I anticipate this may be within the next day or two.

By the end of this week the natural world will have transformed from a majestic winter wonderland to a muddy early spring chatter house. It's really something marvelous when you stop for a moment and think about how incredible that really is. Novelists work hard to fictionalize a whole world, called world-building, and if one is paying attention, you can adopt a lot of narrative just from watching the seasons change.

This year also marks the return of the cicada, so you will soon see that I am not kidding when I say 'chatter house'. The sounds of cicadas as they hail their return to the stage after 17 years underground will trigger deep memories of summer, and truly, I think that is their gift, to help us understand deep memories. Memories that we've attached to that particular sound of summer. 

But for now, ice! Be careful out there, the ice will thin quickly.

42 degrees F at 10am in this cozy northeast corner of the city (elevation 910 ft ASL), and 42 at the airport (KARB) on the south side (elevation 837 ft. ASL). 

--- 

By 2pm: