Is the day after tomorrow, and it’s snowing.  Christmas time, this snow would be gorgeous. Light, fluffy flakes softly floating down past the streetlights, covering the lawn in puffy blanket of white. Makes me want to go back into hibernation for a couple more weeks-wake me up in time for the walleye opener!

This isn’t the latest I’ve seen it snow. Many years ago I was flying a small plane up to Grand Dudes cabin. Scudding snow, flurries here and there, and a terrible headwind. About halfway there, I figured out what my groundspeed was-I was traveling slower than the cars on the interstate below me! My arrival was a bit later than planned. Such a headwind when I got to the airport. I pulled the throttle back for my descent to land, and stopped moving forward! I looked out the side window, and could tell I was stationary over the lake! Had to give it full throttle just to get to the runway and land.

A few years earlier than that, Best Gal and the Munchkinettes drove with me to Grand Dudes cabin. Memorial weekend, nice, though a little cold. Driving back home (5 hours south) as we got close to home, we encountered cars with fresh snow piled on them. Found out that there had been 6 inches of new snow while we were gone.

Not the record, though. Latest measurable recorded snow was in Mizpah, Koochiching County on June 4, 1935 (betcha Google that one to figure out what state!). Earliest snow was a trace that fell on August 31, 1949 at the Duluth airport. (May have given the answer away with that one.) Wouldn’t be much of a summer that year.

Back when I was a bit younger (silly statement, any stories that started “when I was older” wouldn’t have happened yet) I interviewed for a job on the North Shore in Wisconsin (gotta understand that the North Shore in Wisconsin is the south shore of Lake Superior). Best Gal and I were looking at a realtors’ listing of homes for sale. I remember thinking, does everybody sell their homes in the winter here? Later I realized there weren’t to many months in that area without snow on the ground. Might have been a little more snow than I was prepared to handle.

Well, hibernation does sound good right now,

Snoring for the Good and True,

Billy Acre