Mid-Winter Thoughts

March 3, 2024
 
    It has been a different sort of winter here at Lonesome Lake.  We had a brown Christmas for the first time in memory.  Gus and his missus were out boating on December 29th.  It was warm and sunny. January was cold, snow fell, summer ended and then it warmed up.  Same in February.

    They say it’s the Spanish lad, El Nino.  It occurs every few years, and this one may be stronger than average. The problem seems to be a chain event.  The water in the tropics along the South American and Latin American coastline get warmer.  This somehow causes a shift or weakening of the westward blowing trade winds.  These are not part of any free trade agreements.

    So, to back up slightly, these trade winds move west to east and cause a circulation of the oceanic water with lighter, warm upper water moved eastward, dragging cold deeper water west toward South America.  This circulation causes an upwelling of colder water along the coastline. For reasons known only to scientists and engineers in basement laboratories, these cold waters carry a lot of nutrients.

    So, what does that have to do with your snowmobile, complete with 2024 trail permit sitting in a patch of bare weeds in mid-winter?  I am getting there, but first we need to think about fish.  The upwelling of slightly chilled, delicious nutrients provide food for plankton, which are eaten by zoo plankton, who are in turn food for a lot of little fishes like anchovies.  These guys, the ones that don’t end up on someone’s pizza, feed lots of fish, whales, the little known Salt Water Platypus and the occasional Coelacanth. Remember, this is all occurring along the west coast of South America, which is some distance from northern Ontario.

    Now, back to that patch of weeds.  In addition to the trade winds, there are northward blowing winds along the west coast of the Americas. With warmer ocean temperatures, we get warmer winds. These eventually move eastward across the US and Canada, bringing more rain to California, and warmer temperatures to Lonesome Lake and some other better known, but strategically less critical locations.

    So, while we might wish to blame politicians for knee deep slush in February.  It is really not their fault.  Just don’t let them put the trade winds into any agreements.
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    Gus stopped by last week.  Wondered how I was doing, and if I was starting to make summer plans. Nope, it’s too soon.  That’s something for the muddy season, when the snow melts and the ground turns into a quagmire. You can make all sorts of plans as you slog through the mud and most of them involve moving somewhere sensible.
   

     Now, I am not one to complain, but has everyone’s mail been slow this year?  Sometimes I think the Post Office still keeps a few dog teams on hand.
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    I have been assigned the spoons in our new barbershop quartet. There are five of us.  Sammy, Bob and Earl can all sing on key and play some guitar and mandolin.  Gus likes to bang away on the drums.  I am the odd man out, unable to carry the tune in the basket.  It was Earl’s idea.  He says practicing music, as a group, will keep our minds agile and avoid the winter doldrums.

    Now, some sticklers will suggest that a barbershop quartet consists of four men, singing a cappella.   That is, without instruments.  But here’s the deal.  We are too old to belong to a “band,”  Our voices need background.  Gus really loves those drums, and what harm can I, the fifth man, do with a couple of spoons. 

 

I promise not to sing.

Ricky