Twenty-twenty-four was a rather slow year for me photographically. I haven’t taken so few photos in a year since 2008, the year after we sold a house, moved 2000 miles, bought a new house and started readjusting to life in the Midwest following 25 years in Portland, OR. Life sometimes has a way of reminding you that there are often more important things to deal with than taking pictures. This past year was one of those years.
I haven’t added a post to this blog since last August. Since I used to try to add one or two posts a month, I decided that this year I would attempt to post something at least once a month. Well, today is the last day of January so I can’t put that task on ice any longer!
Speaking of ice, some of you know that I often like to walk on Lake Mendota, especially in winter. I’ve only been on the lake a few times this winter because it took its time to freeze over. It also changed its mind a couple times. It first officially froze over on Christmas Day, December 25. But, it reopened two days later as temperatures rose into the 40s.
I wouldn’t say I was impatient, but I did check every few days to see what was going on. This has been a strange winter because of wild temperature variations. On January 4 the water remained stubbornly in its liquid state. As I’m sure you know, water has a very high heat capacity so it hangs onto every last calorie (or Joule, if you prefer) of heat as long as it can before freezing.
The UW Center for Limnology reported that the Wisconsin State Climatology Office deemed the lake frozen on January 3. Despite that, the Wisconsin State Climatology Office said that Lake Mendota froze on January 7. It looked close to solid when I looked on January 8, but I still didn’t try to walk on it. Later, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal reported that the State Climatology Office said it was officially frozen on January 15, which is the third-latest date in its recorded history. I was out of town a couple times during the following weeks so I can’t unofficially confirm the official reports.
After a bit of a hiatus, I finally returned to the lake on January 29 – 30. The weather was beautiful and the ice looked quite smooth. A few people were ice fishing and a few were figure skating. There were some places along the shore where water could still be seen and a small pressure ridge or two proudly rose above the surface. In the pressure ridge I could see obvious layers of ice and I wondered if the freeze-thaw cycles we were having contributed to that. Leaves on the surface sank comfortably into the ice and tiny bubbles (where are you Don Ho?) were also visible in places.
It’s January 31, so I made one last trip to the lake before deciding that I had to add this post, even if the topic was a bit simple. There was some open water. Ripples moved across the water as the breeze kept reminding me that I was cold and should probably finish my afternoon walk and get home. One small ridge of ice had crumbled a bit and I could again see layers in the ice. Small refrozen cracks sank into the ice and were covered with what looked like frost. In the distance stood an ice boat on blocks. The runners had been removed so even if I wanted to sail it I couldn’t. The breeze again reminded me to go home and have some hot chocolate. That was good advice.
If anyone still visits this web site, thank you very much and sorry for the long delay.