Plus, right now our snow is fine and dry. It only gets heavy where it’s packed down towards the bottom. When it’s warmer we get those heavy, wet snows that can do a lot of damage, especially late in the season. One year I came home from a trip to San Francisco and found broken trees all over the city- on June 6th.
I’m worried about the same thing. Rain once or twice a week all summer and fall and cloudy days in between. It has been the same this winter so I don’t see a change in the weather pattern.
As snows deepen, the púcas begin to take an interest in my apple trees. Critter fence turns rabbits, but púcas are a different matter because, apparently, they climb trees. I never catch either kind of beastie in the act of chowing down, though.
P. S.: Yes, you can walk/run/bike on the Madeline Island Ice Road:
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PNW can get some silly real cold, time to time. Hell they’ve even had “real” snow this winter. Here in California we moan and bitch if it’s below 60°F for an extended period. (which it has been). We just know we’d get raked for complaining from our NE neighbors lol 
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Maybe it would make you feel better to know that last summer the heat wave turned most of my young grapes instantly into black raisins, and one of the big asian pear trees was blackened from top to bottom, leaves, fruits and all. One of my sisters lives in Missouri so I know what you are going through. Best wishes to you all.
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Tonight’s storm seems a lot bigger than predicted. 4-8" looks to have turned into over a foot. And it is still coming down. I’ll measure tomorrow, but I don’t look forward to shoveling, as it was pretty heavy when I went out earlier.
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Crazy cold for March here in Omaha. -9F low today and the norm for March is 48 F. Looking forward to to next week warm up in the 40s. I hoped it stayed that way. My indoor trees are looking for some real sun rays.
Tony
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we have something similar on eagle lake. part of the town is on the other side of the lake, so people that work in the main part of town have to drive 20mi. around the lake to get to work in the summer. in the winter they contract someone to plow the lake, cutting the commute to 5min. instead of 20. before insurance was a issue, the logging trucks used to haul across the lake there as well.
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we have voles here that do the same thing. only time i have issues is in the winter, under the snow.
I think we have about 10” here.
Will turn to ice tonight and continue frigid cold for a couple more days. The low in a single digit worries me.
Correction. Only 10” from last night storm. More on the deck that was not shoveled 
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-8 F here at the moment- looking forward to a balmy 20 F high.
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-16 was the low here. It’s 9:45am and it’s gotten up to 0. I think it might be cool today. 
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Just got all the broken trees from the late November ice storm cleared away. Since then, we haven’t had a whole lot of snow, not like farther north. You can see the vole trails where it’s melted away.
Today we’re watching to see if the temps hit the record low high for the date, which is all the way up to 17.
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Just think before refrigeration they use to go to the lakes/river and harvest ice. Now that would have been fun! I watched a PBS thing about it one time… brrrrrrrrr
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Six-foot tall, white voles?
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In WALDEN, Thoreau describes how ice merchants sent crews to the pond to cut the ice, which was considered particularly pure and clear. That was then.
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Yeah…not sure i’d be making mix drinks with Mississippi River ice chunks 
It was big business back in the day. Simple refrigeration but had to be back breaking work. I had a 5 gallon bucket (full of water) freeze solid on me a week ago and that thing weighed a ton…it also warped my bucket.
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lol! they can climb 6ft. under the snow.
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