Slow drift into winter 2021-22

Winter is here in Wisconsin. Saturday morning, a brief but brutal storm of wet snow turned into a snow clearers nightmare, with 3-4 inches feeling as deep as 8-10 inches of light, fluffy snow. Still trimming up the edges today, 48 hours after the storm ended.

But let's face it. Winter 2021-22 has come in more like a lamb than a lion. Trace amount snowfalls -- five or six of them -- preceded Saturday's blast, but if the temps hit fifty on Wednesday as forecast, we could be back to no net snow ten days before Christmas, with a green Christmas not impossible to imagine, or at least to hope for.

Once the temperature and precipitation seals us in, cabin fever really locks in, at least in my mind. The house seems smaller, the days seem shorter (even as they lengthen after Christmas, from a low of 8:52 a day of sunrise to sunset), walking outside seems wholly unattractive, the sun seems to be less present (most days), and spring seems more like a dream than an expectation. Even false promises of spring as early as April can keep disappearing as quickly as they come, and February stretches into March, then April, and even May can be too early to plant outside.Per Ruth, June 1 is her day to plant, and she knows the Wisconsin climate much better than I do, and she lives two hours south of the Harrison tundra.

So we hunker down. The StreetStrider is in the basement, next to the elliptical, but the Strider lacks a functioning base. I merged Dena's Mac onto mine and I moved my Mac to the kitchen after first moving it from the front guest bedroom -- Gaby's room now occupied by Jane. Next might be a new MacBook Air for Jane, perhaps a smaller desk for her office work, and a trade in of both her old laptop and Dena's Mac. The Cub Cadet runs fine, so far. The garage heater has not been used this season, and not since last winter, maybe ten months. With the easement cleared and the lawn in its second winter, the yard is flat and open to wind. And the neighborhood keeps growing, crowding us in. That too adds to my sense of confinement, cabin fever. What used to be a nice view out our back window to the sunrise in the east is now a trio -- and growing -- of homes blocking our rural views. It feels more suburban than semi-rural. And according to Mike Zuleger's dad, our small, somewhat Eden-like village of Harrison may soon have its own zip code and maybe even a Harrison address.