Surveyin’ da Situation: It looks like the snowplows will be leading the 4th of July parade again this year

In my recent ramblings I related some of the issues we are having here with this year’s snow totals to date and how we all seem to pull together to help each other get through it. I believe most of the local folks have dug out or have been dug out from the last storm, but the weather folks are warning us of yet another impending storm. In my travels yesterday I ran into quite a few folks who had this storm warning on the top of their conversation list.

At least for now, there continues to be a fair amount of humor attached to this year’s winter and to the storm heading our way. There hasn’t been a run on supplies yet at the local grocery stores or gas stations, but the propane delivery trucks are out in full force. Many of us here don’t have the luxury of natural gas, so propane, wood and heating oil are the fuels that get us through the winter season. I dug a path to my propane tank the other day to check our supply and noted it could use a refill so one was ordered and the delivery truck was there a day later making sure our tank would be full for this next round of snow. It was a good feeling to see the truck come down the driveway.

One item still on my to-do list is to get a shovel out and see if I can’t get some of the white stuff off the roof of our house and garage. I have never had to shovel off our roofs on this place before, but did a lot of shoveling on the roof of the house I grew up in as a youth. There have been a couple of collapses in the area and I really don’t want to add to that list, so I think I will do what I can to lessen the 3 feet of snow that seems to have made a home on top of ours.

As far as the humor goes, I have heard several observations that made me smile. One I remember my dad always saying was that he took his long johns off on the 4^th of July and put them back on the 5^th of July. Another I remember being kicked around was that we really never had summer here in the west UP, simply 6 weeks of bad skiing. There were some summers I remember where this had more truth to it than not.

I saw a post recently on Facebook from the DNR reminding our local ice fisherman that any shanties they may be using had to be removed from the ice this year no later than July 1^st. It went on to say that they were sure the shanties could safely be put back in place by the first of August. Obviously, this didn’t come from the DNR, but it did draw a lot of “Thank you for the reminder” responses on the post’s comment section.

I appreciate the humor I hear or read about this year’s winter season. We all know that the weather will turn around and the mercury will rise once again. I am just not sure when. I do know that it may reduce the number of hot weather complaints that also seem to pop up in the middle of summer when we do enjoy some nice weather.

A clerk that waited on me recently at my drug store told me that her town had already modified this year’s 4^th of July Parade. Instead of having our county sheriff lead the parade, this year the parade was going to be led by the town’s snowplows. She said it would assure that the rest of the floats would be able to take part in the parade. I just hope that the candy that gets tossed of the floats doesn’t get lost in the snow banks.

And that’s the situation as I survey it …

After a 35-year career downstate livin’ amongst da trolls, during which he built a successful engineering and surveying business, John Matonich is back home in da U.P. His column will appear here occasionally, don’tcha know. His book “Surveyin’ Da Situation” is available on Amazon.com.