and warming up now. More to shovel later. UP--it is winter in god's Country Wisconsin

Every Michigander knows that, as all the Suomilainens "up back nort" remind us.

To hell with Norwegian bachelor farmers. We have Finns here.

(BTW, I am a proud descendant of both Norge and Suomi. Both my parents made fun of their spouse's heritage.)

My mother would say a dumb Finn is the same thing as a smart Norwegian. My father would recite a verse: "Ten thousand Swedes marched through the weeds to lick one sick Norwegian."

Nota bene: my father never dared malign Suomilainens -- Finns. Make of that what you will. My father was an Eisenhower Republican who hated the Bush family. My mother was an FDR Democrat. On Election Day my father would come home from work and say (with tongue planted firmly in cheek), "I have to go cancel your mother's vote." In their over fifty years of marriage, I never knew them to argue.

A most rural west Michigan county. I can go a mile or so in any direction and I will be in the midst of the national forest.

I voted at my township hall last Tuesday at 4PM. I was the 128th voter. Turnout was pretty good. It would have been much better if deer could have voted. Or Rocky Raccoons. Or coyotes. All of which undoubtedly have more individuals than humans, let alone legal voters.

Myself, I would opt for the porcupines, which do no entity any harm. They're also very cute. The raccoons, on the other hand, are all assholes. Choose your own animal political metaphors.

Finns have married into our family. But most are up nort from here (along Hwy 29). Lots of sweeds--and Norwegians around here but also Low German

heard of any Suomilainens so lookee it up--meaning of Finnish origin. We have Finns in Northern WI --up by Cable, Ashland. My sister married one. He actually uses his sweat house to this day

Finland is an Anglicization of Suomi.

Have an owl postage stamp:

would say--When are you going up back nort--as a joke. YUP. Or I would say--I am going upbacknort tomorrow.

dump of real wet snow--it stopped. As I looked at the radar --the big band is just going nort of 29. We were suppose to get it up it went nort

And yes btw--I am used to saying "up nort" I lived in Madtown for many years.

Thank goodness that here in west Michigan we have Wisconsin and Lake Michigan to moderate the winter storms. (Very sorry Badgers.) However, we get enough lake effect snow, thankfully not often here (some 50 miles from the very big lake).

However, it has been cold here and it has snowed twice in recent days, the first on Halloween -- pretty early.

Last winter was horrible here. It was not the accumulation of snow -- there has been many years here when winter snow accumulations have been much higher. However, last winter the snow basically never stopped. Here in the midst of the national forest, where almost all of the roads are unpaved, a few inches of snow can be a very big deal. If one depends on outside effort to clear ones very long driveway, a winter like last year can indeed become very long.

Things are beginning far too early this season for my comfort.

Stay warm, DUers!

the changes--going on--the extremes of which warming is one of them