A UP Tradition - The Snow Sticks Are In!

The sunrises continue to be beautiful, especially on these cold UP mornings.

The tamaracks are in full fall color.

Even with a dark sky they portray sunshine.

If it wasn't for the tamarack pine tree, who's needles change to a golden color before falling to the ground like a tree sheds its leaves, the countryside wouldn't have much color left except for browns and greens. A tamarack standing tall against a dark spruce evergreen creates such a vivid contrast.

But there is another thing I want you to take away from this picture...

See that vertical stick on the right? It's just stuck there - on purpose and for a very good reason.

And can you make out another one directly across the street?

This is a common tradition in the UP.
Snow sticks!

Here's one on our main road. Every road in the county that will be snowplowed this winter will receive these inverted vertical sticks in specific increments along the edge of the road. I've seen county road commission guys all over the place this past week with their pickup truckbeds loaded with straight sticks. The purpose of the sticks is to provide safety to the snowplowers and a sense of where the road is during a blizzard, snowstorm, or in the event the snow gets so high. By monitoring the sticks, they'll still be able to get a pretty good sense where the edge of the road is.

More on the main road which can do a serious drift over from all the open farmer's fields.

And even at the beginning of our driveway to our house. We are fortunate to have the county road commission snowplow guy come down our mile long gravel road (which is also a main snowmobile trail in the winter). He does a wonderful job keeping us plowed out without taking away from the snowmobile trail. (Steve, of course handles the immediate driveway.) The plow comes as far down as our house, backs up in our driveway, and then heads east again.

Billy...we salute you!

This past weekend we visited out son in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Sunday I will post the fall pics I took as we traveled the northern route up and around Lake Michigan. To us Yoopers, it was like experiencing fall twice! And our son lives two blocks from Lake Michigan.

Gorgeous!