Features

November icing over

ESCANABA -- Ice sparkles on a puddle.

Frost paints the ferns and the ground. A few last hanging apples sweeten on the treetops.

November was once known as the "month of freezing over". November, the eleventh month of the year, is a mighty month in Upper Michigan. Often over shadowed by deer hunting season, November has much to offer the outdoors folks.

As flashy and brilliant October is, with its colorful leaves, November brings on a somber, serious masterpiece of contrast.

November is like in the olden days, switching from color film to black and white film.

Goodbye autumn golds and welcome to the world of silver, grey ang black.

Lines, light, texture and patterns fill the photography of November.

We lose a couple of hours of daylight. Temperatures plummet. The gales of November roar.

Our whole northern world turns a comfortable grey. The whitetail deer have totally changed their coats from summer red to the warm (hollow haired) insulated grey coats.

Mice make themselves at home.

The snowshoe hare, weasel and ermine turn from brown to white. Freezing over is important for U.P. wildlife and waterways.

The white critters need a white background to blend into. The freezing silences the insects and drives the sap deep into the tree roots.

What Yooper kid has not enjoyed a thin layer of puddle ice. The crunching sound under the boots is a snap, crackle, pop like Rice Krispies.

Icing over creates diamonds along the creek banks and a firm floor for the swamplands.

The last several decades have delivered warmer winters to northern Michigan. Frost, snow and ice, some folks fear it. But with wool socks, warm boots and maybe even a pair of creepers, icing over can be nice!

Icing over starts out so gentle and fragile like the film of ice on the rain barrel and grows to cap rivers and can put three feet of ice on Little Bay de Noc.

So put a piece of wood on the fire and pour a hot cup of coffee.

Everybody is waiting for white!

Be prepared, be warm and well.