Several consecutive days of waking up to slushy, wet snow last week and constant temperatures hovering around freezing were a reminder we’re in the heart of winter.
We’ve been lucky with the temperature staying above sub-zero, but there hasn’t been a shred of sunlight in quite some time as of Monday. Gray, gray, gray days have punctuated that old winter feeling.
My snowmobile friends are unhappy — there’s not enough snow and it’s too wet to ride around here. My cross-country skiing friends are unhappy — unless you are a genius at waxing skis, this isn’t a great winter to hit the trails. Ice fishing? Well, at least on the Madison lakes it’s been good, although the slushy snow has made things messy. Just this last weekend at D&S Bait Shop they were reporting perch, legal-sized walleye and 40-inch-plus northern pike being taken from beneath the ice.
A saving grace in our community is the ice arenas, with hockey and curling games. Hockey parents and players are used to five months of fluorescent lights per year. Youth hockey also requires plenty of travel in this icky weather, plus sitting in the cold and eating out on weekends … It’s the same thing for wrestling, basketball and gymnastics families. Sometimes two tournaments a weekend. A lot of time with a posterior on uncomfortable bleachers.
The true ancient meteorologist — the farmer — has to deal with mud turning into ice and back again. Cows and other livestock aren’t necessarily safe walking on slippery places. The freezing and thawing of the ground leads to frost heaving, which lifts young plants and creates poor topsoil conditions for spring farming.
The USDA says milk prices for farmers, which improved to $18.35 per hundredweight in 2019 are supposed to continue to increase. However, the Base Class I Price for milk in February 2020 was $17.55 per hundredweight. It costs between $17-22 for hundredweight for farmers to be profitable. We’re blessed in Wisconsin that 90% of our milk goes into cheese production, which is an increasing consumer market. We’re far from being relieved of the current farm crisis. The price of fluid milk in stores continues to astound me. How can it be so low? I understand supply and demand, I simply find it inexpensively priced.
Milk and cheese are important topics during our gray days because one of our most important “hobbies” in Wisconsin during winter is eating.
Each week I’ve been focusing on a different local cheese and trying to make something new out of it. Last week was chicken dumpling, vegetable alfredo soup. I’m covering a lot of food groups with that one, and it says “comfort food” all over it. I generally make my soups to a consistency that they’re roughly approaching a stew or chowder. And speaking of chowder, New England Clam Chowder is among my favorite winter soups.
As savory foods can make us feel satisfied and happy, the hazard is falling into a circle of sustaining one’s self with mocha lattes, cinnamon buns, flaky homemade chicken pot pies, fresh-bread slathered with butter, sizzling beef roasts with mashed potatoes and steaming-hot bread pudding with melting ice cream. What’s a calorie count for a day of comfort-food eating to escape the winter blues? Let’s just say it doesn’t mesh with the article in the grocery store’s magazine rack about how to get your body into swimsuit shape in six short weeks.
As for lasting out the rest of our winter? I focus a lot on remaining upright. Taking a fall when you’re under 12 years old might be something to laugh off. Taking a fall when you’re a true mature adult is downright frightening. Falling on slippery ice only takes a second to occur and it seems like everything you can fall on is prone to break — a wrist, rotator cuff, hips or knees … The advice is “try to fall on your butt.” Who can remember that when such a shocking event, like a fall, occurs?
I’m thankful for access to a treadmill, but more importantly that for Christmas I was gifted a “Disney+” membership, so now in addition to reading, writing, cleaning and cooking, I can watch my favorite Star Wars films on command.
Like with all winters, this one, too, shall pass. Groundhog Day is Sunday.
— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.
