A sunny winter morning can look pretty after a new snowfall or frost formation, but normally by the time it warms up enough to venture outside, the wind has blown the snow off the trees and this morning it looks like it is snowing again with snow coming off the tree limbs.
Winter Morning
One hobby I had as a kid was collecting stamps and at the time, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to what was on the stamps but more on which stamps I was missing. A few had more meaning to me, places I had seen like Devils Tower, youth groups I was in like FFA and 4-H, the stamps dealing with Wisconsin and the six cent sheep stamp.
Mixed in the three cents stamp is one honoring the four chaplains who gave comfort and gave up their life jackets when the United States Army Transport Dorchester sank after being hit by torpedo on February 3, 1943. The four Army chaplains brought hope in despair and light in darkness and as the ship went down, survivors in nearby rafts could see the four chaplains–arms linked and braced against the slanting deck when more than 670 men died.
Traditionally, the first Sunday in February is Four Chaplains Sunday and the local American Legion veterans rotate between the area churches to honor what the long forgotten three cent stamp found in my collection called “these immortal chaplains”.
These Immortal Chaplains
More information on the Four Chaplains click on this link
Click here for a video on the the Four Chaplains
Groundhog Day is a holiday celebrated on February 2 in the United States and Canada. According to folklore, if it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day then spring will come early. If it is sunny, the groundhog will supposedly see its shadow and retreat back into its burrow, and the winter weather will continue for six more weeks.
The groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, or whistle-pig, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels. If any rodent ventured out on this cold morning, the groundhog, or even a ground squirrel like pictured, would have seen its shadow so a long winter ahead.
Rodent Saw Its Shadow
The new month is starting out colder but it will take a string of cold days to create ice thick enough to walk on to view the ice caves like last year and to catch the golden glow of the setting sun.
A Golden Ice Cave
The month is coming to a end, typically the coldest month of the winter season but it was a warmer January this year even though most days were still below freezing so not warm enough for summertime yellow flowers.
Missing Yellow Flowers
I haven’t ventured to Amnicon Falls State Park in the winter time to see the river frozen over and the landscape covered in white. It has been a warmer January so I wonder if there is some open water. I wouldn’t mind visiting the falls and Horton bridge again, as each season offers a different sight from the rushing water of springtime melting changing to the summer greenery that fades to a quieter falls in the autumn with orange and yellow backdrop until the barren trees are blanketed in white again, ready to repeat the cycle.
Water Under the Bridge
The rolling hills of Wisconsin currently are not showing patches of various shades green from crops and pasture land since covered with a layer of snow instead.
Rolling Patches of Green
With several days of cloudy skies, there is no yellow sun to see and it will be a while before yellow flowers or yellow weeds appear again.
No Yellow in Winter
My cat used to give me kisses and whisker rubs and I think I prefer that to a slobbery kiss from a heifer!
Slobbery Kiss
A new coat of snow covered the ground during the night temporarily covering most of the critter tracks.
New Snow Coating
