The winter of 2020 – 21 had been an easy one with only 2 nights of low temperatures below zero into the first week of February with daytime highs in the mid 20’s to mid-30.

And then excessive bitter cold marched out of Siberia forced its way across Canada over the border and swept over my house in northern Wisconsin without a sound still on its way to Oklahoma and Texas. This is nothing new and most winters it is the norm from November to April but this year we started to believe it would never happen, so long underwear, bulky sweaters and puffy jackets stayed in the back of closets, but the groundhog knew better.

On February 2nd we have faith that groundhogs can forecast the weather for the next six weeks – this is not true. The groundhog cannot predict the weather; Groundhogs control the weather from there extensive underground layers where they are also the inventors of such things as the polar vortex, bomb cyclones, wind chill and Time Shares. Groundhogs would like you to imagine they are just cute, furry ground dwellers that we celebrate one day a year. In actuality they are a supper Marmota monax that have figured out how to influence the earth’s meteorological conditions for reasons only they know – all hail “The” Groundhog!

After rereading the first part of this essay I think this arctic blast has compelled me to spend way too much time in my house and that I should check my ever running gas furnace to make sure it’s venting outside and then head outside and Shackleton.

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an English explorer who in 1915 while exploring in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica his ship the Endurance was crushed by pack ice. He and his crew spent nearly six months on a drifting ice flow before he and a few of his crew set out to find help, and after an arduous journey they were all saved. So that is the mind set I get myself into when I attempt to venture out into air so cold your nose could freeze, turn black and fall off in minutes. So into the back of the closet I go to dig out the long underwear, bulky sweater and puffy jacket and gear up to go Shackleton.

You may be asking “why would you do this?” Because if you didn’t Shackleton you might spend too much time in self-imposed seclusion in your warm home writing delusional ranting blogs about weather controlling groundhogs – that’s why.

Down to a small stream that the cold of winter has not frozen over and it still freely flows into a lake and at that spot ducks and swans gather to feed and rest from what life has given them like they always have.

When I arrive at the stream I am disappointed that I see no swans – I as scan the scene I notice lumps of snow in the water that are not lumps of snow but swans all curled up resting in the below zero temperatures.