Snowed in

I shouldn’t be surprised; except for an Army duty station about 20 miles north of Saigon, I have spent my entire life in Wisconsin. It gets cold in Wisconsin with plentiful quantities of ice, snow and cold temperatures. Between winterkill and snow mold disease, it can be a fitful time here for golf course superintendents.

That fear of the worst was amplified when the Weather Channel reported that Madison, Wisconsin is the third coldest city in the U.S. The survey covered the 100 largest cities in the U.S. They used 30-year averages for December, January and February from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. The only colder cities than the one I live in are Anchorage and Minneapolis/St. Paul. We fall below freezing an average of 152 days each year. The temperature drops below zero an average of 17 days a year, a number that has risen to more than 30 so far this winter. The cold weather is complemented by our average of almost 50 inches of snow each winter. This winter, in our town, two days out of three since Nov. 1, 2013 have been below normal. In a Wisconsin winter of bone chilling cold, polar vortexes, artic air blasts and four feet of snow (so far), at least we’ve had company. News reports on TV and in newspapers have detailed the misery that resulted from extreme winter weather from the heart of Texas and points east and northeast of there. Photos of highways filled with abandoned cars may yet cost the mayor of Atlanta and the governor of Georgia their jobs.

When cold or ice or snow enter southern climates, it can seem hundreds of times worse that our Wisconsin winter weather because people simply aren’t prepared or equipped for it. One of my daughters has lived in Raleigh for five or so years and cannot believe what an inch of snow can do to paralyze a city. Pictures she sent me of stalled traffic on I-40 were stunning! No power, no school, clogged roads and hassles for just about everybody. Welcome to our world. State highway officials were giddy in early February when two ships docked in Milwaukee, each with about 50,000 tons of road salt. It will be useful if temperatures ever get high enough for it to work. California and the western states are still in a desperate circumstance because of the drought they are experiencing – a different problem but one that will surely impact golf courses. New England has also experienced record snowfalls, ice storms and cold temperatures.

Superintendents in northern areas are always worried about winterkill, and in my experience winterkill is most often associated with ice accumulation for an extended period. It seemed the exclamation point to a troubling winter as I watched our USGA Green Section Agronomist Bob Vavrek on a video demonstrating how to best remove a turf sample from under an ice layer. After sampling, the turf plugs are taken inside, prayed over, and warmed up in a sunny windowsill in hopes of seeing some green grass!

Winter is, they say, what you make of it. Curling, ice-skating, skiing, and snowmobiling draw people to them. Ice fishing brings thousands of people to our lakes, establishing village-like collections of ice fishing shanties. I have even heard of some of these “villages” electing a mayor! A craft brewer had the idea to deliver beer to ice fishermen with drones until the government nixed the idea. On some lakes, sturgeon spearing is a big sport. We have had our share of polar plunges, ice carnivals, ice boat races, and spelunking the ice caves on the shore of Lake Superior. Golf tournaments are played on courses staked out on the vast expanses of ice on a lake. Some tournaments are played over land using colored golf balls; drives can roll for hundreds of yards on the frozen tundra! Ice hockey is as popular as basketball in many places, and the Wisconsin/Minnesota rivalry in collegiate hockey keeps some days heated up. I resorted to watching the PBS program about Ernest Shackleton and his expedition to the Antarctic aboard HMS Endurance and the subsequent harrowing adventure. The cold we have experienced is nothing compared to what those explorers endured a hundred years ago. Likewise, the Olympic Games from Russia had some fabulous film pieces about Siberia and the Trans Siberian Railroad. They really have cold weather there!

Early in the winter of 1913 a resident of Watertown, Wisconsin had had enough of the miserable winter weather. He and his wife operated a tavern named The Turkey’s Roost, aptly named for Art Gehrke’s nickname. They had an apartment above the tavern. Although Turkey Gehrke was only 30 years old at the time, he announced to the world he was through with winter. He didn’t have enough money to spend the winter in Naples or Tucson, so he went to bed and stayed there until April. He repeated this hibernation every subsequent winter. His wife ran the tavern each winter while he slept upstairs!

Most of us didn’t quite feel like Turkey Gehrke this past winter, but there isn’t a single superintendent who isn’t happy that spring is here. It’s been a long time coming, and the memory of it will make the long days of summer a lot easier.