Cold

Yesterday was (I think) the earliest I've taken the water apart at the cottage since 2013, and I'll tell ya, back then I never would've thought November 5 would be remarkably early to be taking the water apart at the cottage. It's a good thing NaDruWriNi was early this year, because I decided this year that NaDruWriNi is the official Last Night at the Cottage, and if it was when it will be next year, I wouldn't have made it, because the temperature is supposed to be below freezing for more than a day and a half straight starting tomorrow afternoon, and may actually be below freezing for two and a half days straight starting around now, seeing as it's only supposed to get above freezing briefly tomorrow. Early next week it's looking like it's going to be about ten degrees below normal for a couple of days, which I'd imagine means the lake will freeze even earlier this year than it did last year (or was it the year before, or last year and the year before?). The lake is the highest I've ever seen it this time of year--not that there are many years I've seen it this late in the year, but there are a few more mid-Octobers I've seen it and the lake's been much lower than it is now for all of them. (The level of the lake is manipulated by a small hydroelectric dam downstream--in the fall they let the water out to something near what the lake would naturally be so that the spring runoff doesn't push it it too high, although the last couple of years it's pushed the highest I've ever known it to anyway. Given where the lake is now you might expect next spring's flood to be even worse, but it's got the whole winter to drain, so I imagine the lake always starts at about the same level when the big spring melt-off starts. (Funny thing about that dam manipulating the level of the lake is that the dam was put in after the lots around the lake were divided up, and some property lines were defined as distances from shorelines that are now normally higher than they used to be.)) There are summers I remember from my childhood that the lake's been lower than it is now--in my memory the lake was normally lower than it is now, because I remember playing on shore, making little dams and ponds (in which I may have attempted to confine crayfish), which is now almost always under a couple of inches of water all summer, but that's one of those things I now suspect may have only happened once, but it's what I remember most, so I feel like that's how it always was. Anyway ... I sure hope it doesn't get cold this early next year, because it's awfully nice to have something nice (as opposed to the regular holiday ordeals) to pin the year to year after year.

Which reminds me: I've thought a few times in the last week that shutting down the cottage time is like the end of the year, but the beginning of the next year is six months later ... which reminded me today of Howard Adelman a while ago saying that he figures years through a lot of the Hebrew bible are six months long (and so Moses is 60 actual years old when he dies, not 120 (and that does not mean the rest of the Israelites whom God said would have to die in the wilderness before they entered the promised land died young because that was Exodus and this is Deuteronomy and these are two different stories)), because there is a secular new year in the spring and a religious new year in the fall (which reminds me of Howard's saying that the point of the sabbath is that every day but the sabbath is not holy, which is a thought I've got tucked away). So, I gotta keep working on making this another new year and not just the time after time ends and before it begins.

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Currently under my porch: 1.9. Currently at Crowe Lake: 0.9. High there today: 4.8.