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January weather in the upper midwest is usually windy and brutally cold with a fair amount of snow and freezing rain. This year, our weather has been more like November. The result has been confusion with the wildlife, livestock, and humans. We know winter is going to be brutal. Everything gets prepared to freeze, face starvation, and live through short days with long nights. When it is pleasant outside, it messes up the balance of nature.

Our lake has alternately been frozen solid and completely open since the middle of December. One day a hundred geese will be swimming about and the next, most of them are gone while the remainder are walking around on the ice. Most years, geese migrate south when the winter sets in. This year, they are not convinced winter is really here. I especially enjoy the mornings when a flock of geese flies in after feeding in a nearby cornfield overnight. Expecting a soft landing on what had been water when they left the evening before, they skid in circles and flounder about crashing into each other as they hit the newly formed ice. Most days when this happens, they walk around the lake looking perplexed, hoping the ice will melt. Some days it does, some days they think seriously about continuing their migratory flight south as they stand on the ice with cold feet.[[In-content Ad]]

The horses and dogs spent all fall growing enough hair to insulate them from the worst weather that can happen. When the temperature gets near sixty degrees, they are way over dressed. A coat of hair that will keep them comfortable in a blizzard at twenty below is miserably hot in this unusually warm weather. The dogs have been sleeping under the porch as if it were a hot July afternoon as they attempt to keep cool. The horses spend their days grazing in the shade of the oak trees that dot the pasture. During a normal year, their days would be spent huddled around a big bale of hay eating constantly. This year, they have barely touched the first bale I put out for them.

Deer are also over dressed and confused by the warm weather. Their thick double coat of hair that keeps them warm and protected from the freezing elements is also keeping them overheated. It seems they are moving and eating later at night than usual when the temperature is colder. I know they are not stressed by lack of food since they do not have to dig through snow to find their usual food sources. The few I have seen lately during the daylight hours seem to be fat and happy even if they are a bit confused as to why we are not having a winter.

People have also been surprised and confused by the weather. My wife and I usually try to survive the winter by bundling up and ignoring it. Saturday, she and our grandson, Zane, took off on the Gator armed with walking sticks as though it were a spring day. It was warm enough to be a spring day and the two of them were going to make the most of it. Two large dogs were ready for a good romp in the woods also and joined them as they looked for shed deer antlers, checked the ditches for coyote tracks, and found where the turkeys had been scratching up the leaves to find left over acorns.

When they got back, the dogs were hot and exhausted. Zane and his Nanna were full of tails of their adventure. The weather may be a but confusing when compared to what it should be, but I have yet to hear any complaints about it.

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