This winter has been the warmest winter ever recorded in Wisconsin.

It feels like winter lasted all of two weeks in the month of January. We had a week of snowstorms followed by a week of bitterly cold temperatures. That’s been about it.

It feels like we are still waiting for it to arrive. But the summer birds are coming back and the trees have been prematurely budding for the last couple of weeks. I think I even heard someone start up a lawnmower.

A lot of tourism dollars were lost on the mild winter. I’ve seen more people on motorcycles this winter than I ever did before and no one on snowmobiles. I didn’t go cross-country skiing or snowshoeing. After the week of snowfall, it was too cold to enjoy it before it was gone.

However, the menfolk still made their annual ice fishing trek to the far north woods this past weekend. There wasn’t a lot of ice on the inland lakes, just enough to walk on. Lake Superior didn’t freeze over. No one was driving big trucks, snowmobiles, or even 4 wheelers on the ice. This year I didn’t even see one ice shack.

Some people like it, others don’t. Some feel trepidation about liking it and remind others who are too joyful of the blizzard we got in April a couple years back. Some worry about the economy, global warming, the environment, the farmers, the tulips, and drought.

One thing is for sure. No matter what we say or think, we don’t have control over the weather. We can knock on wood as much as we please, but that doesn’t change a thing either. Why do we think our words have the power to jinx things? Even the weather forecasters with expensive equipment can’t get things right.

We just need to move on with life and keep on living even when the patterns we live by are off. No one is certain what the future holds. That is true even about the weather.

It seems strange though. I wonder what the rest of the year will bring.