Seasons

It's snowing here in Wisconsin today. Oh, not the smattering of flurries that fell in October, no, these seem to come with the intention sticking around for awhile. Not that this is unexpected. I mean, it is November and Wisconsin. But unlike my Floridian friends and relatives think we are lucky in Wisconsin when it comes to weather. Sure we get snow, but we also get a abundance of colors dominating the landscape in spring. Then there's autumn, my favorite and often shortest season. The air turns crisp and the leaves give one last flash of color before diving back to earth to enrich the very tree on which they grew. Summer is perfect. Not to hot (most years) and still warm enough to get out and enjoy it out there. Besides we don't get hurricanes here. Having lived in Florida during Andrew and several smaller storms I could easily recognize the outer bands of Sandy as she blew in from the east a few weeks back, but it only amounted to a cloudy day here. Okay, so there is the annual threat of tornado to deal with, but mostly it affects some hapless farmer, or if the weather gods are really angry a small town or city, but don't you have to play odds in the game of life? No, we're pretty lucky here. All this got me to thinking. If your a troll only 3 inches tall how do you deal with a foot of snow dumping on your head? I mean do they have tiny snow plows out there in the marsh? I kinda doubt it. Maybe they all get together and have a shovel party, snow flinging in every direction. Nope, can't picture that either. Oh, I know. They must hibernate! On second thought, I don't think so. Oton has never mentioned anything like that. Even so, trolls are creatures of Norway. They have to have some means of dealing with 100 inches of the white stuff. So I looked it up. Surprisingly Norway despite being mostly above that imaginary line etched around the earth called the artic circle enjoys realitively mild winters. Sure they endure 21-23 hours of darkness everyday, but that sounds like prime troll time to me. Along the coast its would seem winters are no where near as snow filled as one might expect. That flush of hot water called the gulf stream, the same one that rushes past our own east coast kisses Norway on its way around the globe keeping winters under some level of control. Deeper inland, in the high mountains the game is different. Snow, lots of it. So how do Oton and his friends survive winter? I guess it's just one more on the long list of questions I have for him and his friends. The moon is nearly at the proper phase so I'll be seeing him soon. Sure hope he's in a better mood this time.