A big leap forward

Until now, 2020 was our most recent official leap year: Now 2024 has added another day to the month of February for a total of 29. With the addition of the extra day, our calendar year now becomes 366 days. Why have a leap year? It takes an extra day every four years to keep our calendar current with the earth's rotation around the sun. If we didn't have a leap year, farmers every few hundred years would find the calendar telling them to plant their crops in November, leading to, I must observe, remarkably poor harvests.

Babies born on leap day are called “leapers” or “leaplings,” I personally prefer the second one, since it sounds more baby like. Al Rosen (baseball player), Dinah Shore and Jimmy Dorsey (entertainers), and Pope Paul III are all famous leaplings. If you are born on a Feb. 29, it doesn't affect your legal drinking or voting age. You become legal at 11:59 PM on Feb. 28!

I'm done listening to all of the weather records and temperatures broken this winter. It appears we have a new record weekly. There were 16 days above 50 from December through February. Many record daily high temperatures were declared and we received almost no snow. Why such a warm winter? Do we blame El Nino or the atmospheric “jet stream” for modifying our wind and atmospheric pressure to shape our non-winter? Was it global warming? Who knows, but this senior citizen can say it’s been his best winter ever.

A prediction is something one thinks will happen. A prediction is still a guess and here are mine for the next few months.

#1. Today is Feb. 26: I'm making a call that ice will be off Clear and Loon Lakes officially by March 2. A new record, the old record on Clear Lake is March 14, 2016.

#2. We will see snow plows one more time this winter season. Traditionally there is always snow or sometimes a blizzard during the girls’ or boys’ basketball state tournaments.

#3. I'll observe my first group of robins returning to Minnesota earlier than ever before and a group of young Canadian geese goslings earlier than ever before, some time in mid April.

#4. I'll have my boat out of storage the last week of March and get it water ready. That’s something I usually do about the middle of April.

#5. The great old timer fishermen will tell you to fish crappies and sunfish in the warm shallow bays just at the time the lilacs begin to blossom. Mushroom hunters also tell you to hit the timber hunting when lilacs begin to blossom. I know I'll be fishing the bays and walking in the woods earlier than ever before.

#6. Here's a prediction and my biggest wish: April showers, many, many of them. With no snow pack, we really need water and moisture for farmers' fields, lakes and rivers, and of course showers for the flowers. Optimistically, I predict a wet April!

I recommend using a rainy April day to try baking my all-time favorites, a batch of “Delicious Cookies.” The recipe:

Add: 1 c. butter – room temp, 1 c. vegetable oil,1 c. brown sugar,1 c. white sugar

Mix.

Add: 1 egg, 2 tsp. vanilla

Mix.

Add: 1 tsp. salt, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. cream of tartar, 3 ½ cups flour

Mix.

Add: 1 c. old fashioned oatmeal, 1 c. Rice Krispies

Mix.

Stir in a bag of milk chocolate chips – I might even go heavier with the chips.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees – bake for 12 minutes.

I've also had them with butterscotch chips.

I predict that when your family, friends or neighbors taste them, they will beg you for the recipe and thank you for the best cookie they've ever eaten.

A closing tip for a better cookie. Refrigerating your dough for an hour makes for an even better finished treat.