Lake Superior

There isn't much exciting going on for me right now! The past two weekends I have stayed home and read, which is enjoyable, but I keep thinking I'm supposed to be doing something else. I bet most of you reading this would be happy to have enough TIME to just sit around and read or do whatever you want all weekend, so I shouldn't complain.

A major difference I have noticed between moving around in my twenties, and now in my forties, is that I have gotten used to owning a home and having everything I need around me. I kind of feel like half a person now, living in a rental with only the items I could fit in my truck or things I have gotten here from thrift stores. It is freedom to have only a few possessions to worry about and especially no home maintenance! But I miss my cookbooks, my garage and project stuff, my printer and stereo, and especially my family, friends, and neighbors. I really hate to admit that I want more "stuff"! And I don't want more, I just miss some of the things I have put in storage (thank you, Frank). I packed up everything in my house in April - completely emptied the garage and house, except for the washer and dryer, refrigerator, and one stack of firewood. While I was doing that chore (thank you, Carol and George), I vowed to move only half of those items back INTO the house when I return, after selling or giving away the other half. How realistic is that?

Anyway, here are some photos I've taken in the last couple weeks. This first one is a place we go past every day at work when we're headed out to the woods. I know it is fairly well-photgraphed, but I don't know the history behind it. Beavers are quite the pests around here.

Sarah had a birthday party at our house, and a friend of hers came over with three kittens and a bunny! She was looking for homes for them. They provided some entertainment for us. Sarah wants to get another cat, and she kept a couple of the kittens for a few days, but they eventually found other homes.

We thought Rufus was very polite when he met each of the kittens and the rabbit but right after I took this photo he hissed at this kitten and ran up the stairs. He didn't want to deal with them at all after that. We had just lost Chunky only three days earlier, and were still trying to see if Rufus would act any different without her. Although I liked the kitties, I really wanted some time to just pay my respects to Chunky. This week, Rufus seems to be just fine as the only cat here but who knows.

Sometime soon I will write more about work when I can get some photos there. Here you can see a couple guys talking about axes, which I found amusing. On the right is Adam, who is on my crew and who I carpool with. He was a professional lumberjack this summer, going around and performing at fairs and stuff, so his axes are very important to him. On the left is Tom, who works in the wilderness all season and therefore uses all hand (not power) tools. They must have talked about these axes for about 15 minutes. In the background is our office - the LaCroix Ranger Station.

I drove to the north shore of Lake Superior on Veteran's Day. I am still getting used to having paid holidays - especially this one in the middle of the week. Thank you, Veterans, for your service!

It was hard to capture the world's largest freshwater lake in photos, but I tried. It was an overcast day. This photo is at Temperance State Park and this shows the Temperance River going into Lake Superior. Further up the road was Temperance Liquors. Hmmm.

Looking down toward the town of Grand Marais.

Waves! (It was a pretty calm day out there.)

I think this is an ice house:

More Lake Superior

That's all for now!

More fall color, sauna, shower, and Chunky

I don't understand how a month has gone by again since my last post! October was a beautiful month for leaves. Shown here are the red maples on the 4th.

The following photos are from the 9th - it was a rare sunny day so a good time to go boating and see the colors. The reds are maple, the yellows are aspen and birch.

At the Blue Heron B&B, our first task in the morning was to put out black sunflower seed for the birds (and squirrels). Here are some evening grosbeaks, and a red squirrel. I took these photos on my last day of work there. The next guests will come in early December, and there will be fewer of them than in the summer.October 24th was another nice day so Sarah and I walked to Angleworm Lake. This was a neat bridge/boardwalk over a marsh.

By then the hardwood colors were past their peak, and the tamaracks (larches) were showing brilliant yellows against the dark green of spruce and balsam fir. I thought this was an interesting scene.

On the 25th, I went canoeing with Scott. It was a rainy day and I decided to get serious about the clothes I was going to wear. Not sure what my military-like pose is about, but at least I am smiling! Actually, I think this is a Gilligan look.

These are my boots! I'm very excited about them. They are insulated rubber with neoprene uppers. The Forest Service bought the boots for me, so I have to give them back when I leave that job. There's so much water here that it's pretty common to walk through a swamp so I think rubber boots are worn a lot in the spring and fall. Then for winter the F.S. bought me insulated leather boots.

This is Sarah working on the sauna. I don't know much about its construction because she is building the whole thing. I can see that it's pretty solid, and has an insulated floor.

Here are a couple photos of the shower I made. It was hard to capture it in a photo because of its location under the stairs. Anyway, here you can see that it has a frame of PVC pipe which is hanging from the ceiling. The shower curtains go into a large rubbermaid container, and there is a second square of PVC inside the curtains at about hip level, which makes the shower more spacious and keeps the curtains from sticking to you. The pink thing you see hanging inside is a shoe bag to hold our shampoo and soap. The rope you see going to the right is what we use to pull the filled water container up above head level, with a pulley (see next photo).

Here you can see the 2.5-gallon water container hanging from the pulley, and the "heat" lamp. The shower is next to the refrigerator, on top of which we store our drinking water. I have found that I use around 1.5 gallons or less for a shower. So instead of devising some sort of a drain, we found that it is pretty easy to just dump out the Rubbermaid container after showering. And that's that.

***************Chunky******************

Chunky had a "fibrosarcoma", a cancerous tumor, since April 2008. It was removed twice and grew back, so last January the vet and I decided no more surgery. She lasted over ten months after that with the tumor growing on the outside of her ribcage, but sadly, she finally had to be put to sleep on Friday the 30th. We took these photos of her on her last day here.

The tumor had broken through the skin this week and there was really nothing more to be done. You can kind of see it in this photo above her back leg. Over the last three months she moved around less and less but was still able to walk up and down stairs and outside.
We live on two acres so Chunky is buried on the property here. I had her for eleven years, and she was 13 or 14 years old. She's done traveling now, and I miss her!

It is November 1st as I finish writing this post. It was 32 degrees outside when I checked this morning, and fall here seems no more harsh than in Mt. Shasta/Weed. We have had snow, but nothing that stayed on the ground more than a few hours. In November, the ground and the lakes are expected to freeze and then the snow will come - at least, that's the way they hope it will work here. I have planted some bulbs in the yard knowing that we'll need some cheering up come April and May.

I plan to drive south to visit Katie, Tim, Greg, and Jerry. So if any of you are reading this, beware! I hope to see Katie this month.

October

Thought I'd post a few photos of the beginning of fall. Most of these were taken at the Blue Heron Bed & Breakfast, where I still work Sundays. This is Sam on the lawn.

This is Sam on the dock, looking out on Farm Lake. He loves to swim but did not jump in today; it's cold, rainy, and windy. There are still guests at the Blue Heron, but mostly just on weekends now.

On my birthday we had dinner at our house and played a game which made us all laugh! This is Scott, Betsy, Sarah, and Heidi, who all work at the Blue Heron. Scott spends the most time there, kind of in a manager capacity, which consists of a lot of repairs, maintenance, and organizing. He and I cook breakfast together on Sundays, which is a lot of fun. Betsy is a server for dinners and also works in the flower beds. She is a half-year resident of Ely, living on family-owned lake property while up here, and spending the colder months in the twin cities. She was a chemist in her earlier life. Sarah mostly works at Greenstone Nursery but also does yard work at the Blue Heron. Heidi is a long time Ely resident who has owned two resorts in the past. She cooks breakfasts on weekdays at the Blue Heron. She's originally from near Solvang, California!

These are just some random photos, trying to capture the fall leaves.

This one of the Blue Heron can be compared to one in an earlier post.

Here are some of the canoes at the Blue Heron.


Anyway, it's fall and I have been at the thrift stores buying warm clothes. I am also very pleased with the selection of gloves, hats, and everything else you need to stay warm at the stores here! I will definitely be bringing some of this stuff back to use in Northern CA in the winter.

I don't think I'll be going on a four-day canoe trip to Quetico next weekend, mainly because I don't think I have someone to go with, but also the current weather is putting a damper on my desire to go. We'll see... but I did get to see U2 in concert!!

Remember reading about Scott's great little stone cabin on Farm Lake? Well, it has been sold and escrow is about to close. Scott has to move out on Tuesday, October 6th. It is certainly a time of transition around here. I've been very lucky to spend some time at that place and will always remember it.

Settling in to Life in Ely, Minnesota

So, I'm sitting in the laundromat. My clothes have been done for a while, but I am staying here to use the internet. I was lucky and didn't have to use the laundromat all summer, until this month. Now I have lost my washer and dryer, free internet use, and running water. What is next? Actually, next is my 45th birthday so my Blue Shield health insurance is going up to $190 per month, with a $4000 deductible. So I have almost reached the stage where my health insurance costs more than my housing (which currently costs me $200 per month)!



What I have gained is a guaranteed 13-month job with benefits, so I feel pretty lucky. I've now been working at the Forest Service four weeks, and it is going alright. I have many new things to learn, such as identifying paper birch, yellow birch, black ash, red maple, quaking aspen, bigtooth aspen, black spruce, white spruce, tamarack (larch), white pine, red pine, and jack pine. The pines are easy and so is the balsam fir and white cedar, since there is only one type of each. I must learn what ground conditions make logging in winter necessary. I must remember there are no hand fallers with chainsaws here; only machine logging. I have to find my way in the woods without slopes. I have to accept the use of GPS as a daily routine. I have to (get to?)make amoeba-shaped cutting units. I have many computer passwords and online training sessions.



The weather here has been spectacular all month! The maples are turning red, birches and ash turning yellow, the air is clear and the sky is blue, just like at home in September. The cats have been exploring the yard. The lakes are still warm enough to swim in, but actually it's been over a week since I checked. I am really hoping to get to Quetico Provincial Park in October. It will depend on having someone to go with, mainly. My plan would be to paddle there from the Boundary Waters so I'd be leaving from here. It can be cold, but many people still do trips at that time of year.



I've been looking today at plane tickets to come home for Christmas. Looks like it should work out fine, as long as the weather allows. I should be able to spend about a week with family and squeeze in a short trip to Mt. Shasta/Weed (at New Year's?) to visit and to pick up some items from storage.



Chunky and Rufus are doing well; Chunky seems to have low-grade pain all the time, but still moves around pretty well and does all the usual eating, drinking, etc. I have noticed she only ever lays on one side. I have some pain medication I may give her any day now.



I'm beginning to construct a shower stall, with a hanging 2.5-gallon water container. Wish me luck. Sarah is working on making a sauna! There is an old wood stove and lots of tiles that were left here which she will use, along with wood from various sources.



I'll hope for something more exciting to report next time!

Inside the House

Not too much exciting to write about right now....but here are some photos of the inside of our cabin. About the lack of running water: there are lots of cabins built here without plumbing. One reason for that is the problem with pipes freezing if you are away. So a lot of these cabins without plumbing are used in the warm weather months only. But there are a reasonable percentage of them that are used year-round. Saunas are very common around here (and so are people of Finnish descent), some of which have showers in them, but all can be used for bathing purposes. So, lots of the cabins without running water have saunas. But not ours. We plan to put in a very primitive shower, but so far the weather has been so warm we've been bathing outside (and I have been showering at work, and at friends' houses).

The kitchen is pictured below. It is quite spacious and even has a sink with a faucet. You can see all our 6-gallon water containers under the sink. We have a foot pump with a hose which goes into the water container. You pump and water comes out the faucet, then drains right under the house! That setup makes things quite easy in the kitchen. I wish they had installed a shower stall with a drain, but there isn't one. Anyway, I just wash my dishes in a dish pan, mixing a bit of boiling water in with the cold water.
Here's the living room, which is one big room with the kitchen. It looks out into a very nice yard; we have two acres included with the cabin, and there's a hill behind the house so you can walk up and overlook Shagawa Lake, and see the town of Ely across the lake. There's a bunch of "ledge rock" up there. I guess that means bedrock? The TV you see is not connected to anything - it's for watching movies! So my new roommate is same as me with television.

Upstairs are the two bedrooms. That's all - a big room downstairs, and two bedrooms upstairs. Why bother with closets, hallways, and bathrooms? We also have an entry room, like a mud room. The cabin has a cement floor with "off peak" radiant heat (ground floor only; the bedrooms have a standing heater). The mud room does not have heat, but will make a good transition room in the winter, to keep the cold out of the rest of the house. Right now it is the warmest room. It has a bench and lots of space.

The bedrooms look out onto the yard also, so the cabin has four large windows facing south. Most of the trees around the yard are deciduous so we'll have even more light in the winter. I like all the wood siding inside, and the wood floor upstairs.

The cats mostly hang out here in my bedroom. They do go outside, but only when I'm home and it is daylight, so that's not too often. They are still getting used to the place, and they have been moved so many times this year, I don't blame them for being wary.

That's about all the news for now. I work at the Forest Service Monday through Thursday from 6 AM to 4:30 PM. I wake up at 4 AM, leave the house around 4:30, get to my carpooler's house about 4:45, and we get to work about 5:35. Then I have time to take a shower, or just get the day organized before starting work at 6:00. I get home about 5:30 and try to get to bed at 9PM. So eventually I will have three day weekends when I stop working at the summer jobs. Right now I have Fridays off, and work Saturday and Sunday in Ely. By October that should be finished.

I'll tell you more about my job later.

New House

This photo is from Labor Day. I rode my bike to my friend Laura's house and we rode together for a while and then went for a short paddle and swim. She lives right on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
That weekend I moved into a new place. Now that I have a new 13-month term position at the Forest Service, I moved into a more permanent home situation. I have a roommate, Sarah, who is shown below chopping wood.

You see here the outside of our new house, with the outhouse in the background. Yes, we have moved into a cabin that has no running water!! It's more common here than where I grew up. I'll explain more about that later. So here are some photos of the outside, and next time I'll post some of the inside.

I'm in my second week at the Forest Service job and it's going pretty well. I am working on the timber crew at the La Croix district of the Superior National Forest. We are doing sale preparation, which means determining and marking harvest unit boundaries, cruising, and marking trees. More on that later too; I just wanted to post something today.

A Month Has Gone By!

Fishing success! This is the second fish I caught in Minnesota, and in this decade for that matter. The first fish was about the same and was caught a few minutes earlier, but it slipped away before a photo was taken. It's a northern pike. Before that the only fish I've ever caught in my life have been trout, and probably less than ten of them. This was on Tuesday, August 25. I never thought I'd take up fishing, but when in Rome.... Plus I have an excellent teacher.

Now it's Sunday night, August 30, and I am preparing to start my new job at the Forest Service tomorrow morning! I also will be moving on Tuesday! Here's what else I have been up to for the last month:

AUGUST 28 VISIT FROM COUSIN TIM BOOTH

My mom's youngest cousin Tim Booth lives in Minneapolis. He and his daughter Timra came up for a visit to camp, hike and see the Wolf Center. I was very happy to see them! Tim played my guitar and sang, which was very fun.

We hiked to Kawishiwi Falls, which is in between Garden Lake and Fall Lake, where Tim and Timra were camping. Tim decided to climb around to look at the power plant.

They came up to my work and paddled kayaks into the Boundary Waters, and saw a couple bald eagle fledglings.

They also took me to the Wolf Center, where we saw the pack of six wolves get their weekly feeding of a road-killed deer, and learned a lot about how wolves get their meals in the wild.

Timra, me, and Tim in front of the Blue Heron Bed & Breakfast, where I work.

AUGUST 24 CANOE TRIP TO WOOD LAKE IN THE BOUNDARY WATERS

Scott's landlord Bill claimed that he built a cabin in the boundary waters and used it for fifteen years before getting caught, after which he was fined $50. Then he burned it down, I think the story goes. So we decided to go look for the site, which was on the shore of Wood Lake. With his directions we found what looked like the right area, hiked around a little bit, and found some siding and shingles! It was exciting to think that once there had been a cabin there, used by our friend Bill and his family.

You can see here that this is a good-sized landing area, which in my experience is uncommon in the northwoods. Usually all the land is covered with vegetation, but here you have a great place to land the canoe, unload gear (and building materials?!), and a great place from which to cast!

We posed for pictures next to some of the building materials, to prove we had found the place.

After touring the site of the cabin, we found out there were a bunch of BIG fish hanging around! I have never seen anything like that. They seemed to be biting on almost every cast! These are smallmouth bass.

We toured the rest of the lake also. Although we saw a couple other canoes and campers, for the most part we had the lake to ourselves. So we could spend the day watching wildlife, deciding where to fish, and where to stop for lunch and swim. Our own playground.

Bald eagle

Adult loon (on left) with two young loons!

I'm learning a little bit about fishing here.

There was a LOT of beaver activity in Wood Lake. We found a dam and a pond they had made, where all the trees were drowning. Scott decided to fish in there and caught his lure on a log/snag. So, he had to go swimming in the icky freezing beaver pond.

It was foggy the next morning, because the air was cold and the lake was warm-ish.

This is what the canoe portages look like. I also portaged the canoe on the way in, which took about 20 minutes.

Another memorable trip, and only minutes from home - but in the wilderness!

AUGUST 18: COOKOUT AND HORSESHOES

I had a little get-together shortly before moving out of my college house. Friends from the nursery and from the bed and breakfast came.

Sarah (my future roommate) and Zoe, both coworkers from Greenstone Landscaping

Scott and Chunky

Heidi and Betsy came too, but I didn't get any good photos of them!

AUGUST 9: TRIP TO VOYAGEURS NATIONAL PARK

Getting ready to set off in Voyageurs National Park! This park is mostly used by people in motorized boats. Therefore we, in our canoe, had a disadvantage at finding campsites. Scott and I paddled for about ten hours, about 20 miles, and found no available campsites. We were about to leave the park when a ranger stopped us and told us we needed to turn on our headlamps since it was getting dark. Turns out this ranger (actually a game warden) was the same person Scott had been reading a book about. We were very excited to meet this person he had read so many stories of. (Sorry about my grammar.) He found us a beautiful campsite and escorted us to it! The trip turned out to be really fun - lots of swimming. The park is very beautiful, just like the Boundary Waters, but if you're canoeing it just doesn't make sense to go there. I'd love to return in a motorized boat.

Scott modeling his camo bug suit pants and recently acquired canoe

The trip to Voyageurs N.P. was another magical one.

August 6 took a short trip to Duluth! First time seeing Lake Superior! Very interesting area.

Big ship in Duluth

Nice evening on Farm Lake

I have noticed a lot of liquor stores around here are called "Bottle Shops"

July 30, I visited Mom's cousin Ardena Yakle and husband John. They are currently living in Lawrence, Kansas. Their sons both live in southern Minnesota and gave them a trip to a fishing lodge in northern Minnesota. It was great to see some family!