Going North

"So goodbye for a while I'm off to explore 
Every boundary and every door 
Yeah I'm going north . . . 

Up where the hunted hide with ease 
Under the arms of eye-less trees 
Up where the answers fall like leaves 
Oh and your love is all I need 
Yeah I'm going north"
- Missy Higgins "Going North"

I just got back from a very misty walk out to the mailbox. The weather's taken a turn for the grey (I woke to hear raindrops pitter-pattering on the rooftop last night), but the temperatures are still unseasonably warm. Today the temp's hovering around 50 and with no passive solar coming through our south facing windows (which Andy cleaned yesterday --suddenly our outside view got a lot brighter!) the temperature inside the cabin is about 63. A little chilly for room temperature, yes, but I will not, I will not build a fire when it's 50 degrees outside.

Besides, if I built a fire, then I'd have to change out of my cozy cashmere sweater into a t-shirt and I've had just about enough of running around in t-shirts in March, thank you very much. March through May is supposed to be prime sweater wearing season in these parts, when I can wear my frillier, lighter sweaters without having to wear Smartwool long underwear underneath and a big fluffy vest on top. But sweater season has been foiled by the Arctic meltdown of 2012 and so I am keeping the house nice and cool today,  just so my sweaters won't miss me.

I don't mean to be the dull blogger who writes about nothing but the weather, but honestly, this weather is crazy.

It looks like we're on track to have the earliest ice out ever - the previous record was in 2010 when the ice went out on April 11. We may end the winter lake trout season (which concludes on March 31st) in boats! 


Yesterday, Andy and I looked at each other and finally said the question we've both been thinking: Is the world ending?  

(I mean, a world without sweater season? Is it really worth going on?!)

Luckily, Andy, being resourceful and all, has a solution to this discomfit that comes from early ice outs and unseasonable weather. It's a solution that will result in never-ending sweater season. We just have to move . . .
to Alaska.

Now, whenever Alaska is mentioned, whenever I see an Alaska license plate, I feel the need to sing out "North! To Alaska" ala Johnny Horton. And I'm just a little nervous that if we actually moved to Alaska, there would be a lot more Johnny Horton in my life and I'm just not ready for that.

Also, considering the hit my social life has taken just by settling in bumblef__k rural Minnesota, I really don't want the majority of social contact to be with grizzly bears. (And yes, I did see Grizzly Man .  . . no thank you.) While my bags are packed and ready for Canada, I'm not sure I'm up for the land of the midnight sun just yet.

But I think everyone has a direction they're drawn in. Some people long for the sands and heat of the south. Pioneers were encouraged to "go west!" And despite several attempts in my early 20s to convince myself that I was meant to head east, it's obvious that the direction that tugs at my heart strings is north.

How north is this heart of mine willing to go? Only time will tell. But probably not all the way "North! to Alaska." Although, how many months out of the year would I get to wear my sweaters up there  . . .? 

What direction does your heart move? Anyone other than me and Meri upset about missing out on spring apparel this year?

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The Winter That Wasn't: Part II

So back in January, I penned a post entitled "The Winter That Wasn't." The basic gist of the post was: "Okay winter. Shit, or get off the pot." (Of course, I was far more elegant at the time.)

Well, apparently winter listened, because at some moment last week (I think it was Monday), winter decided to get off the pot. And winter didn't dilly-dally. It didn't waste time singing "Happy Birthday" to itself while it washed its hands. Nope, winter 2011-2012 took a drop of Purell and hightailed it on out of here.

I mean pussywillows on March 18th? Come on!

I wanted to love it. (After all, the moral of the story in "The Winter That Wasn't - Part I" was oh, I wish it were spring already.) But honestly? I find this absurd weather kind of creepy. It's not that we're having an early spring. It's like we've bypassed spring all together and are in the midst of summer. And I'm a girl who likes her seasons to come in the proper order, please and thank you!

I know the whole country has been experiencing some crazy high temperatures this spring. But for most of the winter, up here in northern Minnesota we've been able to hold onto some semblance of winter. That all changed last week when we started having consistent highs in the 60s. On Saturday, the temps climbed to 70s. The forecast doesn't hold any promise of it cooling off for quite some time. Already, the ice in the bay is looking downright rotten.

As a compare and contrast, here's what the bay looked like on April 11th, last year.

It's not unusual for the ice-out date for this lake to be in early - mid May. This year, it looks like ice out could come in March or early April which would be a new record. 

I want to soak up the sunshine and be enamored with this unseasonable weather. But instead I see extremely low water levels. Unless we have a veritable monsoon this spring, we are going to be in for some extreme fire danger this spring and summer.

I ran walked over to work yesterday afternoon to pick up some books and found that part of the lake's bay near the museum had disappeared. It's not a great example, but the first picture shows how the bay appeared yesterday and second shows what the bay normally looks like in May. Ugh. Low lake levels are so ugly!

I worry that this early spring will have totally ruined this year's maple syrup production. I worry about how the wildlife and flora will respond to this odd weather. I worry . . . .

I feel like the opposite of the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Rather than running around murmuring "I'm late, I'm late," I'm surveying the world around me and murmuring "Too early, too early."

Of course, I won't be terribly sad if this early spring means an extended growing season. The cold frame looked so sad and lonely in this warm weather that I just had to plant something in it. (Apparently I couldn't content myself with re-potting houseplants. I am happy this warm weather gave me an opportunity to repot a very root-bound rosemary plant out on the deck.) I sprinkled some "spring mix" lettuce seeds in a pot, watered it and put it in the cold frame. I won't be terribly upset if it suddenly grows cold again and the lettuce doesn't sprout. In fact, it may be a bit of a trick just for me to remember to water it. After all, it's not even spring yet.

Has it been unusually warm where you are? What's your favorite thing to do in the spring?

 

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The Winter That Wasn't

It might look like winter outside, but don't be fooled. This morning I woke up to a 71 degree inside temperature and a 32 degree outside temperature. Absurdity!

About this time last year, we were bundling up through -30 degree temperatures. That's a 60 degree difference between then and now!

Last year, it was perfectly normal for me to bring sled loads of firewood into the house each afternoon. This year, I bring in 1-2 loads that I can carry in my arms in each day. If this weather keeps up, we'll have enough firewood left out back to get us through the next two winters. (Heck, I'd be okay with that!)

I've been around long enough to have experienced the unseasonable weather cycles that El Nino and La Nina have thrown at us before. I remember walking the dog in a jean jacket (does that date me?) one January during my high school years. I remember the next winter delivered bone chilling temperatures. This ebb and flow of "real winter" and "fake winter" has become normal in recent years. Global warming? I'm tempted to lean that way, but I don't claim to really know what's prompting the swing in winters. 

I may fully acknowledge the "normalcy" of this "unseasonable-nsh", but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

This "half" winter is wearing, almost more wearing than a "real" winter. During a "real" winter, you can bundle up stoically and act all tough and hardy. But a "half" winter holds out the optimistic promise of spring just out of reach, until we start to feel like Pavlov's dogs. 

Because it's just winter enough to be a total pain in the arse. The days are growing longer, but it's still dark the majority of the time. With my winter driving paranoia, it still takes me nearly two hours to get to town.(I wish I was kidding. Anyone who's ever gotten stuck behind me on this slow moving journey wishes I was kidding too.) Normally, a string of 32 degree days means a big melt up ahead (spring! flowers! migration!) but in "half" winter, a string of 32 degree days is just par for the course. It just a God damned play on your emotions and hopes, that's what. 

And I know the local businesses are lucky to have the snow that we have. As one of the few places in the state country with snow, it should be a decent winter season. This is a good thing. The little snow makes it easy to move the woods and we should have some downright balmy ice fishing adventures if this warm weather keeps up. More good things.

Still, me and my seasonal affective disorder can't help hoping that this "half" winter gives way to "full" spring in the blink of an eye.

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Book Club Friday: Comfort Reads

I've posted about comfort food before. (Mmmm, oatmeal.) But today, I'm thinking about comfort reads.

Yesterday, we had an entire day of rain. Although the inch + of rain we got was much needed right down to the very last drop, the grey, chilly weather signaled a decided turn in the weather. Good-bye sunshine and balmy highs in the lower 70s; hello autumn's windy gusts, chilly rain and highs in the low 40s.

Drizzly weather always makes me think one thought: time to make some warm beverage (preferably mint tea, cocoa or cocoa and Baileys) and cuddle up with a good book.

Granted, when I say "good book," let us not get that term confused with "great literature." Rainy days are good days for books I like to refer to as "fluffy puppies." Kind of like how whenever I was sick when I was little, the only books I could muster the strength to read during my ailment were The Boxcar Children, when the weather's grey and chilly, I don't want to really have to think about anything while I read, I just want to be transported to whole different place through the turning of pages.

On the way home from the wedding last month, we swung by my parents' house and I loaded up my tote with a bunch of what I call comfort reads.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants quartet. By Ann Brashares 
Technically I'm far too old to still enjoy these books. While I didn't much care for the movie renditions of these, (I love you Alexis Bledel but you don't even look Greek let alone like Lena.) I will always have a soft spot for these teenage novels. Through the eyes of Tibby, Lena, Carmen and Bridget, you get an honest look at confusion we feel about a myriad of topics our entire lives: love, family, friends, work, death. Without falling victim to being a solely romance driven novel, I give Brashares big props for talking about the full spectrum of life experiences and taking these novels well beyond the "there's this boy . . ."  cliche.  Besides, at times these are snort through your nose funny. And I still like to remind people at work of Duncan Howes rules for customer service: "Rule #1: the customer is always right. Rule #2: if the customer is not right, please refer back to rule #1."



The Anne of Green Gables series. By L.M. Montgomery.
If ever there were books that were meant to be paired with a rainy day, some hot tea and maybe a buttery cookie or three, Montgomery's classic Anne books would be it. I've read the entire series of eight novels, not once, not twice, but three times.  A couple summers back, I decided to go through the whole series again, but only got through novel #1. (Damn you adulthood!) Anne's life on Prince Edward Island is by no means idyllic -- she comes from a place where you're expected to work for what you have and her life is punctuated by mishaps and tragedies, both big and small. And maybe that's why she's so likeable; because her world seems so very true. I'd like to think Anne and I are kindred spirits. (But apparently I share one love with Montgomery's other main heroine - Emily - that of italics.)

44 Scotland Street books. By Alexander McCall Smith
I've only read these books once and I've only read the first three, back in 2007, when there only were three. Set in Edinburgh, Scotland, the novel covers the antics of the varied inhabitants of 44 Scotland Street which include a University student, an anthropologist, and an overbearing mother.  This is fluff at its finest. The plots are never fully realized and the characters are missing that one final touch that would truly bring them to life. But there's good reason for the basicness of the books: although they reads like a novel, the books were first published in serial form in an Edinburgh newspaper.  And something about those Dickens-ish roots (or Anne of Green Gables-ish for that matter) makes it all the more appealing.

What's your favorite comfort read?

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You hear that?!? BEARS!!

The other night, the neighboring dog treed a bear. It was just a little bear, only about two years old and probably the same one Andy and I spotted wandering around near the road about a month ago. Last night when I went for a walk after supper, I carefully picked my way around two fairly fresh piles of bear poo. It seems everyone's seen a bear this season.

“I think it’s going to be a bad night,” Andy whispered, just as I was about to fall asleep last night. “I think the bear’s going to get into something tonight.”

"Don't be so creepy," I grumbled.

But I knew he was right to worry. There was garbage in the back of his truck and it seems inevitable that a bear will find its way to the grill on the porch before too long. We've been lackadaisical when it comes to keeping our backyard free of bear smorgasbord.

Still, we found an undisturbed backyard and porch this morning. But we did find a message waiting on the local community website though:

The unseasonable weather may have something to do with the abundance of bears in people territory this spring. Our early, early spring roused the bears at an ungodly hour and with the decided lack of rain, the forest probably hasn’t been offering bears the best eating. I know I get a little bolder when I’ve gotten up too early and can’t find anything decent to eat!

Now, when the dogs around the bay start to bark, I start wondering if there’s a bear afoot. I don’t have a fear of bears, but I’m not exactly seeking out encounters with them either. When it comes to mammals on my porch, I’d rather have something like chipmunks scampering around. But if I expect bears to “stay in the woods” and then I go right ahead and move into the woods, well, it’s not the bears’ fault if my place is the first place they come knocking when food’s scarce.

The bears may be less than thrilled with our spring, but the garden’s so pleased with the warm weather that you can almost watch it grow before your very eyes. In no time at all, there'll be lettuce and arugula to eat.

I’d been worried about putting the little seedlings I’d started inside, thinking they might need a little more coddling before I placed them out in the volatile outdoors. As the plants in the garden have grown and grown this week, the seedlings inside did next to nothing. It seemed apparent that it was time to get the majority of plants into the ground.

Currently, it’s 78 degrees and muggy, making it at least the seventh day in a row with a high in the 70s, if not 80s. It’s hard to feel terribly bothered with “frosts” when the highs are so very high.

Still, if frost isn’t a worry, drought is, for both me and the bears. Another good soaking rain is probably the best way to get the bears back to playing in their gardens and me playing in mine. In a perfect world,

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A Day Off of Sorts

The seedlings are starting to pop up!

Things have been kind of nutty around here lately. (To think the full-time job hasn’t begun yet!) We’re pretty well settled into the new living space for the summer, but there still remains a sense of transition. This morning, as I prepared to help out with a filming about my summer employer, I realized I didn’t know where my matching mittens, hat, and scarf were. It was 40 degrees and I was supposed to be filmed outside. All I could find was a black polka dot scarf, teal gloves, and a navy blue beret. So I went bareheaded and sans mittens and sniffled my way through it. Now I’m back in the cabin, nursing a cup of cocoa. The weather which was so unseasonable for the last two months has taken a turn for the seasonable. We have rain/snow mix predicted today.

It seems lately, my days have been disintegrating into splinters of themselves. It’s been feeling as though I’m back in college, cramming for finals once again. I have fond memories of college, but those three weeks or so leading up to finals every college semester are not times in my life I would voluntarily repeat. On two separate occasions, I wrote a ten + page paper over a weekend, from outline to bibliography, doing all of my research on Saturday and all of my writing on Sunday.  (I should note that in both cases, the professors had outlined their courses so you were meant to work on the paper over the course of, pretty much, the entire semester.) Somehow, no matter how things get planned out, I always end up with cram sessions. And it is a cram session in which I exist at the current moment.

But there’s only so much running around for interviews and research and phone tag, a person can take. So I’m taking the day off. I wrote a radio commentary this morning, did the filming thingamajig before lunch, and now I am blogging. I think that will be it for the day. I might even stoke the fire and sit down with the Anne Lamott book I’ve been meaning to read since December. If the weekend goes as I think it may, it’s going to be busy. So I think I’ll tuck in a quiet moment before the last big push of freelance work takes place next week.

For one thing, it’s been ages since I’ve read through an entire Funds for Writers newsletter. C. Hope Clark’s weekly newsletter comes out every Friday afternoon and it’s pretty much the definitive guide out there for writers looking for any sort of funding for their craft: be it grants, freelance markets, residencies, you name it. Since the start of April, I’ve skimmed through the weekly emails (and the bi-weekly Total Funds for Writers). Although I’m currently not searching for funding, I always look forward to reading Hope’s editor comments and I feel like the newsletters help me keep on top of the writing industry as a whole. I’ll be glad to take the time it takes to read through today’s newsletter in its entirety this afternoon.

Whatever this weekend finds you doing, I hope you at least have a moment or two filled with whatever makes your heart happiest. Happy Friday!

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Home Check In

Some things change when you return home from the Pacific Northwest. For one thing, all the trees seem so small here in the great Northwoods. And they’re really close together.

Some things really change while you’re gone. When we left, ice still covered the majority of the lake. The ice went out completely the day after we left and today was the first time since December that we’ve seen the ripple of open water on the lake. Typically the ice goes out in early May. This irregular spring weather is discomfiting to the point of being scary since its turning the woods into a veritable tinderbox. Fire danger is currently “very high.”

But it’s not all doom and gloom on the home front. The bird feeders that I filled before leaving are empty and this afternoon I brought them in to retire them for the summer. The plant caretaker who stopped by the Shack a couple times to water the plants is worth her weight. Both the African Violet and the Christmas Cactus are showing off lovely blooms and the spider plant is getting ready to throw its first plant since I took in the little guy.

Of course, the house plants aren’t the only things that did some growing in the Shack while we were gone . . . .

Ick! I predict some bleach action in the future.

I had some good writing news waiting for me in my inbox this afternoon. A short story I wrote in December was accepted by my alma mater’s annual literary and artistic journal and actually won this year’s “best prose” award. On the flip side, the couple poems I also submitted were not accepted which reinforces my belief that my writing energy should not be wasted on poetry. I respect a good poet and I fear that good poets are far more talented wordsmiths than I will ever be. However, as someone who seeks to make her living with her writing, I do not have the time to develop my poetry to the extent that it needs development, nor has poetry ever proven especially lucrative.

Speaking of freelancing, I also had an article assignment waiting in my inbox. Am only mildly freaking out about the amount of work I’m supposed to complete upon my true return home at the end of the month.

Right now, writing is not the priority. Laundry and figuring out what to pack for New York City trip are at the forefront of my mind tonight. But first, after nearly two weeks straight of travel, I think a good night sleep in my own bed is in order.

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Harbingers of Spring

It’s no secret. Spring has been on its way to the North woods for quiet some time now. Despite the gusty wind, today saw temperatures of nearly 60 degrees and the air holds a softness that must mean spring.

A lot of good signs have been popping up.

Like pussywillows: 

Or suitcases waiting by the front door.

 (No, they're not packed yet!)

Some signs, not so good:

Granted, I’m not sure that the fire danger in the area is truly “high.” After a couple major wildfire events in the last few years, the locals are on heightened alert. And they’re right to worry until the trees bud out. Things are looking really, really dry. By all accounts we should still be out skiing.

But then things have been a little odd this year. . .

I went into the bathroom and noticed this:

For a couple weeks now I’ve been really excited that my dormant Christmas cactus is putting on new leaves. Does anyone know what Christmas cactus leaf buds look like? I’m starting to suspect that what I thought were new Christmas cactus leaves are in actuality, Christmas cactus flowers.

Flowers?! At the end of March? Right when I’m about to leave on vacation for a month? Not only are we a good nine months off from Christmas, I’m going to miss the flowering Christmas cactus! As Tina Fey would say: BLERG!

These days I find myself finishing up articles and other projects that won’t be worried about again until nearly a month from now. I wonder when exactly I’m going to find time to pack and do laundry before the trip and I fear I will not get around to throwing everything out of the fridge that is going to go bad while we’re gone.

Oh yes, spring, or something like it, is right around the corner.

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The Wonders of Ice

We do a bit of bickering at the Shack. Usually it’s about dishes and bedtimes and why the laundry on the floor never hops into the laundry basket. Sometimes though, it’s about blogging.

Andy’s not a blogger, but as the number one fan of “Of Woods and Words,” he has plenty of insight on what should get posted in this space. For example, he felt this recent blog entry should be called “Of Woods and Turds.” I had something slightly more poetic in mind.

But why “Of Woods and Turds?” Well . . .

We’ve unseasonably warm weather over last week and except from crusty piles here and there, our snow is done for. It’s bad, bad news for local businesses (well, at least for the restaurant; everyone else seems to be plugging along) but it’s made for some beautiful ice conditions on the lake. On Tuesday we headed out on the spongy ice. We found some beautiful designs in the ice. As we headed back towards the Shack, we found something else.


We took to hiking back along the path the dog sled teams used this winter. As the sled dogs start to run, they have a tendency to empty their bowels. Not really a big deal when there’s always the promise of fresh snow to cover up the evidence, but now that we’re almost down to just lake ice, there are tell-tale signs of the trail’s use as a mass toilet all over the ice. In clear pockets of ice along the path rest brown puddles flecked with straw. It is not pleasant. I declined to take any photos.

As you move into the bay, much lovelier ice conditions appear.

There are feathery fingers of frost all across the ice rink.

My favorite feature however is the risen paths that have appeared where the paths and ski trails compacted snow on top of the ice. Now as the rest of the snow melts off the lake’s surface, the trails remain as risen ice bridges across the bay’s surface.

 They remind me of the causeway that connects St. Michael’s Mount to the Cornish mainland near Penzance.

When the tide is out, you can walk the one-mile causeway out to old castle and monastery on the Mount. When the tide’s in, you have to take a boat. St. Michael’s Mount has a mythology wrapped up with giants (though the causeway out to the Mount is not to be confused with Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland), but the ice bridges outside my window right now look more like the work of Jack Frost and fairies.

As much as I like spring, this is far too early for highs in the mid 60s. We are not too far removed from a major wildfire incident to be nervous about dry early springs. In the past few days I’ve seen flies and beetles out. I worry about the natural cycle of things getting too far ahead of itself with this warm weather.

Maybe worrying about the environment is a luxury afforded only to those with little else to worry about. I’m not so sure. Many people have mentioned that in recent years the once pristine water quality of local lakes has declined. I think we have a moral responsibility to think about the effect of the living an everyday life in the woods has on the natural environment and to consider whether the negative changes we note in the environment are tied to our actions. While I fully acknowledge that I’m calling the kettle black here, you have to wonder if this is a corner of the world that’s really meant for septic systems. Should we be here?

This morning it’s spitting snow outside. I’m glad to see it. At least it’s slightly normal March weather. The lake ice has firmed up considerably and now it’s frightfully slippery!

It’s officially cram session at the Shack. On Wednesday night we made a reservation for a rental car. Apart from figuring out how exactly we’re getting to the airport, we’re pretty much set for April travel. But there’s still plenty to do around here before we go. On Wednesday I recorded three radio commentaries to get me through until the end of April. (The commentary is biweekly and the latest commentary is found here.) Yesterday, I turned in my April batch of articles and will likely receive my May assignments today to make up for my April absence. Although there’s a mere 6300 words to revise in the novel WIP, it still needs to get done before the end of the month. Should get some research in at some point too . . . .

Your intrepid blogger, hard at it. Hot . . . or not? ;)

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