Advent of the Snowmobile

The years of dreaming and scheming are over. On Wednesday, Andy and I went into town to collect Andy's brand new snowmobile. Here it is, a Ski-Doo 2014Skandic WT 600., I think.

This snowmobile was oft discussed/commented on (by Andy) for the last 3-4 years and each winter, Andy's interest in this particular snowmobile model has bordered right on the obsessive. As someone who's spent her entire life in northern Minnesota yet have only rode a snowmobile a handful of times, I did my best to humor Andy when he got going on a (off repeated) monologue about the merits of a 4 stroke snowmobile engine, but the truth is, I didn't know what he was talking about most of the time. While I'm sure we'd managed to survive several more winters without this coveted toy, owning the machine does open up some winter recreation options and will expand our "stomping grounds" significantly. No excuses for not winter camping this year, although as our neighbor pointed out, the lake trout just got a lot more expensive. 

Ever since Andy committed to purchasing a snowmobile back in November, I've been selfishly hoping that the new snowmobile will mean we won't get much snow this winter. Sadly, Mother Nature had other plans, dumping 14 inches of fluffy snow on us during the latest winter weather watch from Monday  through Thursday. Truth be told, after the 17 inches of snow we received overnight back in April, we were all pretty underwhelmed by 14 inches of accumulation spread out over three days. The school district however continued it's great "snow freak out" and declared an unprecedented three snow days this week. And I should be clear - 14 inches of snow is obviously not no snow.

The irony of the snowmobile's arrival into our lives is that I was actually the first person to ride it. Despite having driven a snowmobile once in my life, when Andy got a wee bit stuck at the top of a hill on the road to the cabin when he took the hill a wee bit slow, I ended up driving the snowmobile to cabin while Andy got a pull out of a snowbank from a neighbor. Andy's taken the snowmobile on a couple spins since (one of which I accompanied him on) but we actually need a little more snow before it's good riding conditions. Also, although the lake is iced over, because that ice was immediately covered by a layer of insulating snow, we're all waiting a bit before venturing out on the lake. The new snowmobile is too pretty and shiny to have it disappear into the drink in its first week of life!

 

Right now, Andy is hoping for more snow and spends a fair amount of time admiring his acquisition. I am not really hoping for snow, but am looking into taking the MN snowmobile safety course online. We're really ready for winter now, whatever Mother Nature decides to serve up next.

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A Botanical Field Trip

Andy and I took a botanical field trip down the lake yesterday. Last week, I'd received an inquiry at work from an individual who'd discovered a small structure while camping on the lake a few weeks back. The individual who "found" the structure (I'm sure people have been finding this at least a couple times a year for the last 70 or so years) seemed to think it might be part of a trapper's shack, while I was more inclined to think it was a root cellar left behind from a resort that closed down in the early 1950s.

After visiting the site myself, I'm still leaning towards root cellar and also maybe bear den? The entrance seemed really wide open for a structure that's mostly sunken into the side of a small hill for a good 70 years, which makes me think "somebody's been sleeping in my root cellar." The inside of the small structure (which is maybe 8x6x6 - I could stand up in it) is filled with sheet metal and other scraps - maybe an easy way to clean up the site without actually having to bring all the junk from the old resort operation down the lake to dispose?

We also found a stone retaining wall that was probably part of the resort and it seemed pretty obvious where the main lodge building would have stood. 

Another reason I wanted to visit the site was because I'd always heard about the domesticated flowers that still bloom there, decades after the last permanent residents packed up. I'd heard that tea roses bloom in the mid-summer and the person who reported the structure above also mentioned daffodils blooming. After poking around the site a bit, I wonder if he didn't confuse daffodils with dandelions. There were plenty of dandelions to be found (which are too common of a weed to indicate any sort of civilization, I think) and I also think we found the tea roses, although they were just leafing out and appeared to be covered with some sort of fungus.

In our haste to find the structure once we got to shore yesterday, Andy and I breezed right past the shrub above. Yep, that's a ginormous lilac bush - a shrub that thrives into the Northwoods but which doesn't get here unless someone plants it.

There were also domesticated lily of the valley (easy to distinguish from the "false lily of the valley" wildflower that are very common in this area) and forget-me-nots galore which may or may not have been intentionally planted. Technically a wildflower is any flower that's not intentionally planted.

As I poked around looking for botanical signs of civilization, I actually happened upon a wildflower I'd never seen before. At first I thought it was some sort of orchid, but it's actually a type of milkwort known commonly as Bird-on-the-Wing. Google failed me completely for identifying it when I got home and I actually had to use two books (shocking, I know) to figure out what it was. It's just budding out - usually it has two petals that stick out perpendicularly from the center of the flower so it looks like a bird in flight.

We also found plenty of blueberry bushes loaded with blossoms. Another good picking season ahead. :)

If you're in the woods on a still morning or evening this time of year, you get a heady whiff of something floral. Turns out that wonderful intoxicating aroma comes from the red osier dogwood blossoms. I will be sad when the dogwood blossoms start to fall - they've been making my morning runs pretty delicious.

 

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An Apology, Sort Of

You guys, I know. It's been a dull winter around here. I'm sorry. Sort of.

In case you hadn't noticed, there's been very little of this going on lately: 

 

No ice fishing. No winter walks. No nothing.

If you've been hanging around Of Woods and Words  for a while now, you might be asking yourself, what the heck's going on here. Didn't they used to do stuff?

Why yes we did. But sometime shortly after the new year, we ran out of steam. After a couple half-hearted attempts at ice fishing in January, Andy and I seemed to reach an unspoken agreement to ditch the fishing poles and tip-ups and spend our days off closer to home.

You see, January and large portion of February were just kind of windy and nasty. And then by the time the weather improved, we'd received a fair amount of snow, which turned the lakes into sloppy messes, and who wants to wade through that? So instead, once our errands were run, we stayed in, reading books, baking bagels, and cleaning the house.

Have we become that freaking boring already? Yes we have.

On the bright side, I've maintained quite the clean bathroom this year. It's just not the stuff especially compelling blog posts, dontcha know.

So I apologize for the lack of gratuitous fish shots, photographs of snowy trees, and snowshoes on the blog lately. In lieu of adventure, apparently we opted for hibernation this winter.

And you know what? It's been kind of amazing. I'm sorry I'm not sorry.

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Heat, Holidays, and The Week That Was

I've been feeling stretched thin lately and as a result, not only are blog posts far and few between - I also haven't been taking much for pictures. When I plugged in my camera this morning to see what I had at my disposal if I were to actually write a post, I was a little surprised by the lack of pictures at my disposal to illustrate my points.

Let's see. . . . There's this picture of a tadpole which is totally unrelated to anything I'd planned to write about . . . .

I have a 12-year-old volunteer at work. He's volunteering through a community program which will award him with some sort of cultural/learning prize (a ski pass, art classes, or music lessons, etc.) if he volunteers so many hours at a non-profit organization in the community this summer. One thing he loves to do is take pictures on the museum grounds (which we can then use for promotion purposes) and he's a little obsessed with the tadpoles in the ditch beside the driveway. It's hard to tell in the above picture, but those guys are huge. I think they just might be bullfrog tadpoles because I always hear a bullfrog twanging away on his banjo whenever I walk up the driveway.

On Tuesday, Andy and I headed out a little canoeing adventure. Some friends were spending a couple nights in the Boundary Waters, so we paddled out to spend the day with them. Despite the picture below, we did not catch a single fish and instead spent most of the day lounging around the campsite as the temperature climbed higher and higher. It's been consistently in the upper 80s and even in the 90s these last few days. Not nearly as hot as elsewhere in the country, but enough to make these northern Minnesotans feel like death warmed over.

Did everyone have a good Fourth of July? We had a less than celebratory day since we both worked and honestly, the Fourth of July celebration in town just isn't worth the two-hour round trip drive. The parade is so small it goes around the block (yes, block is singular) twice to make it last nearly 10 minutes. The fireworks are usually also a rather pithy affair. So instead we stayed home and watched Mother Nature's own fireworks - we had quite the doozy of thunderstorm roll in in the late afternoon.

Remember Slug watch(!)? We've been having problems with some of our potato plants being cut off at the base. Last night, Andy and I headed out with flashlights to see if we could find the nocturnal pest that's been after our potatoes. I knew slugs were a risk when we planted the potatoes in straw, but I naively hoped  we'd dodge that bullet. Ah well, hopefully we've caught it soon enough to save at least a few of the plants.

What's new in your neck of the woods?

 

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No More 3x5s

Didn't have a camera by my side this time/Hoping I would see the world through both my eyes/Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm in the mood to lose my way with words -- John Mayer

I've been forgetting my camera a lot lately. For the last week or so, the same scenario has been playing itself out over and over again.

We get halfway to wherever we're headed.

Andy: Did you bring the camera?
Ada: No . . ..

I don't really have an excuse for forgetting it. It has a snazzy new Duluth pack case, which makes it easy to throw the camera in the boat, truck, or over my shoulder. But maybe the past week straight of rain and drizzle has left me feeling visually uninspired. No matter what happens lately, I can't seem to remember my camera until it's too late to turn around and go fetch it.  

And when I don't have your camera with, sometimes it feels like I'm missing things. Without a camera to capture the views we found when we clamored to lake's highest point at sunset, how can I share what it felt like to pull myself up the charred, shattered granite cliff face to find the lake and all its islands spilling out before me under a rose color sky. Does it even make sense if I tell about the stark cliff we found on yesterday's hike with such straight, sharp edges it looked like we'd stumbled into some Aztec or Inca realm?

Without the pictures to prove I saw it, it gets harder to share my experiences and make them immediate and real. But that doesn't mean I'm missing anything. I'm still seeing it. By not having my camera with, I'm forced to remember more than just the image.

I have to remember the sweet little cheeps coming from the two grouse nests we've stumbled upon in the past few days, as well as the sight of agitated Mama Grouse, neck all puffed out, trying to defend her little cheepers (baby grouse). I can tell you about the rain, but what I really remember is the cold feeling of water instantly gushing into my old, tired tennis shoes as I soon as I set foot on the overgrown path on yesterday's hike and the squelching feeling of water squishing between my toes with each step I took. I could tell you the midseason wildflowers are in full swing, or I could tell you about gathering bright red wintergreen berries in my palm while batting off buzzing mosquitoes divebombing my head, taking a moment to hold the berries close to my face so  I could breath in their minty smell.


I'm seeing plenty these days. And for the time being, I'm trying to see it with both my eyes. 

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Don't's into Do's

"You know," Andy said the other night as we driving down the road, "I can pretty accurately predict your future by paying attention to what you say you'll never do."

"What?!" I spluttered.

And then I thought about it. "I'll never move back to my hometown." Wait a minute . . . "I'll never live in the woods." Oh yeah. "I'll never drive a stick shift." Hmmm . . . 

That's right, as of Sunday afternoon, Andy and I are now the proud owners of Subaru Baja. (It might not be a looker, but I feel like my life could use some all wheel drive right about now.)

You might remember back when I penned my cryptic, "Catching an Edge" post in March. That's when the dear old Corolla and I had a bit of a wrestle with some black ice. The wrestle ended fine for me, but poorly for the Corolla. While I'd like to say we can easily survive as a one car household, the truth is that two months with just one car was plenty long enough.

So when our neighbors put their Subaru up for sale, the opportunity seems right for all involved parties. There's only one problem. I don't drive manuals.

When I really look at my life, I'm surprised by all the "don'ts." I find. I don't eat seafood. I don't drive stick shifts. I don't crochet. I don't, I don't, I don't.

Life is short. Too short for "don't"s.

So when you see me lurching off from a stop sign this summer, you'll know I'm busy turning my "don'ts" into "dos"

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Walking the Line

They say that every day you should do something that scares you. Because I am scared of a lot of things and generally wimpier than I like to admit, I find this pretty easy advice to follow. Still, some days offer especially scary challenges. Take last Thursday for example.

A good friend is working at a nearby environmental learning center and she offered to take a group of girls for a day of fun at the center. She promised visits to Chickadee Landing where chickadees eat seeds out of your hand and off of the top of your hat; a chance to meet the center's owls and other animals; rock climbing; the center's skylab; and, of course, the infamous ropes course.

Because I was a homeschooled jungle freak, I didn't go on the epic multi-night field trip that all fifth graders at the local public school make to the center. While I am not lamenting my homeschooled-ness, I am saying that when I was ten years old is when I should have overcome my fears of the rope course. (In all honesty I had a chance to do the ropes course when I was fourteen and attended an open house at the center and I totally wimped out.)

So on Thursday I was a 25-year-old scared of the ropes course.

Luckily, the other three girls went ahead of me, I was feel pretty confident as I watched them go around the course, which consists of five segments: a suspension bridge, a single wire with two wire rails, two parallel logs, a single wire, and a single log. Then they got to the end of the course - a zipline which transports you (very quickly) back to the course's starting platform.

Hmm. . . . Not feeling quite so confident now.

Still, I gamely strapped myself in.

It started out just fine.

Ireland, 2005

As you can see, bridges suspended at absurdly high heights do not scare me. (This is the Carrick-a-rede, which is about 600 ft above the ocean below.)

And two parallel logs? Not too bad.

 

Then we reached the single wire. This is where I wimped out before. But this time I was determined. I set out, cursing both the springiness and length of the wire and focusing on getting one foot in front of the next. 

And I made it! Maybe not raring to go at it again, but pleased to have proven to myself that I can walk the line if need be.

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Time For Ridiculous Adventures

It's not secret that motivation flagged a bit at the start of the month. When faced with the dichotomy of transcribing interviews (for which I get paid) or blogging (for which I do not), I opted for blogging. I lounged on the couch, pretending to write a synopsis of the novel. I thought about querying some freelance gigs.

Last week, things were different. (Amazing what a looming credit card bill can do to you get plunked down at the computer churning out work, isn't it?) The butt stayed in the chair and work was completed, some of it before deadline, even. Luckily, the Friday before last, Andy and I had one last day of glorious and slightly ridiculous adventures, the memories of get me through these dark times of actual hard work.

It started off innocently enough as we set out to set up the deer stand. But we got distracted by the large white pine that had fallen down a couple weeks back and had yet to be removed  Andy decided he needed a new splitting block so he sawed off an 18 inch tall chunk from the fallen tree. Getting the hunk of tree trunk into the back of the truck was a mind over matter affair: the tree was at least two feet across at its widest point. It was probably about 300 years old when it fell, about its base had been rotting away for some time before the wind finally got it.

The chainsaw looks teeny compared with the size of the log!

Moving on . . . We bumped down the road and set up the deer stand. The stand was up in a matter of minutes, but there was still a fair amount of crashing around in the woods as we established a back route to the stand that didn't involve tromping down the deer trail that the stand overlooks.

We ran home to grab some lunch, where we both noticed that the Jack O' Lantern was no longer looking its best. In fact, the inside was completely black and icky  So Andy proposed we take the pumpkin with us to the shooting range.

Andy transforms a pumpkin into a target

Least this seem a frivolous waste of time and pumpkin, it was the day before deer opener --so Andy was sighting in his rifle --and the pumpkin came home with us and is now on the top of our compost heap.

After picking up and stocking a truck load of firewood, the day of ridiculous adventures ended with a campfire on the beach near the cabin. It was a perfect autumn day. 

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The Great Blueberry Quest

Here in northern Minnesota we often joke that the year is divided into three seasons: winter, mud season, and a week of summer. In truth, I’ve never found a corner of the earth so fundamentally tied to the seasons – Western Europe’s half-assed winters always left me feeling confused – and there are plenty in sub-seasons in this neck of the woods. In spring we have mud season, then the springtime of the first blossoms. While summer may be a season almost entirely devoted to blueberries, it too has its own set of sub-seasons: scouting for blueberries, picking blueberries, and eating blueberries.

After the Ham Lake Fire burned through the area in 2007, blueberry picking has been phenomenal. Everyone has their own “secret” picking spot. Of course, some “secret” spots are more popular than others. We’re lucky enough to have a small blueberry patch right behind the cabin, but whenever we’re out in the woods, we’re looking for an even better berry patch that’s truly secret.

We look for a place where the soil’s sandy, where the sunlight’s a bit filtered to allow berries plenty of sunshine and just enough shade to grow nice and plump. People are often dismayed when they return to a patch they remember doing well a few years back and finding slim pickings, to say the least. Blueberry patches are often found where jack pines thrive and as a result the patches can cycle out fairly quickly when the baby jack pines grow taller and start to cast too much shade over the berry bushes. It always pay to keep your eyes peeled for a new patch, because there's no guarantee that the same spot that offered great picking this year will be as marvelous in the years to come. Last fall when we were out grouse hunting, Andy and I spotted a spot that we thought might offer plenty of good pickin’s this summer, so yesterday we hopped in the truck to go check it out.

We turn off the main road onto an old, bumpy, skinny, rocky, logging road. After stopping once to push aside some blown down sticks, we parked in front of a fallen tree.

After scrambling through the tree, we forded the river.

We walked a little more. And were warmly rewarded with a scene of blueberry fields forever.

Last night in the patch behind the house, I picked about a cup of berries. But the majority of berries, especially at the patch we scouted yesterday, won’t be ready for a couple weeks yet. I’m excited!

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