A few more years of growth...

It always takes me a little while to get used to darkness each winter.  At first, just after daylight savings in the late fall I try to beat the sunset.  I find myself hurrying in the late day to finish up just one more thing before complete darkness.  But as winter settles in and your eyes adjust, the darkness simply becomes reality for a greater part of your time.

At the same time, Lake Superior's famed "Gales of November" have stayed true to it's name this year.  High winds, snow, and ice storms have battered the North Shore over the past few weeks.  The property has lost a number of trees due to these events.  It makes me think about the forest around the garage site.  Apart from the cleared area immediately around the garage, I have been eyeing up the taller trees and cutting them if they could hit the garage.  It's better to cut them now rather than when the structure is there!

At first it's easy to guess which trees will hit the garage site.  But the further away you get , the bigger the trees are.  The farther away and the taller the trees, the  more difficult it is to judge if they are tall enough to hit the structure.  This adds an entirely new element of simply dropping big trees.  It's fun.  Sometimes you right and every once in a while, you aren't.

This afternoon I found a big old poplar that I thought was tall enough to hit the garage.  There's a distinct climaxing moment while cutting a big tree when the game changes.  You go from cutting a tree to dropping one.  It's the point at which the saw cuts through a critical mass.  At that moment, the tree cracks, gravity officially takes hold and the hardwood leans and falls along the line I predicted.  The outcome is just as I envisioned except for one thing.  The tallest branches are a yard short of the garage!

Give the tree a few more years of growth and it would be an entirely new equation.  However, the fact is that I didn't guess it right.  On the other side of the coin, when the tree lands dead center in the middle of the garage pad I cringe.  At least it proves why I am doing this.  I think that I'd rather be wrong every once and a while...

Snow flakes in the air...

Activity on the homestead is at an all-time high right now.  Our shed is built, the driveway is complete, the garage site is prepped and a slab for the garage will be poured in a matter of days.  On top of that we just completing drilling a 340' water well!  The progress explains my absence from this writing project.  

Here's how things have been going:

Once leveled, I built a platform out of treated lumber and framed up the walls.

Walls raised, I then hoisted the 2x6" rafters and nailed tongue and groove for the roofing.

Sheathing and asphalt paper on.  All the shed now needs is a metal roof, siding and a door.

There is always something else that requires my immediate attention.  For example, the other day I realized that the well drillers were in the area and could make it to our place within a couple of days.  The catch was that the route up to the well site hadn't been cleared.  I cleared a 16x80' lane with a turnaround in 4 hours.  It's no wonder why my shed doesn't have a door. 

The total depth of the well is 340'.  It is situated just above 890 ft in elevation, just above the Washburn shoreline which was deposited when the lake was almost 300' higher than today (just over 10,000 years ago).  

Within a couple of feet the drill bit hit bedrock.  The first 180' is the classic red porphyritic rhyolite.  At about 220' the hole found a softer dark ophitic gabbro unit followed by a basalt flow full of amygdules of the pink mineral (calcium alluminum silicate) prehnite.  The hole soon then goes back into the rhyolite where we hit water.  Although the flow is relatively low (it is likely to increase as water is drawn from it), the water isn't salty nor does it have a mineral-rich flavor of which is common in the Duluth Complex.  

Another shot of the driveway.  This time with a 4" lift of class 1 gravel!

We're covering the garden site with a 4mm thick plastic.  At the end of the growing season next year we will pull this, cover crop with legumes and start planning the vegetable patch.

The leveled garage site awaiting the 5" concrete slab.

The interface that exists between trying to tell my story of beating a path through the wilderness of northern Minnesota and writing this blog creates a conflict.  I work on the property everyday.  Everyday I walk home from work, put on my field clothes, dress the dog with her blaze orange hankerchief and drive east just past the Devil's Track River gorge to our land.  There I work until I can't see my hand in front of my face.  I drive back home to eat some food and sleep.  The next day I get up and do it all again.  My body is tired.  The hard part is when I try to sit down and explain how things are coming along.  The truth is that I can't.  

These words are the culmanation of hours upon hours of cutting, hauling, digging, building and thinking.  There's no way to clearly express the thought and emotion that is going into this.  Pictures show the physical changes that are going on.  Nothing except my words can describe the personal growth that is continually evolving.  I try but I must admit that I am conflicted.  I started this project to learn what it takes to work a piece of property.  I began writing to share this experience and document the steps along the way.  I can write and take photographs about the physical changes occurring on the property.  However, I struggle in my attempt to share true effort and emotion that I am putting into this project.  This isn't a disclaimer.  I'm just being honest.   

This land is my lifestyle.  It's amazing to think that we haven't even owned this property for one year.  The progress is what keeps me going.  As I peck away at projects slowly but surely I can see the outcome of my efforts.  

Watching a giant iron ore freighter hugging the North Shore while sailing the safer "northern route" I realized that the warm season has passed.  Snowflakes have been in the air all week. 

Denali to Seward

The life of a wandering, adventurous soul never truly experiences monotany.  Just when the dog has found a routine and I feel like a complete yuppie walking with my briefcase back and forth to work, my life gets a little douse of adventure.

I've been drawn to Alaska my entire life.  There's something about a place where the natural order is the dominating force that intrigues me.  Although I have spent a fair amount of time in the Alaskan bush, I can honestly say that I still feel like a "kid in a candy store" every time my feet sink in to the tussocks of the tundra.  Alaska is a place where the scale of the landscape is too large for a human to comprehend.  It's a  place where ones eye gazes over a valley to a mountain that is a New England state's width away.  The Alaskan wilderness is immense.

Denali is one of those places that everyone has to see.  The highest point of land in North America, Denali (Mount McKinley) is a temple of ice and rock.  Formed by the compression of earths crust, Denali was thrusted upwards as two of earths plates collided and sheared themselves against  each other.    The pinnacle of the mighty Alaska Range, mountaineers call it the "coldest mountain on earth" for its frigid temperatures.  The backcountry of Denali is home to caribou, grizzly bear, dall sheep, wolves, fox, snowshoe hare, wolverine and lynx.

Alaska is a breeding ground for the best bush pilots in the world.  During my time in exploration geology, I've had the privaledge of working with a number of outstanding pilots.  Most namely, I had the honor of working with Wild Bill Michel.  Wild Bill was simply of surgeon in the air.  He was flawless.

It's a whiteout.  I'm on the some peak in the Kuskokwim country of SW Alaska moving an exploration camp to it's winter storage site on a ridge out of sight.  My field partner is huddled next to a twiggy fire shaking profusly.  We've been on the ridge in a blizzard for twelve hours as Wild Bill has been slingling load after load of camp tents, gear, drill rigs, etc. up to us.  Slinging gear is a common practice in which a helicopter has a line with a hook attached to the bottom of the craft.  Someone on the ground hooks the load, the bird transports it and it is unhooked in a new location.  Today I drew the lucky straw of unhooking the gear on a spiny ridge at 6,000 feet. The conditions are horrendous.  There are times that Wild Bill makes an attempt to get up to us but is turned away by shifting mountain valley winds.  Some attempts are detoured by the white out.  In short, winter is closing in and we have to get the camp broken down!

With my partner huddled against a palette shivering with the early signs hypothermia and a relentless blizzard bearing down off the Bering Sea, Wild Bill simply handed me the sling load every time, literally dropping the hook in my outstretched hand time and again.  He was an artist with wings.

Flipping through paper on a bus ride near Talketna, a familiar face was printed in the pages.  Wild Bill had crashed into a mountain ridge at the edge of Denali National Park.  The reality of life in the north too often takes the best.

As we flew southeast on the redeye out of Anchorage the northern lights danced along the late summer frontier of the great boreal wilderness.  I feel small every time I come home from AK.  For some reason, this time left me feeling inspired.  It has taken the dedication of so many brave, smart and hard working people to make a life in the Alaskan bush.  These people show me the dreams I have are possible.

Warm Wind Through Spruce Knob

Summer in the north woods comes slowly but is busy for the few months it lasts!

It's already the end of August.  Our freezer is full of blueberries and walleye.  A tent platform is built.  Two fire rings dot the land.  Another few dozen freshly-planted red, white and jack pine trees rim the north and western property lines.  Concrete blocks for the foundation of the tool shed are leveled and the property is slowly amassing the materials that will eventually be the structures we will some day call home.  Our road is dry, ditched and awaiting its final lift of gravel.  The driveway is not in a hurry and neither am I.

A view looking up the driveway.

We camp out on the land as often as schedules permit.  I sleep better under the spruce.  Whippoorwills echo their name under the soft darkness of a moonlit night.   Their echo sometimes persists through the morning hours!

Northerners like myself seem to never fully acclimatize to the warmth of late summer.  Subsequently most summertime productivity on northern homesteads occur in the early morning or evening hours.  Walking down the driveway after a full morning of working on the shed foundation, I found myself a hundred paces from a shining, mature male black bear.  He's probably the same bear that destroyed my tent.  He sniffed me. I raised my arms and acted cocky to chase him off.  Luna, the obedient dog that she is, sat at my feet.  I clutched her collar as she intently watched the bear proceed to walk closer.

This isn't my first black bear encounter.  Heck, I have always thought of them as the cuddly, fuzzy pillow compared to their grizzly counterparts.  Nine times out of ten black bears run the second they realize there are humans around.  This one didn't.

I continued to act tough as the curious bear ambled towards me.  I'm the type of person who doesn't just sit back and let another animal take control of the situation.  I bluffed the bear.  Lunging forward I "fake charged" him.  It's generally not the brightest thing to do with a bear but I had to assert my dominance.  It was clear that he wasn't worried about me.  It worked!  My bluff startled him just enough to question my intentions and he spooked.  The bear took off into the bush and up Osier Creek.

In retrospect I probably shouldn't have bluffed that dumb ol' bear but the risk paid off.  I admit that I have been taking my time and scanning the woods in the clearings to make sure he's not around since the encounter.  In the end, all that I can do is hope that he is smart enough stay clear of these parts.  Otherwise the score might be settled in the fall...  

The materials that built this tent platform all have their orgins within a stones throw from the site.  The rock is local, the balsam beams were cut on location and the spruce deck boards come from a tree that was harvested and milled on the property.

The block foundation for the tool shed.

There is simply no such thing as a typical day out here!  The second my daily chores become monotonous, a bear, wolf or storm enters the picture to spice things up a little.  It only makes life interesting.  In the meanwhile, I work, take a stroll down the trail and scheme up the next step.  Before I knew it, a brilliant summer on the North Shore of Lake Superior has rained it's days and is coming to an end with warm wind through Spruce Knob...

Ode to the tent...

The afternoon began as every afternoon.  I got done with work, walked home, ate a snack, put on my boots, told the dog to "truck up" and headed up the shore.  Five minutes later the truck is parked at the end of the dirt road.  From there Amy and I grabbed our tools and began the hike up the hill to the property.  The task for the day: build a platform for our backpacking tent.

The walk was the same old hike that I have become very accustomed to.  The dog trees a couple of squirrels, chases a rabbit and on a good day flushes a grouse.  Amy and I talk about the day.  I like to observe the slow phenological changes of the great north woods.

When we arrived at the garage site my stomach dropped!  All I saw was my beloved tent flapping in the soft early May breeze; the rain fly was destroyed.  The tent door has two 4 inch bear claw puncture marks!  I just had to walk away.  At first I wanted to take a picture.  As much as that picture would be a great visual for you fine folks reading this, I'm glad I didn't.  You don't take photos at funerals, do you?

I know, the tent can be sewn.  But, the tent will never be as tight as it once was.  I remember the day I rolled that tent up in the gear store and bought it with my high school graduation money.  I walked out of the store and drove to Vermont to hike the Long Trail.  That's were it all began.

That tent has logged hundreds of nights pitched on the remote lakes of the Lake Superior Border Country of Northern Minnesota; it has been set up in every state west of the Mississippi and has endured freak mountain blizzards in the Sierra Nevada, Uinta, Cascade, Sawtooth, Olympic, Teton and Big Horn Mountain Ranges.  This tent has provided shelter to travel companions and me from white-outs in conditions 12,000 feet above sea level to 50 below zero.  I've lived out of this tent.  I've grown into the person that I am in this tent.

I was pretty bummed as I worked the rest of the evening.  At this point I'm happy to report that the story gets better.  On our way out we stopped to chat with our neighbor and warn him of our unwelcomed guest.  He has a tent pitched on his land as well.  He felt my anguish.  However, there was a faint smile to his response.  It turns out that he had left a fresh case of Pabst Beer outside of his tent.  The bear decided to help himself and polished off 13 beers!  The punctured, mangled beer cans are all that remain of his visit.

Now my mind conjures a slightly different scenario.  Picture this: the bear comes out of hibernation ravished in the nearby woods.  He stumbles down the hill towards the lake when he wanders onto my neighbors property.  Smelling a good time he helps himself to a half case.  After that, the bear is a little turned around and needs to find a den to rest one off.  He wanders over Osier Creek to our land were he sniffs out our tent and crashes through the rain fly of my favorite tent!  At least we weren't in there sleeping!

Another adventure for my tent!  It didn't fair very well.  However, it probably faired better than that poor Black Bear felt in the morning!  Me, I need to learn how to sew...

Digging stumps and waiting for the road...

This project is beginning to change the way I think, work, eat, sleep and live.  Each night as I walk down the driveway to the truck and head into town my mind is racing with ideas and my body is sore from labor.  In many ways, I have never felt so alive.

Northern White Cedar planted on property

This has been a productive spring.  The driveway, garage, cabin and tool shed sites are all cleared.  Timbers have been sorted by species and stacked.  One cord of mixed aspen and birch firewood is bucked.  Another 3 cords are stacked in 8 foot lengths awaiting future bucking.  1,000 feet of single track bike/hiking trails criss-crossing the property are cleared and raked.  

We have a 25 x 25 foot garden bed cleared.  Our intention this year is to amend and cover crop the bed to grow vegetables next year.  I need a mule.  The process of grubbing the stumps without a big critter or equipment pulling is long and arduous; especially for one lone soul in a cold, early May sleety wind storm.  It certainly provides one time to think long and deep about what you are doing.

The garden site.  Note the stumps and rocks being dug.

A couple of weeks ago I had my first opportunity to help build a timber frame.  Cutting timbers into a structural frame is an artful balance of engineering and craftsmanship.  This experience only reinforced my intrigue with this simple, yet effective building design.  I hope to build a small timber-framed structure (maybe a sauna or studio?) someday soon.

While the ideas are still racing: I'm in no hurry right now.  It's great.  I just work away on the garden, firewood and trails, and wait for the driveway to be built.  Once the road is completed, we will finally be able to truck materials to the site:  dimensional lumber and 3/4 inch spruce board decking for the tool shed, canvas tent and yurt platforms; compost, lime, buckwheat seed and a rear-tined tiller for the garden and most importantly, tools.  

For the time being, I'm going to keep digging away at this stump, plant as many trees as I can and think of banging together the walls of the tool shed...

The canvas tent is located just shy of the north line at the base of Spruce Knob.  It provides us a dry place to rest and store tools.

Red pine bark on a Seagull Lake island

First trees planted...

Windy, warm.  A red flag warning of potentially harzardous windy fire conditions issued today.  The forests have had little rain since the snow melted.  The giant Lake Superior iron ore ships are following the shore.  They are cautious as a strong northwestern wind is gusting up to 30 mph.  A black wall of cold superior wave trains pushing them out to the great lake.  In the woods, the warm air is heavy with the pungent smell of pine.

The great canoe waterways of the Border Country are open early.  We loaded the canoe with a day pack and lunch and entered the wilderness at Baker Lake.  We paddled north to Peterson Lake.  At the northern point of the lake we landed for a shore lunch.  The first paddle of the year feels like running into your childhood best friend for the first time in years.    There is a level of comfort that I feel in the wild places of this world that I would feel closing up the house for the night.  It's like going home.

After a rest at the Kelly Lake portage we paddled back south.  Amy showed off her strong draw from the bow while shooting the rapids between Peterson and Baker.  The move kept us in the current and away from a rock garden and grounding in the middle of the run!

Back home I planted the first trees on the property this week.  Two white pines have found new soil just below the spruce knob on the north western corner of the property.  After logging hundreds of trees during the winter it felt good to start the other half of my forestry plan: replant species with succession into a warmer climate.  Red and white pine, white spruce, sugar maple and red oak will dominate the landscape.  And with these two 10 inch tall white pine saplings my replanting begins.  

Since these first pines were planted one has disappeared.  Deer: I'll hope for a 50% survival rate.  

White spruce, northern white cedar and tamarack have also been planted.  Nonetheless I intend to keep planting... 

The implications of a dry, early spring...

The past month has been one of the warmest and driest Marches in recorded history. Insects are already in the air!

The winter of 2009-2010 on the North Shore was marked by below-average precipitation and above average temperatures.  A high-pressure air mass has loomed over lower Canada and the upper midwest for most of the winter and spring. Consequently there is a fire ban until "green up."  This weather certainly has its impact on the forest.  Most of the minor creeks are drying up by the day.  A large percentage of the lakes have washed out their ice.  In places by the shore, the snow wasn't deep enough to matt the grasses down.  As a result the grass is upright and dry.  

The fire danger is high. In 2007 a large fire called the Ham Lake Fire ravaged the upper Gunflint Trail during similar conditions.  The fire grew quickly burning through the upright dry grasses.  The fire was huge compared to other recent fires such as the Cavity and Alpine.

So, I haven't burned slash in over three weeks.  My piles are about as tall as I am and growing daily.  There are four piles at the corners of the cabin site about 100' away from the future structure.

I have been slowly thinning balsam fir from the cabin site. Right now I have a continuous 30' perimeter around the site that has been thinned to 10' spacing of aspen and white spruce. It is amazing how much different the forest feels when void of 2-6 inch fir every foot or two!

Before I make any cuts I cruise the timber and flag the "keepers".  I prioritize white spruce, birch, aspen, and balsam fir.  Nowadays if you're a balsam, you have to be the prettiest ol' balsam around or else...

I've been cutting every few days or so.  The days following the cut, I limb logs, pile slash, stack timbers and plan the next move.  To date, half a dozen healthy and straight grain aspen and spruce "keepers" are within 30 feet of the structure.  My goal is to thin the 50' perimeter around the structure before the driveway is built.  Next year I'll thin the next 50 feet.

I've been learning quite a bit about forestry practices through these last four months of logging.  The idea about the distance between trees is to avoid crowns touching.  The strategy to promote the healthy growth of trees means you have to remove the competition.  If the tree has adequate soil for nourishment and plenty of room at the crown to grow, you're giving the tree its best chances for growth.

I've found some spruce budworm in the balsam around the property.  Budworm is a communicable disease that is often carried by balsam but can spread to other species.  The sickly trees are characterized by dead trunks, missing low limbs and a sea-foam green moss growing on the dead branches.  This forest has been taken over by balsam, which increased competition and led to a decline in the aspen.  You can tell that this is happening by the darkening of the bark at the base of the trunk.  Some trunks are completely black.  

At this point I have accumulated a couple cords of 6" thick, 10' long Balsam timber.  My hope is to mill them into posts for the shed.  I hope to mill onsite with a portable Alaskan mill. 

The forest behind the property offers a lifetime of exploration. Slowly, but surely, I have been wandering further and further out from the property.  The land has become such a familiar setting, it has dominated my thoughts and energy for some time now, so exploring new turf is a great change of pace!

I'm hiking new trails everyday and have begun building mountain bike trails...

The lower Devils Track River gorge.  3/4 of a mile directly west of the property.

Site plan

Here's the scheme:

To date the driveway, garage and cabin sites have been cleared. I have thinned the forest in a 50' perimeter around the cabin site.

We have been contemplating rotating the cabin so the gable ends are aligned East/West to maximize a southern exposure. There may no need for a privy as we are still entertaining the option of a composting toilet for the cabin. Other than that this depiction accurately illustrates our plan.

Wilderness doesn't give in easily

The wolves have roamed up stream. A pileated woodpecker is hanging around the cabin site.

I'm tired after 3 months of clearing. I've felt a bit beat lately and our dog, Luna, scratched the cornea of her eye on a branch. It's like the wilderness is reminding us who's boss. The woods are going to kick us around a little before we can make ourselves too cozy in this space.

I vividly recall this particular moment; it was one of a hundred-some trips up and down the driveway, hauling a log of wood when the reality of my situation struck me. For the first time in three months I asked myself: "what the hell am I thinking?" My thoughts churned, "I don't know how to do any of this! I'm making it all up as I go. I'm making mistakes that I won't realize until they bite me down the road."

I have to admit, I felt defeated. I finished my load and sat down at one of my favorite driveway spots and stared off at the lake. That's when I realized that this was exactly the moment that you make a decision. You get off your self-defeated butt and figure out the next piece of the puzzle. You take things slowly, work hard, find the solution and grow from the experience. It's not defeat, it's exactly the type of lesson I set out to learn.

Needless to say, I have been taking it easy on the workload since. I've hauled the rest of the firewood to one of the two aspen woodpiles. Like many folks in the County, I plan to burn a 50:50 combination of birch:aspen. Fortunately, we have no shortage of aspen on the property. The birch will have to come from somewhere else.

Most folks have their wood for the following winter delivered in 8 foot long logs in early spring. That way you can buck and split the wood and let it cure all summer and fall before the next heating season. We'll be a little behind with firewood next year.

Last week I started to clear the garden site. I flagged off an area and dropped the smaller trees. We have been watching the sun's seasonal and daily patterns over this area since we first found this land about a year ago. The seasons certainly seemed to have turned. I got my spade shovel 8 inches into the clay loam before I hit frost this week.

I have been hiking the forest directly to the north of our land. I'm working on establishing a route for a spur trail to access the Superior Hiking Trail (SHT). The SHT is about a half mile to the west of the property along Woods Creek. World class hiking just outside our door...

I've found it's important to take some time to explore the woods around me. It's a nice break. Nobody ever said this was going to be easy. I just have to remind myself no matter how tough things can get, I've got to keep working. I've got to keep working for the day when I'll simply open the door, hang the wide brim on the hook, stoke the stove, kiss my sweetheart, stir the soup, and sit down to do nothing but enjoy this place that I call home.

I'm going to start building a tool shed...

Osier Creek

A view of the driveway from under a spruce.

A close-up of that spruce.

The western property line follows Osier Creek.

The first hot meal...

Yesterday we hauled up our grill and ate our first hot meal on the property. It's the little things that make this space feel like home. Just sitting around devouring onion & garlic cheeseburgers topped with tomato, ketchup and mustard, radiates a warm, comforting feeling that one typically feels sitting in their easy chair or kitchen table at home. Since most of the week has been full of thinning firs, this meal was a great break in the monotony of felling, limbing and piling.

We are slowly figuring out the front and back yard of the cabin site. I have flagged white spruce "keepers" on all four corners within 30-50 feet of the cabin. I am going to take out all the firs within this range. All poplar within a heights distance from the cabin will go as well. All shorter poplar will remain. Basically we will have one tree every 15-20 feet apart in the half acre area occupied by the cabin.

It's amazing how fast the water ran its course through the property. In just four days the melt water tapered off. The property is well drained. There will be one location where I will definitely build a board walk between the driveway and cabin. Other than that, I feel confident that the rest of the infrastructure will be poised well to accommodate future storms and spring melts.

We got a solid bid on the driveway this week. I purposefully waited until the runoff to bring a couple of contractor's to the land and bid out the driveway. That way they can see how the water will run under the most extreme circumstances and design the roadway accordingly. Most of our landscapes are shaped by the great, catastrophic events and resulting processes.

It's definitely feeling like spring. The "Alaskan sneakers" (rubber boots) are officially on. I haven't worn my fleece-lined pants in over two weeks. Cardinals are in the trees and the water is meandering it's way back to Superior...

Water, Part 1

With the spring melt comes water.

I've spent my career in the water business. From guiding canoe & fishing trips in the Boundary Waters, to consulting oil and natural gas companies on how to assess and manage water, to studying water's interaction with metal-producing mines, to administering wetland and storm water laws and ordinances; I've spent much of my life thinking about water. In my opinion, it is earth's greatest resource. After all, we are primarily water. We owe our entire existence to the primordial volcanic waters that birthed algae. Water is life and life-giving. With the early, gentle spring melt of 2010, I find myself in awe by the flow of water under and over our land.

According to the local, state and federal governments, there are no "streams" located on or relatively near the property. But let me tell you, there are three. Granted, all three are ephemeral (flowing seasonally, versus perennial meaning flowing year-round). Two streams provide the eastern and western property lines of the property. One meanders down the heart of the land. They are all minor; about 6" to a foot deep. With the spring weather they are all busy anostamosing their way through the rocky abandoned shoreline substrate. They flow down the gentle 10 or so degree slope until they reach the next lower shoreline berm where they pool up a foot or so in depth; slowly infiltrating back into the type 7 wetland ground where the liquid originated until it channelizes back together. And so it flows, all 6-800 some feet between the watershed divide on top of the hill down to Superior.

Whether my personal or professional life; I strive to manage water as sustainably as possible. The way water interacts with the land is a lot like humans: it's fluid, it changes with time and time is the great unknown variable. Regardless of what the weather man says, you never truly know if it will rain tomorrow...

Today it's raining. The stream gauges are climbing. Winter is flowing back into Lake Superior. I'm soaking wet...

Early Spring Thaw

The snow banks have been melting as daytime temperatures are well into the thirties. Consequently, we have been scrambling to get our slash piles burned before too much grass is exposed and burn permits are required.

The garage, driveway and now the cabin site are all cleared. Yes, we have slightly altered our master plan. We've decided to build a small 16 X 24 cabin first. Our priority is to get on the land as soon as possible and we believe we can do this most comfortably with a cabin instead of a garage. There will be plenty more on this decision and subject in future posts.

Beyond clearing the site, I have been thinning out all the balsam fir within a hundred feet of the cabin site. This measure, a sound forestry practice, is also wildfire prevention to minimize potential fuel in close proximity to our dwelling.

Needless to say, I've learned a lot about fires during the last couple of weeks. Fire is alive! You've got to breathe life into it and nourish it into maturity. Once an adult, a fire lives it's vibrant hours as it pleases, with the help of a couple of gentle nudges of course. Kind of like me...

I don't know what I would do without birch bark. It has been my designated fire starter in the north woods of Minnesota since my dad let me play with matches. Being a full-fledged adult pyro, I have no problem getting a blaze going. Here's my process: I take a healthy birch bark peel and get it burning with dried fir twigs. (A trick we learned while running dogs where we were forced to master the art of twiggy fires due to lack of firewood.) I pile on the fir twigs until they flame. At that point I build a teepee with dried 1-2 inch birch/aspen. Then I just pile on all the dry wood around me. With a coal base established, I add on a couple of hardwood logs. Then, the fun begins!

As you know, I'm thinning primarily firs. I cut them down into 5-6' lengths. Once I have a good fire going, I throw the firs into the inferno. I'll throw on a couple, let the flames engulf it, and add some more until I feel that the fire needs time and oxygen to burn. This is where the nurturing comes in. Every fire seems to have it's own capacity. Some fires will only take a tree before you have to shake it up with a little oxygen. Other fires, however, can take a dozen trees at a time. Flames roar 20 feet in the air and the monster will need no more attention beyond sating it's voracious appetite!

I've burned 7 piles since the clearing began. I still need to clear a parking area, a 6 foot wide trail from the driveway to cabin (60' long) and finish thinning the 100' perimeter around the cabin site. I must admit that I am looking forward to carpentry work. Chainsaw work is fun but change of pace will be welcomed.

We had a couple of guests on the property recently. Amy's dad, Bill, paid his second visit to the property. His advice has and always will appreciated. We were able to chat about construction methods. At this stage in the game, I am all ears...

Our good friends Nathan, Shannon & 8-month baby Liam were out for a hike the other day. This was Nathan's fourth visit as he has been one of my partners in slash burning crime on a couple of occasions. His help is always appreciated.

Our friend Tristan also paid a visit to the property. The more folks that we have out there, the more the place feels like home.

Wolf Update: The wolves have seemed to have moved on. They left some carcasses of which the coyotes (and Luna) are cleaning up.

So, for now, I will continue thinning firs. However, my thoughts are spinning plans for pouring the sonotube piers that will be the foundation of the cabin...

Driveway Cleared!

With highs in the thirty's and the relatively strong February sun taking charge of the afternoon sky, this past week on the North Shore has been ideal conditions for work.

The week started at sunrise last Saturday. On her way to Duluth for school, Amy dropped me off with my sled and our beloved Adirondack chair at the bottom of the hill. The pink hues of the sun rising over Lake Superior was spectacular! As the morning light forced its way through the sky, I started by hauling the sled up the hill and over to the garage site. I then made my way back down to get the chair. Schlepping the collapsed wooden chair over my back like a #3 Duluth Pack was probably a site to be seen! I can you tell it hurt like hell, but well worth it! It is now set up at the garage site looking down the driveway. I feel like a king on his throne, sipping my tea, and admiring my slow but steady progress of clea

ring the drive.

So began a week of solid driveway clearing. Every afternoon, Luna and I climbed the hill and spent the waning hours of sunlight cutting away. Finally, one week later, I reached the bottom of the driveway! The saw must have known that the task was complete too, within seconds of limbing the last tree, the trusty Stihl choked and ran out of gas. That's fine, it deserves a little love and a new chain anyways.

The driveway is cleared 16-18 feet in width. It gains about 40 feet in elevation over the 420' length. From the top there's a slight dog leg to the left as it weaves through the white spruce. Saving the spruce (versus the fir) always took precedent in negotiating my way through the thick upland boreal forest. I cut in 25' increments. With the general alignment in mind, I assessed the canopy looking for "keepers". From there I'd measure out my width, cut the smaller shrub and pile. Then I went at the big stuff. I'd start by dropping the fir, limb it and stack. Then the hardwoods. After everything had been dropped and limbed, I piled the hardwoods and conifers separately. And so I crept along, 25' at a time with the occasional tea break.

At this point I've been burning the slash separate from clearing. We've had three burn sessions. The first two occasions climaxed with 10-12 foot flames! I must admit, I had a great time singing "O' Christmas Tree" as I tossed entire balsam fir trees into the inferno.

I've been contemplating how to manage our white spruce forest. Luckily, I know some foresters. Being a "rock-licking" geologist, I don't know the first thing about forest management. But, like all of this homesteading business, I'll make it up as I go! My plan is to thin out all the fir I can. They grow like weeds, carry disease, have a short life span and compete for nutrients with the spruce. This spring I hope to plant white spruce, red oak and red pine.

Driveway cleared, now onto planning structures...

Finding a clearing routine...

I've been spending my evenings on the property clearing, surveying, and planning. The first half of the week has been beautiful! Highs in the low 20's and snow.

Sunday started with a couple inches of dry lake-effect snow and continued throughout the day. It was the kind of snow that skiers dash to the Wasatch Range of Utah for. Instead of skiing, I was sawing away at the firs and poplars; clearing the garage pad. I rather enjoy being out in foul weather. It helps me appreciate the fair days. I guess it's the Norwegian in me. "There's no such thing as bad weather just bad clothes." Right? Hence the wool outfit that I wear religiously. Ever since my time in Alaska working in the bush: wool is the only way to go. It keeps you warm when wet, enough said. Fleece is for sleeping in a tent or the city.

On Monday I decided to take a break from the chain saw and enjoy the white powder. After work I made my way over the hill and skied 10 km of absolutely perfect trails through the red pines of Maple Hill.

On Tuesday I went back out to the land with a GPS unit and surveyed-in the corner pins, as well as the locations of the house, garage, shed, driveway and septic sites. I have been mapping my progress by hand and thought the time was right to get everything surveyed and flagged accordingly. Now I have the property on my own map with my own data and within a meter of accuracy. It's about time considering that we've owned the property for a whole month now!

Wednesday brought me back at the clearing. Here's my routine: I drop a few trees. Limb the straight spruce that I want to keep for structures and basic lashing practice. Drag the limbed poles to their storage by the future shed. Gather the burn brush and hardwoods that aren't firewood worthy. Haul the brush to the burn pile of choice. Drag the wood-stove destined birch to the "bucking log" and repeat at the top.

The big news is that I have now cleared the garage site of all vegetation with the exception of one 10" diameter white spruce that Amy has grown particularly fond of. I will drop this one with her present, so she can say her goodbyes or whatever she's got to do.

So tomorrow I will cut this nice spruce and start burning the slash piles. I'm planning on using kerosene to get the piles going. Kerosene is less volatile than straight octane. As much I love seeing things go boom, I'll play it safe this time. To answer what is on the back of everybody's mind: everything is very green, so yes, the "boy scout juice" is necessary.

There is a huge black wolf roaming the woods. Luna (our mutt who weighs pert-near 70 pounds) stepped in one of its tracks. Her print was less than one half the size of his! I'll keep the camera handy with the hope of sneaking a shot of this one. As I was making my way to the truck I could hear the pack howling in the distance. Apart from the howls, they were making strange hyena-like sounds. In reality, they probably weren't so distant. The critters sounded like they were within a 7 iron shot away!

Hearing that pack at the end of the day has become part of the routine. Cut, limb, drag, pile & howl. Another day done gone...

Wood Chips A-Flyin'!

Finally got back out to the property today for a warm day of clearing the garage site! Sunny, clear skies in the morning that clouded up in the afternoon. Highs in mid 20's.

When the weekend rolled around it was time to get out and do some work! The air today felt like spring. I know, I've lived in Northern Minnesota long enough to know that this is just the mid-winter thaw. However, it felt great to know that the sun is getting high enough in the sky to promote some of that good ol' spring melting. Plus, the melting and refreezing at night is helping us to see how and where the water flows on the property. This will help us figure out culvert locations for the driveway, make decisions about structure orientation, etc. So far no surprises. We had a couple of storm events in the fall that gave us an idea of the drainage patterns. At this point I don't anticipate any major driveway alignments or structure placement changes due to drainage issues. The big test will be this spring when everything melts!

Today was the third day of clearing the garage site. At this point we are about half way to having the garage pad and turnaround cleared. It took us most of the morning bucking the birch that I had felled the last time we worked. From there Amy started stacking the 16 inch lengths to cure for next year.

This picture shows the garage site looking down the driveway on the left. The area that we have cleared to the right is about half of the space that we will need. Unfortunately, the trees in the middle of the shot will be coming down next.

By the time the sun was getting low the felled birches were bucked, the fir were piled and ready to be burned and the cut wood stacked and curing.

The word is that a storm front might be coming through tomorrow. Nonetheless, we hope to be working away some more. It feels so good to be "carving out our niche" in the great north woods...

winter camp site clearing

Crisp but beautiful day! The black capped chickadees and bald eagles greeted us as we hauled our tools up to the property.

Today we focused on clearing the area for winter camp. The site started as an option for the home site. Like the home site, it sits on the back edge of the property about 75 feet from the forest service land. Just to the west is the highest spot on the property (about 910 feet, a little more than 300 feet above Lake Superior). I call this hill Spruce Knob for all of the 20-30 something year old white spruce that inhabit the area.

The camp site sits on a relatively level spot facing S/SE. The plan is to get the canvas tent on a platform and have a spot to relax "indoors" while we work on the garage, driveway and garden this spring. I'm thinking that we'll put a table with a couple of chairs and a radio in there. That way if we need a break we can fire up the stove for warmth, make some tea and play rummy 500 or cribbage while listening to WTIP.

We started by clearing a half dozen birch from the spot and bucked them into firewood length. Then the whole firewood location came back into question. The worst thing would be to end up moving everything multiple times. We want to get this right. So we headed down to the future home and garage sites. Basically the garage will be 12o feet from the house with the garden and garden shed in between it.

The shed location is going to be crucial because it will also be the location of all the tools and most importantly, the generator. Keep in mind that we don't have plans at this point to pull electricity in the 1500 feet to the home site. That just means that we are going to have to get used to fact that we will be off the grid from the start. Therefore the generator is going to be our lifeline. A lot of the initial work will undoubtedly revolve around the generator/shed. So we decided that the "main" wood pile servicing the garage and house will be in the vicinity of the shed.

That decided, we headed back up to winter camp. In order to make a platform for the tent I need to get some measurements. So we got the tent and the poles out to get an idea of what the footprint will be. That way I can figure what kind of materials I need to start looking for. (Anyone reading this in Cook County have a surplus of rough cut lumber that they are willing to part with?)

Tent dimensions figured, area cleared, wood stack location determined (for now), shed location pretty much determined, and (most importantly) the garden talk has begun. Good day.

As Amy said as I was punching out of 4WD hitting the pavement of Highway 61, "homesteading is going to be like running a marathon, you've got to pace yourself from the beginning".

the clearing has begun...

The 1,000' road from where Taylor Lane ends to the property won't be built until the spring. Last week I hauled in the winter camp (canvas tent and stove) via my 24" wide otter sled.

Got the Stihl fired up today. My plan this winter is to clear the garage site and driveway. It is turning out to be no small feat as our driveway will be 430 feet long.

The garage will be 24X28'. Basically I'm clearing out an area 52X44'. That will give us plenty of room to have the structure and turn around.

Today I started working at the hardwoods. I started by felling a few dozen small (2-4" diameter) poplar then moved onto a dozen or so decent (8-12") birch. I need to decide where to start the pile of 16" long birch that will be split for firewood. After limbing what I cut in such a short amount of time it's amazing how fast a burn pile grows!

Worked on limbing the trees until I ran out of light at about 5:15 pm.

Once I get the garage site cleared I am going to work my way down to the drive clearing a 20' swath. I think that our driveway will be 14' wide.

At dark the dog (Luna for those who haven't been mauled and licked to death) and I took the stroll down to the truck to head back into town.

A lot of decisions to make and even more work to do... Life is good!

intro

My entire life I've dreamt of homesteading the north woods. A couple of weeks ago Amy and I closed the deal on 5 acres 5 minutes east of Grand Marais, MN. We are 2000 feet from the shores of Lake Superior, 300 feet above it in elevation and surrounded by the Superior National Forest which fades deeply into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The land is a mix of white spruce, balsam fir, birch and poplar. At least two major beach terraces of red, slaty rhyolite are found at 825 and 875 feet above sea level. There are a couple of small type 6 & 7 wetlands following two minor drainages. The shallow soil is roughly two inches of silt loam then 10-12 inches clay loam to clay to bedrock of porphyritic rhyolite. So far I have seen plenty of white tail deer, rabbit, red squirrel & grey wolf. There is a huge (200 lbs) black male wolf roaming the area. The word is that a large (12 strong) pack claims turf to the Devil's Track/ Wood's Creek watersheds. They can be heard many nights.

The plan is to build a garage with apartment setup. Live in that while we save our pennies to build the timber frame that we've always dreamt of. So here's where it all begins...