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...