Moving Rock

Let me preface this by first saying that I honestly like to work with a shovel.  I actually like moving earth around.  Some may say that I need an implement.  Someday I will.  However, while I'm young, I do not mind digging into a mound of material and hauling it away.
The "castle mout" is no more.  Over the past few days I've buried drain tile in the ditch upslope from the cabin.  It took me about 8 hours of wheel burrowing eight cubic yards of three quarter inch crushed rock to fill void.   The drain tile will allow the spring melt and rain water to travel unabated around the structure.
I don't mind this hard labor every once in a while.  As daunting of a thing it appears to look at a pile of rock 5 feet tall and think that you are going to move it all is; the reality is actually much easier than it first seems.  Focus on completing steps along the way, keep good posture and with a little time you will see results.  Those results can keep the mental momentum going until the task is complete.  In the end, you feel stronger and know that you can move that hill.
Besides moving rock I've hung an interior door for the bathroom, installed cans on the recessed light fixtures, put wall plates on all the switches and outlets and placed our bathtub into position for installation.
A new materials list is in my pocket for next week's worth of projects...

Cool Autumn Rain

A steady rain has fallen all day.  This is even better news to folks working and living around the Pagami Wildfire.  The burn has consumed around 100,000 wilderness acres.  With luck, this relatively constant rain will aid in suppressing the fronts of the fire that have crept outside of the wilderness and could potentially threaten private properties.  Fall colors are getting more colorful as the poplar yellows are becoming more prevalent.

Snowflakes & Fire

First snowflakes in the air for the year.  The sloshy mess fell on me at McFarland Lake and all the way down the Arrowhead Trail into Hovland.  Canadian Geese are heard headed south in the windy skies.  Lows tonight forecasted into the 20's.  Last of the tomatoes are able to fruit.  Sunflowers are still in full bloom.

Colder temperatures and mixed precipitation have held back the progress of the Pagami Creek wild fire.  The fire has grown to over 100,000 acres.  This makes it the largest wildfire in Minnesota since the 1918 Cloquet/Moose Lake fire.  It is larger than the 2007 Ham Lake fire that destroyed over 160 structures on the Gunflint Trail.

Phenology

Thick wildfire smoke still engulfs the upper North Shore.  The Pagami Creek fire has now burned over 16,000 acres.  The town of Isabella has been evacuated.  A strong thunderstorm yesterday brought hail, wind, rain and ash from the fire.  The sky has been a deep red for a couple of days now.  Spotted a Black Bear on the Gunflint Trail.  Freeze warning tonight. 

Smell of wild fire smoke

The Northwoods are in a drought.  Unseasonal warm winds blow.  A large high pressure system has dominated the upper North American continent for weeks now.

Because of this dry hot weather the surrounding forests are burning.  Several significant wildfires are burning to the west inside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.  For the most part the fires have been able to burn out their course.

Wildfires are an important function of a healthy conifer forest.  Some species of trees like the Jack Pine only open their cones in fires.  Although the fires will burn a kill many of the large trees, it is the only way that the seeds of the pines are able to spread, germinate and survive.

Winds from the west are blowing blankets of smoke towards Lake Superior.  When the walls of smoke dance over the hills of the Gunflint territory sun pierces light rays through them and projects the beams of light down to the forest floor.

The smoke is soon pushed down into the cold, dense air of the Lake Superior basin.  Along the vast coast of Superior the smoke's eastern journey creeps to a halt before slowly dispersing itself over the largest freshwater lake in the world.

The clouds of wild fire smoke smell like nothing else.  The odor is a combination of thick wood smoke and a faint twist of garbage.  Banks of smoke randomly jet from over the hill and saturate the air.  Yesterday morning I awoke to this smell.  The sun was just waking world.  I was reminder of the constant energy of the many natural forces of the earth.  These forces dominate the end of another summer in the Northwoods:  Wildfire smoke in the air, Aurora Borealis in the full moon sky, golden yellow ferns, cluster flies and black bears.

Phenology

Cool, blustery autumn day on the North Shore.  Cloud bursts of rain rolled across the northwoods all weekend.  The leaves of moose maple have begun to turn red.  Birch, poplar and various ferns have begun to turn yellow.  The Mountain Ash berries are fully ripe.  These red berries provide an important food source for small mammals and birds in the lean months of the long winter.  With lows in the high 40's at night and the days getting shorter it definitely is beginning to feel like fall is coming.  We've begun to burn the stove most evenings...