Acclimating to the Cold

The sun shimmers off of Lake Superior.  I'm sitting with a cup of coffee in front of the crackling stove while the black cap chickadees feed in the spruce outside my window.  It's another gorgeous autumn morning in the northwoods!

There was no frost last night as there has been most recent mornings.  Luna found fresh pine marten scat on the road.

Over the past couple of weekends I've implemented another round of clearing.  This time the goal is to open the top acre and a half above our cabin where the home will someday be.  The expanse of the lake is showing itself with every balsam fir that drops.

I've learned to only cut a fast as you can burn.  I should, however, be able to burn a pile this evening since a few drops of rain fell last night.

To me this is the coldest time of the year.  Even though the temperatures are nothing in comparison to the sub zero temp that will persist in January, my body has yet to acclimatize to the weather.  The thirty degree air leaves me shivering and digging out wool sweaters from our cedar chest.  By the time the real winter cold is here I will be used to it and by March thirty degrees will be considered tee shirt weather!

Although the lense on the camera doesn't serve this view justice you can see Lake Superior along the horizon.  At this point I've cleared all the balsam fir in the view shed from the home site to the cabin.  This winter I'll knock the poplar trees that you see in the foreground to really open up this space!