The Last Light of Day

A quarter moon has risen over the eastern sky on the last day of May.  This moon has brought us so much!  I may practice but cannot truly summon the words to describe what I feel under this moonlight.

In the meanwhile I stroll and whisper softly to our sleepy baby as the last glimmering speck of light fades in the west outside the nursery window.  A rabbit grazes the grass at the edge of the driveway.  A white tail doe nestles in the spruce glen just below the birch smoke that floats down the hill in the gentle lake breezes.  Grouse hunker deep into the slash pile that now is home.  There's no doubt that black bears are roaming the forest looking for an unkept trash can or bird feeder.  Somewhere along the Brule River moose are bedding into a plump bed of sphagnum moss.  Whippoorwills chant.  Bats feast on the freshly-hatched insects.  Owls stealthily assault unsuspecting rodents.  Wolves are surely hunting their way up and down the drainages of the North Shore under the first moon light in a week or so.

The overcast conditions of the recent week have now faded into a weak high pressure system from the north.  It will most likely freeze tonight.

So the fire burns.  The acoustic music plays.  Penelope gives a few whimpers and fades away into another moment of rest.  Maybe the quaking poplar leaves passing by along the trail from the day's hike to the meadows accentuate her dreams?  Either way the last light of day gives way to darkness.  Time to rest...
 

It's Convenient

The North Shore's aromatic smell of spruce-fir-pine and water is particularly sweet this morning.  It's been raining for a couple of days now.  The small local streams are flowing.  Some of the larger rivers are near flood stage.  A root beer plume of sediment clouds Lake Superior.  The turbulent waters of the rain-engorged rivers hasten the transportation of denuded bedrock and soil to the basin below.

12 hours later...

I must admit that I have been fairly sloth this week.  At this point I'd rather lie around holding a snoozing baby in front of the wood stove while a strong coffee brews and the pages of John McPhee paddle on by than to get up and accomplish another check off the ol' list.  To my defense, once and a while I'll get up to go outside and split some fresh faces of birch for the fire.  The sad thing is that all the while I'm still sporting the same long underwear bottoms and slippers that went on at the wee hours of the morning.  It's got to be a sight to see: a skinny white boy in the middle of the woods swinging an eight pound maul doting a stocking hat, tee shirt, wool vest, long underwear pants and slippers.  But heck, that's why I live in the woods.  Nobody is there to see "the sight".  Besides, there's no shame in splitting wood in my underwear.  I'm not the first person to chop wood in my skimpies.  It's convenient. 

We just turned a major page in our story.  Now, if any, is the time to be sloth, rest, and do the bare minimum of routine chores in order to enjoy the finer points of life.

Return of the Bear

The sun is setting on another spring day along the North Shore.  A double rainbow arches the eastern sky at sunset.  In the past couple of weeks the weather has gone from bone-dry fire warning warmth to saturated, Pacific Northwest mist-filled dreariness.  Over 3 inches of rain fell today; challenging our culverts for the second time in as many years.  With a cold rain falling during the waning hours of the day we have spent plenty of time huddled around the wood stove.   The poplar cracking away, however, has not been as mesmerizing to watch as the little one in our arms (proof that new born babies are more fun to watch than a camp fire).  Whippoorwills cry at dusk and dawn.  Robins, finches and chickadees crowd our sunflower seed bird feeder in front of the window.

A few days ago an old nemesis of mine paid us a visit.  The sun had already set on this particular evening.  I was holding Penelope on the couch when Amy suddenly screamed.  Looking out into the recently-blurred darkness of the night a large figure stood in our window!  At first glance it looked like a human.  With a second look we realized that a young black bear was propped up against the window and going to town on the bird feeder.  I put Penelope down on the couch and ran to the window.  Slamming my hands I shouted at the bear who in turn tore the feeder down and strutted with ease a few feet away where he proceeded to snack on the measly seed morsels.  Livid at this visitor I followed him outside and screamed while hurling rocks like a two seam fastball at his skull.  Unfortunately my aim is not as sharp as it once was (I only landed one shot on the Bear's plump rump).  Eventually, however, my threats and minor violence convinced the bear that it wasn't worth a couple of cups of sunflower seed and he took off, crashing through the woods.  There he harassed the neighbor's dog and threatened the welfare of their garbage.  Eventually it took a shotgun blast over his head to get the point across that he was no longer welcome in the neighborhood.  With that our annual visit from this dumb young male black bear came to a close.

Beyond the bear there have been plenty of other happenings around the homestead.  Sarsaparilla has turned brown.  Aster have sprouted.  Columbine, Marsh Marigolds and Iris have begun to flower.  Monarch butterflies and scores of various moths fight the winds and colonize the side of the cabin below the porch light at night.  Our honeycrisp and sweet sixteen apple trees have flowered.  Most of the garden has been planted.  With the latest rain, however, we fear that many of the shallow small seeds may have been flooded out!

Like the Black Bear darting through the thick underbrush dodging my projectiles or the streams crashing down during a downpour; life on the homestead keeps moving along with the hastened pace of spring.

Garden planted and fenced

Peeling logs

Albeit hard work, peeling logs is gratifying work.  It's kind of like opening a present.  With each pull of the draw knife the scaly bark of the white spruce reveals another grain of wood.  The lines of grains oscillate into the fiber of each log.  Every log is as unique as the next; as unique as each rock lining the shore of Lake Superior.

For the past few days I've been peeling a log a day with the goal of peeling two dozen or so in order to first build a post and beam woodshed and then a sauna.  So while I'm busy zoning off - working my biceps with every pull and memorized by the unraveling grain - I'm really just thinking of how to best cut a tenon and mortise in each log and how they'll fit together.  I'm planning which one will be a post, top plate or rafter.  Thinking: "This funky grain won't cut this way so it can't go there," etc...

Peeling logs has been an unexpected joy to me.  It's one of those tasks that played out somewhere in the back of my mind during one of the countless walks out on the property; during one of those hours crashing through the balsam bush while daydreaming of the work ahead.  What I didn't foresee, however, was how intriguing of a way it is to pass time.  It's a time to forget about the crazy human world we live in and discover the wonders that each fibrous grain is willing to reveal: you just have to be willing to do a little work...

Unlikely Playmates

The first real warm humid southern low of the season has brought temperatures in the 70's, bugs in the air, thunderstorms at night, large leaf aster and marsh marigold sprouting during the day.  Our lettuce has sprouted in the garden.  Many of the onion and garlic have begun to breach the soil as well.

On a drive up the Gunflint Trail today I saw a moose, fox and even a snapping turtle ambling it's way across the road.  The moose looked a little ragged after the winter.  It didn't even look up as I slowly drove by the pond it was grazing.

At my destination I was startled by rustling in a nearby fir tree.  First I just thought that it was a squirrel scrambling away from me.  It persisted.  I soon saw the squirrel and then curiously a Blue Jay flew from limb to limb seemingly giving chase.  The squirrel would jump to another tree and the Blue Jay would playfully swoop down at it.  They were playing a game of chase!  The cunning squirrel would position itself at such a spot where the bird would have to land just before he was in reach.  He would take this fleeting moment to jump to the next limb or across the trail to another tree.  I've never seen anything like it before and couldn't resist watching their game unfold for a while before I realized that they were content doing this all day.  Here these two animals of very different species weren't fighting over pine cones; they were spending their day climbing and flying around the stand of balsam fir playing chase!

The warm night air is full of sound.  Crickets, frogs and saw whet owls fill the air with music as light clouds drift past the waxing moon: remnants of the first stormy cumulus clouds of the season...