Trapped

A yelping, screeching cry rang through the woods under a fitfully cloudy full moon night in November.

The ski began as most typical early season forays do.  The snow was thin but navigable.  A decent snowfall and full moon during the last week meant that the conditions were fair for a rare moonlight ski in November.  Driving home into the woods after a day in the office in town I felt good.  Thin cirrus clouds dashed across the sky and over Lake Superior.  I scurried to complete my chores, eat a quick snack and dress for the single digit weather. 

Under the half guise of a dampened moon and headlight my friend, the dog and I slowly climbed up the hill.  The conversation was rich.  The trail familiar.  We skied up to the old county road where we turned east.  We were bound for the meadows.  Our dog Luna pranced along.  At one point she found the leg of a deer and brought it along for the ride.  Dutifully (and to my surprise), however, she dropped and left it at my command.

The grade shallows out and we approach our destination.  The trail becomes rutted from four wheeler traffic.  All efforts and concentration is reduced to the few feet of the upcoming stride.  Suddenly a horrendous yelping cry pierces my ear.  I immediately yelled out in fear that a wolf was attacking Luna.  The cry descends to a mournful yelp.  Instincts kick in and I hop around.  I kick as hard as I can to assist my dog in painful need.  However, my mind is in front of my feet and I face plant into the snow.  Thoughtless efforts bring me back to my feet and I continue my dash.  The edge of my ski catches a tire rut and I eat the powder once more. 

Soon enough I reach Luna.  Her front right foot is caught in a toothless Alaskan wolf trap.  She whimpers as we wrap our heads around the situation.  At first glance it looks bad.  There's blood.  The dog is obviously in pain and the trap is firmly set.  Thankfully and somehow logically my mind recognizes the mechanism on the trap and we are able to release the jaws and free her. 

It's dark.  The dog is hurt and we are almost a mile from home.  Without a careful assessment of Luna's injury under light we elect to carry her home to prevent any further damage from her walking back herself.  Within minutes I find myself with an 80 pound mutt on my shoulders, traversing a tough trail with ski boots on in the dark.  Unfortunately this isn't the first time I've found myself carrying a traveling companion out of the woods.  The best thing that I've found is to fool yourself into thinking about anything else but the situation that you are currently in.  We mainly talked about canoeing as I struggled to march my way out of this mess.  Along the way I accurately detect the signs that I was on a trap line.  Signs that to my discredit I initially missed.  With the dog wrapped around my shoulders I tramped a tenth of a mile and rested.  During the rests we check to see how Luna was looking. Fortunately each time we felt that she had fared better than at first thought. After a number of rests we reach the cabin.  Once home it is clear that she will be alright. Her foot is injured and sore but doesn't seem to have any major broken bones or torn ligaments.

Luna walked away from this one better than expected.  Her injury is not life-threatening.  However, I take the fault in this one.  I misread my surroundings.  The lesson in this is that living here leaves little room for complacency.  I was in familiar grounds oblivious to the subtle signs around me and my companion paid the price.  Thankfully the price wasn't too large...   

Ski Season Declared

With the storm clouds over the lake and past us it was time to break trail! 

Penelope's first ski- 6 1/2 months old

The season's first significant accumulation of snow has fallen.  About three inches fell along the lake and about a foot being reported over the hill on the Gunflint Trail.  Another inch or so is descending as I write.  With the storm came a cold weather pattern that appears to be poised to persist for many days.   Our highs might break twenty degrees.  It's amazing how seasons happen:  one day you're hiking in a short sleeve shirt sweating your way up a hill climb while the next you're waking up to a blanket of snow with driving winds wondering where your best snow shovel is at!

While there is plenty of wood to be split I am comfortable in the fact that we have much of the year's supply stacked and drying.  My winter project list is drafted.   I'm working on figuring out materials. For the most part I will be picking away at building more storage and some custom finish trim pieces.  

The deer rifle season has closed.  Our neighbor took a nice ten point buck on the south east side of the property.  The final rifle and trapping wolf season is now open. 

This afternoon we cut down a balsam fir and used the top for a Christmas tree that now resides in the corner of our living room.  Underneath there are already a couple of presents for the little one!  With the change in seasons we are patiently waiting for a solid snow base to declare the ski season and pack our trail! 

At first glance I mistook the raily back of the loping wolf as a deer.  It's four lanky effortlessly gained ground along the Gunflint Trail.  His thick, full coat of fur bristled in the cold autumn air.  Gray, black with a slight tinge of copper orange as the my truck crept closer.  His ears funneled themselves in my direction and with one fast jump he was over the ditch and in the woods.  I watched his yellow ears fixate on the passing blur of a vehicle.  I couldn't help but wonder if he realized that for the first time in his life there was an open season on his life.

The rifle deer and wolf season are open. Initial reports are of a "productive" harvest of wolves. There are two seasons on the wolf in Minnesota this year. The first coinciding with the deer rifle season. The second is a rifle/trap season. A maximum of 400 wolves will be harvested in the State this year. In Minnesota a wolf hunt is inevitable. Timing, however, is everything to successful management of any resource. The hunt has left mixed feelings in the area. I for one could never kill a wolf unless it was harming my dog. However, I do understand the need for management but am conflicted whether we are truly at a population that it is warranted. Folks are quick to point out the "dwindling" deer herd. Really? My unscientific investigation concludes that I hit pert near one per year on the road, see at least one daily and wage a constant battle with them over my apples and vegetables. Furthermore, with all due respect; I don't know a single deer hunter who comes out of the season empty handed. I can't say that about anglers, moose or bear hunters. All that I can do is trust that our resources are in the hands of experts and hope for the best.

To me it all is very "manifest destiny" that the second a predators' population rebounds to get off our self determined list that we feel the need to "get them" and "keep them in check". Humans clearly are the "top dog" on the food chain. However, we have so handily asserted ourselves in the ecosystem that maybe we should let time create a buffer for any assumptions that we are falsely making with our management decisions? Myself, I couldn't pull the trigger on a wolf and I am not that big of a fan of venison so I just wish my friends and neighbors the best of luck and help them haul out their kill.

Frost crystallizes it's way up towards the center of the windows.  Cold, stagnant air hovers over the North Shore.  Ice now slowly forms on the lakes of the Quetico/Superior Border Country.

Light barely pierces the trees along the eastern horizon.  The dog slumbers in front of the wood stove; warmed only by the spent coals from last night's inferno.  The baby has been up for hours.  At this time she is content lying between us flailing her petite arms and cooing; eager for the upcoming day.  I slowly stir, roll to my back and allow my eyes to calibrate.  The air is chilled.  I find comfort under the down blanket that envelopes our family.  There is, however, incentive to getting up and embracing the limited light.  Winter is near but has not fully gripped the north woods.  This leaves me the opportunity to further my firewood ambitions.

Stretching my chilled limbs I shuffle my way to the wood stove, stir the coals, place some birch bark and kindling on the smoldering embers, open the draft and wait for the warmth to waft it's way throughout the cabin.

Now finding my stride I stroll to the tea pot, fill it and put it over a high propane heat.  Coffee ground and in it's filter I warm a wash clothe and stir the smiling baby.  Penelope usually has a lot to say at this point in the day.  Perhaps she needs to tell me about all of her colorful dreams?  Today is no exception.  She babbles as I wash, change and dress her.

Baby content, coffee brewed, stove churning; I step outside.  The thick air stings my nostrils.  The dog sniffs around.  The sky is crystal clear.  A warm rising sun illuminates the understory.  Black capped chickadees pluck around on balsam limbs.  Sap suckers chuck away at a dead birch left on the upper edge of our clearing.  A crow noisily fans his way just above the tree line.  In the distance a deer hunter sends a salvo.

Time to get to work... 

Cold Rain Ramble

A cold rain batters the window panes as Penelope and I stare outside at the frigid deluge thinking all the adventures and chores that aren't happening on it's account.  This morning we woke to a dusting of snow which quick melted off and yielded to the freezing rain as the first decent winter-like storm pummels it's way over the Rockies, through the Great Plains and now the shore of Lake Superior.

We were entertained while brushing our teeth the other morning by a pileated woodpecker boring his way through a dead poplar outside our window.  Pileated woodpeckers look like a pterodactyl- a relic of the mesozoic.  One of the largest woodpeckers in the world (the largest in Minnesota and most likely in North America too as the Ivory-billed in considered extinct) they navigate the tight balsam understory with their two foot wingspans in a remarkably graceful manner; swooping from dead snag to snag to barrel their large beaks into the punky wood in order to find carpenter ants and whatever other grub there may be. 

While walking down the road a falcon unsuccessfully assaulted a flock of snow buntings.   It always amazes me when a flock of birds or a school of fish manuevers in such a tight formation.  How are they able to make such quick turns?  Is there a single leader making the turn?  As it turns out, there is a lot of research out there about this.  Basically, the flock acts as one due to what is known as collective animal behavior.  Each individual makes an independent decision based on distance, heading and position of the others.  The incentive is to stay in a group where they have safety in numbers.  Therefore, if one bird needs to drastically change direction because a falcon swoops in to attack, a succession of decisions would be made by the birds around that one to do the same and the rest would follow.  An observer would see the seemingly effortless collective change in course  without necessarily realizing all of the individual decisions that were made by each of the individuals.

I spotted a large, gorgeous fisher on a road in the Greenwood country. On it's back it had a brown hour glass-shape patch with a more typically black coat of oily weaselly fur.  Fisher are known in the north woods for their fierce personalities.  Their claim to fame is that of the porcupines' predator.  Think about it: hunting and killing a porcupine!  Most animals steer clear of the quilled critter.  The fisher, however, is quick enough to stay right in the face of a porcupine where they have no quills and claw out it's senses before going for the kill.  Found in the unspoiled and dense forests of the area, they commonly roam a territory of over one hundred square miles.

A meteorite dropped through the atmosphere last night above me.  It's green trail plunged right in front of me within a second of stepping outside.  I imagined a rock that has been aimlessly careening through space for eons suddenly get sucked in the gravity of earth's mass and burn up in a few brilliant seconds of fame for the few souls whom happened to be looking up at that exact space and time.  I'm usually not like this but the timing sent a chill through me. 

Around the homestead winter preparations continue. I have been insulating pipes and continue to work on the finishing touches of the plumbing project. Beyond that my time is spent steadily progressing on splitting firewood.

The snow shoe hare are now dressed in their winter whites.  Personally, there comes a time every season when I am ready for the next. This is a great thing about the upper Midwest. We get all four seasons so one particular time of the year never truly gets old because by the time it does, you're on to the next! With that said, I'm ready for winter. I'm ready to be packing ski trails, staring down holes in the ice waiting for fish to bite and a change of pace...

Ice has begun glazing it's way across the surface of ponds, lakes and rivers.  Seasonally cool air remains perched as part of a dominating high pressure system that has pulled cold air from the interior of Canada.  This is stark contrast to one of the largest low pressure systems ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin that walloped the East Coast with Hurricane Sandy.  Fringe clouds from the massive storm were visible over the eastern reaches of Lake Superior.  The storm was so powerful that it shifted twenty foot waves onto the western shore of Lake Michigan!

A full moon punctuates the night sky.  We have been busy winterizing the homestead; splitting and stacking wood, installing insulating plastic on the windows, "buttoning down" everything that will remain outside, and moving everything else into the sheds for storage.

The ground has begun to freeze.  Geometric prisms of frozen topsoil heave in the morning light.  Flocks of southbound migrating birds have come and gone leaving the chickadees fluttering through the balsam and the hearty Bald Eagle in their perches overlooking the river gorges.  Snow shoe hare have begun to turn white starting with their spring-like hind legs.  Deer cautiously scour the remaining understory for food- anxious for the rifle season that begins in less than a week. 

There's no doubt now that winter is making it's way south...