Phenology

Break in the cold streak. Highs in the twenties! Snowshoed through a solid four feet of snow. Spotted a pileated woodpecker atop a poplar above Osier Creek. A black mange-ridden wolf showed up this afternoon. Evidently it's been a tough year in the Devil's Track Pack... 1/23/2011 Windy, clear, cold, high temp of 5 F. Nights are stormy: lake effect snow averaging 1/2 inch per night for the past week or so. Spotted the mangy wolf that has been hanging around during the day scavenging on the road; too tired and cold to run through the woods. Probably won't make it through the winter. 

Sub-Zero Motivation

Fresh wolf tracks guided my way up Wood Mountain Road on a bright, cold winter morning.  The temperature hasn't creeped above zero in days.  A frigid northern air mass has blanketed the upper midwest of North America.  Light lake effect snow falls during most afternoons.  At night, the winds howl and leave the previous day's snow accumulation in dunes for folks to dig out.

On this particular morning, it's 20 below, minus 50 when you factor in wind chill.  In the Northwoods, there is really only two things beyond food that one needs: water and heat.  I've got water, but if I want to get anything done on the homestead in weather like this I need some heat!

Luna, in her super hero cape!  Reserved for the bitter cold.

It's funny, I shopped around for the wood stove like I did my truck.  I had to find just the right "rig" for our use.  Like the truck, the stove is probably a little overkill.  However, who wants to underestimate how much heat you need.  I'd rather error on the side of too much heat when it doesn't get above zero all day.  Needless to say, a good efficient stove is crucial.  I'm not messing around here; the one I chose is 77% efficient!

The wood stove was sitting in a warehouse in Duluth, 110 miles down the North Shore of Lake Superior along the "Dylan-famous" Highway 61.  We headed out to pick it up under clear skies and a full thermos of green tea.  By the time the tea was empty (and I have the jitters) we had made it to Castle Danger (about two thirds of the way there) and it was apparent that we weren't going to be returning home tonight.  A strong low wind brought snow off the lake and was dumping over an inch a hour.  Within a matter of miles, I took off the shades and popped the good ol' Toyota into four wheel drive.

Arriving in Duluth, we got up and over the hill to pick up the stove.  With the help of a fork lift, the stove is moved from warehouse dock onto the truck bed.  Then we were off to get the chimney.  By the time we had picked up the chimney it was official: we were snowbound in Duluth!  Thankfully Duluth has two critical things that any weary traveler needs: chinese food and the house of a dear friend with an extra warm bed...

By morning, plows had cleared the way for our return.  We returned home and with the help of my visiting family, we unloaded the stove to its new, much-debated location.  We agreed on the center of the south exterior wall.

I figured out one thing very early on in this homesteading thing: owners manuals are my best friend.  As with most of the new gear that I have been using since this project began, I have little to no experience doing most of these tasks.  Helping out a friend with a project over the weekend is one thing: designing and building a homestead from start to finish is another.  Read the directions!

Installing a wood stove isn't rocket science but you have to do it right.  Once the stove is situated in it's home, you have to figure out where you're cutting the hole.  There's something very nerve racking about taking a saw to a brand new metal roof.  However, you can't psych yourself out!  It's just another cut.  That's at least what I kept saying to myself as I ripped through the pretty red roof...

Then you install the chimney support.  Support installed, the work goes upward to the roof.  It was then I was fully reminded in what climate I live.  Climbing onto the roof in the pitch-black early evening with twenty below wind chills; I might as well have been deep in the Alaskan Interior (no disrespect to the hardy Alaskans who regularly endure much colder temps for longer spells).  My point simply is that it was cold!

The wind howled yet I was determined to get the stove installed and put some heat into the equation.  On the ground I planned it all out: I had the right bit for the metal screws set, screws, wire snips, level in my pockets.  I even pulled the sealant from the cab of the warm truck and had it under my shirt (still miraculously unfrozen).

I hauled the chimney up the roof and very, very gingerly crawled up on the slick metal.  After setting the chimney in the support down below, I cut a slot for the flashing to slide under the upslope side of the roof and wrestled it in.  That was the most difficult task of the entire project.  I was standing on the roof, cold, tired, using climbing moves to avoid slipping off and trying to slid a cold piece of metal through a slot that is barely wider than itself.  Finally after a few slips, a couple of choice words and some logic, I had the flashing properly in place.  Flashing fastened I quickly pulled the sealant out of my shirt and sealed the edges.  Bitter cold fingertips pushing me on, I then wrapped the storm collar and sealed it.  I installed the rain cap and got off that frozen perch as fast as I could.  In all, I think that I spent a solid hour and half up there (not bad for a amateur I thought).

Inside I put together the adjustable-length black connector pipe.  And then, the game drastically changed. We have fire!

Now that we have heat, I'm going to shift my thoughts to framing interior walls for the bed and bathrooms.  From there I can wire, insulate and sheet rock.

This cold streak kicked my butt.  I learned a lot of things.  I gained appreciation for owner's manuals.  Most important, I once again was reminded that the elements are boss.  All that we can do is motivate ourselves to overcome the conditions and work our way towards our goal.  Heat!  It's well worth it...

P.S.  I can tell you this much; I'm not going to make it successfully through a metal detector until this homesteading project is complete.  Every time I grab a glove out of my jacket pocket I'm coming up with metal screws, roof nails and bits!

Phenology

Cold, minus 20 F, minus 40-50 F wind chill, light lake effect snow in afternoon, fresh lone wolf tracks and scat on road.

Video Tour of the Castle

Icy road leads to the castle

It was the first cold snap of the winter.  Temperatures had finally sunk well below zero, never mind the wind.  The difference between this deep freeze and most others is the fact a quarter inch of rain had fallen within the last 24 hours.  The remote gravel roads of the North Shore were luge courses.  Wood Mountain Road was no exception.  Our driveway was worse and we had a date with the cement workers to lay our slab.  This was the last opportunity to get our garage slab poured until spring time.

I'm lugging up the Lindskog Road from Highway 61 in four wheel drive when I see the first known "victim" of our road.  The crew hauling a trailer to pour the slab was unable to get up the "steeps" section of the road and slid back down the slope into the ditch.  It was still early on this December night but I already knew that it was going to be a long one.

The next few hours were spent carefully and slowly digging and pulling.  We finally got the trailer out of the ditch and hauled up to the garage site where a furnace was thawing the ground where the slab would be poured.  Crawling into bed that evening I schemed up my early morning plan to sand the entire stretch of road from the garage to the Taylor Lane, just shy of a quarter mile.

The darkness continued as I crawled out of bed that morning.  Venus was prominant in the northern sky.
I was determined to get these cement trucks up the road to pour the slab.  Once the slab was poured we would be home free.  The garage could be built within weeks and we would have all winter to finish it off.  The only thing between us and that reality was a couple of yards of sand and salt and a quarter mile of ice.

I began on the top.  Working with the long spade shovel I threw my sand mixture just in the wheel wells to conserve.  By daylight I was at the base of the driveway.  The young crew showed up shortly thereafter.  They were "concerned" about the cement truck's ability to make it up the driveway.  I think "no shit, it's concerning" but I know its not their call.  It's not mine either.  The decision to drive the cement truck up the ice-glazed road rests entirely on the driver of the cement truck.  You see, once cement is poured into a truck someone is paying for it.  I wasn't influencing anything about this call, limiting my liability.  Thankfully the driver was a seasoned old timer, he checked out the road, declared it fine and returned to get the cement truck.  I left before he came back with the rig.  I didn't want to see it happening.

Once the slab was poured everything happened real fast:

The slab with an insulating blanket on top so it maintains an even temperature while it cures.

Three walls, the roof trusses and sheathing on.

The fourth wall completes the shell.  The perimeter is wrapped and the windows are cut.

The red metal roof, facia, windows set, and the start of the beveled cedar siding.

Finished castle: our new home!

A proud new owner enters...

Check out that cedar!

So here I am; my back sore from cutting out our lake view.  (We waited to thin for a view until we had windows to see where it was blocked.)  This week I'll  continue cutting, burn a pile or two of slash, seal the cement floor and drive to Duluth to pick up our new wood stove.

My list of things to do is only getting longer...

3 Walls, a Roof and 20 Huskies!

January 1, 2011 - It has now been 1 year since we purchased our 5 acres of raw land - and what a year it has been!  In the sleeting rain of the last week of December, the crew put up 3 walls and the roof sheathing of our garage!  David will write more about the building of the garage in another post.  But here is a picture of the progress to date!

Luna and I went out to inspect the garage after the first day of building.  We headed out after dark and as we climbed the driveway, Luna's nose picked up the scent of fresh wood.  She enthusiastically sniffed the air and when we reached the top, the outline of the new building loomed in the dark.  After a year of memorizing the empty space of our property, Luna must have been shocked to see something there.  She sheepishly sat down on my foot and started barking at the garage, hoping to scare it away.  Now if you know Luna, she rarely barks, so this was very unusual behavior.  Together we walked into the garage and still she barked, a little more timidly, listening to the echo reverberate off the walls.  We walked every inch of that new space and she continued to bark, so, I decided it was time to head home.  The next day I took her during the daylight and this time, there was no barking.

Mukuk (meaning birch bark basket in Ojibwe) and Sitka (in back)

Besides the excitement of the garage construction, David took the week off to guide dog sledding trips with Eric Simula up at Bearskin Lodge.  With a good base of snow and cold temperatures, it was a beautiful week to be on trail.  I spent New Years Day up the Gunflint Trail with David and the dogs.

David with his leaders Moose (jumping up) and Tonsina

It is hard to describe the pure exhilaration of being around and running the huskies.  Each animal has its own distinct personality and yet the pack morphs into the vibrant energy of one being.  When you are out in the serene winter landscape this energy radiates through the cold.  The sounds of the falling paws, the exhale of breath and your own motion amplify in the stillness.  You are one with your surroundings. 

Just out of the chute, heading down an arm of East Bearskin Lake.
Eric Simula & team in front, David & team in back.

 Happy New Year Friends and Family, may it be filled with wild joy and serene stillness!

Amy

A few more years of growth...

It always takes me a little while to get used to darkness each winter.  At first, just after daylight savings in the late fall I try to beat the sunset.  I find myself hurrying in the late day to finish up just one more thing before complete darkness.  But as winter settles in and your eyes adjust, the darkness simply becomes reality for a greater part of your time.

At the same time, Lake Superior's famed "Gales of November" have stayed true to it's name this year.  High winds, snow, and ice storms have battered the North Shore over the past few weeks.  The property has lost a number of trees due to these events.  It makes me think about the forest around the garage site.  Apart from the cleared area immediately around the garage, I have been eyeing up the taller trees and cutting them if they could hit the garage.  It's better to cut them now rather than when the structure is there!

At first it's easy to guess which trees will hit the garage site.  But the further away you get , the bigger the trees are.  The farther away and the taller the trees, the  more difficult it is to judge if they are tall enough to hit the structure.  This adds an entirely new element of simply dropping big trees.  It's fun.  Sometimes you right and every once in a while, you aren't.

This afternoon I found a big old poplar that I thought was tall enough to hit the garage.  There's a distinct climaxing moment while cutting a big tree when the game changes.  You go from cutting a tree to dropping one.  It's the point at which the saw cuts through a critical mass.  At that moment, the tree cracks, gravity officially takes hold and the hardwood leans and falls along the line I predicted.  The outcome is just as I envisioned except for one thing.  The tallest branches are a yard short of the garage!

Give the tree a few more years of growth and it would be an entirely new equation.  However, the fact is that I didn't guess it right.  On the other side of the coin, when the tree lands dead center in the middle of the garage pad I cringe.  At least it proves why I am doing this.  I think that I'd rather be wrong every once and a while...

Snow flakes in the air...

Activity on the homestead is at an all-time high right now.  Our shed is built, the driveway is complete, the garage site is prepped and a slab for the garage will be poured in a matter of days.  On top of that we just completing drilling a 340' water well!  The progress explains my absence from this writing project.  

Here's how things have been going:

Once leveled, I built a platform out of treated lumber and framed up the walls.

Walls raised, I then hoisted the 2x6" rafters and nailed tongue and groove for the roofing.

Sheathing and asphalt paper on.  All the shed now needs is a metal roof, siding and a door.

There is always something else that requires my immediate attention.  For example, the other day I realized that the well drillers were in the area and could make it to our place within a couple of days.  The catch was that the route up to the well site hadn't been cleared.  I cleared a 16x80' lane with a turnaround in 4 hours.  It's no wonder why my shed doesn't have a door. 

The total depth of the well is 340'.  It is situated just above 890 ft in elevation, just above the Washburn shoreline which was deposited when the lake was almost 300' higher than today (just over 10,000 years ago).  

Within a couple of feet the drill bit hit bedrock.  The first 180' is the classic red porphyritic rhyolite.  At about 220' the hole found a softer dark ophitic gabbro unit followed by a basalt flow full of amygdules of the pink mineral (calcium alluminum silicate) prehnite.  The hole soon then goes back into the rhyolite where we hit water.  Although the flow is relatively low (it is likely to increase as water is drawn from it), the water isn't salty nor does it have a mineral-rich flavor of which is common in the Duluth Complex.  

Another shot of the driveway.  This time with a 4" lift of class 1 gravel!

We're covering the garden site with a 4mm thick plastic.  At the end of the growing season next year we will pull this, cover crop with legumes and start planning the vegetable patch.

The leveled garage site awaiting the 5" concrete slab.

The interface that exists between trying to tell my story of beating a path through the wilderness of northern Minnesota and writing this blog creates a conflict.  I work on the property everyday.  Everyday I walk home from work, put on my field clothes, dress the dog with her blaze orange hankerchief and drive east just past the Devil's Track River gorge to our land.  There I work until I can't see my hand in front of my face.  I drive back home to eat some food and sleep.  The next day I get up and do it all again.  My body is tired.  The hard part is when I try to sit down and explain how things are coming along.  The truth is that I can't.  

These words are the culmanation of hours upon hours of cutting, hauling, digging, building and thinking.  There's no way to clearly express the thought and emotion that is going into this.  Pictures show the physical changes that are going on.  Nothing except my words can describe the personal growth that is continually evolving.  I try but I must admit that I am conflicted.  I started this project to learn what it takes to work a piece of property.  I began writing to share this experience and document the steps along the way.  I can write and take photographs about the physical changes occurring on the property.  However, I struggle in my attempt to share true effort and emotion that I am putting into this project.  This isn't a disclaimer.  I'm just being honest.   

This land is my lifestyle.  It's amazing to think that we haven't even owned this property for one year.  The progress is what keeps me going.  As I peck away at projects slowly but surely I can see the outcome of my efforts.  

Watching a giant iron ore freighter hugging the North Shore while sailing the safer "northern route" I realized that the warm season has passed.  Snowflakes have been in the air all week. 

Denali to Seward

The life of a wandering, adventurous soul never truly experiences monotany.  Just when the dog has found a routine and I feel like a complete yuppie walking with my briefcase back and forth to work, my life gets a little douse of adventure.

I've been drawn to Alaska my entire life.  There's something about a place where the natural order is the dominating force that intrigues me.  Although I have spent a fair amount of time in the Alaskan bush, I can honestly say that I still feel like a "kid in a candy store" every time my feet sink in to the tussocks of the tundra.  Alaska is a place where the scale of the landscape is too large for a human to comprehend.  It's a  place where ones eye gazes over a valley to a mountain that is a New England state's width away.  The Alaskan wilderness is immense.

Denali is one of those places that everyone has to see.  The highest point of land in North America, Denali (Mount McKinley) is a temple of ice and rock.  Formed by the compression of earths crust, Denali was thrusted upwards as two of earths plates collided and sheared themselves against  each other.    The pinnacle of the mighty Alaska Range, mountaineers call it the "coldest mountain on earth" for its frigid temperatures.  The backcountry of Denali is home to caribou, grizzly bear, dall sheep, wolves, fox, snowshoe hare, wolverine and lynx.

Alaska is a breeding ground for the best bush pilots in the world.  During my time in exploration geology, I've had the privaledge of working with a number of outstanding pilots.  Most namely, I had the honor of working with Wild Bill Michel.  Wild Bill was simply of surgeon in the air.  He was flawless.

It's a whiteout.  I'm on the some peak in the Kuskokwim country of SW Alaska moving an exploration camp to it's winter storage site on a ridge out of sight.  My field partner is huddled next to a twiggy fire shaking profusly.  We've been on the ridge in a blizzard for twelve hours as Wild Bill has been slingling load after load of camp tents, gear, drill rigs, etc. up to us.  Slinging gear is a common practice in which a helicopter has a line with a hook attached to the bottom of the craft.  Someone on the ground hooks the load, the bird transports it and it is unhooked in a new location.  Today I drew the lucky straw of unhooking the gear on a spiny ridge at 6,000 feet. The conditions are horrendous.  There are times that Wild Bill makes an attempt to get up to us but is turned away by shifting mountain valley winds.  Some attempts are detoured by the white out.  In short, winter is closing in and we have to get the camp broken down!

With my partner huddled against a palette shivering with the early signs hypothermia and a relentless blizzard bearing down off the Bering Sea, Wild Bill simply handed me the sling load every time, literally dropping the hook in my outstretched hand time and again.  He was an artist with wings.

Flipping through paper on a bus ride near Talketna, a familiar face was printed in the pages.  Wild Bill had crashed into a mountain ridge at the edge of Denali National Park.  The reality of life in the north too often takes the best.

As we flew southeast on the redeye out of Anchorage the northern lights danced along the late summer frontier of the great boreal wilderness.  I feel small every time I come home from AK.  For some reason, this time left me feeling inspired.  It has taken the dedication of so many brave, smart and hard working people to make a life in the Alaskan bush.  These people show me the dreams I have are possible.

Warm Wind Through Spruce Knob

Summer in the north woods comes slowly but is busy for the few months it lasts!

It's already the end of August.  Our freezer is full of blueberries and walleye.  A tent platform is built.  Two fire rings dot the land.  Another few dozen freshly-planted red, white and jack pine trees rim the north and western property lines.  Concrete blocks for the foundation of the tool shed are leveled and the property is slowly amassing the materials that will eventually be the structures we will some day call home.  Our road is dry, ditched and awaiting its final lift of gravel.  The driveway is not in a hurry and neither am I.

A view looking up the driveway.

We camp out on the land as often as schedules permit.  I sleep better under the spruce.  Whippoorwills echo their name under the soft darkness of a moonlit night.   Their echo sometimes persists through the morning hours!

Northerners like myself seem to never fully acclimatize to the warmth of late summer.  Subsequently most summertime productivity on northern homesteads occur in the early morning or evening hours.  Walking down the driveway after a full morning of working on the shed foundation, I found myself a hundred paces from a shining, mature male black bear.  He's probably the same bear that destroyed my tent.  He sniffed me. I raised my arms and acted cocky to chase him off.  Luna, the obedient dog that she is, sat at my feet.  I clutched her collar as she intently watched the bear proceed to walk closer.

This isn't my first black bear encounter.  Heck, I have always thought of them as the cuddly, fuzzy pillow compared to their grizzly counterparts.  Nine times out of ten black bears run the second they realize there are humans around.  This one didn't.

I continued to act tough as the curious bear ambled towards me.  I'm the type of person who doesn't just sit back and let another animal take control of the situation.  I bluffed the bear.  Lunging forward I "fake charged" him.  It's generally not the brightest thing to do with a bear but I had to assert my dominance.  It was clear that he wasn't worried about me.  It worked!  My bluff startled him just enough to question my intentions and he spooked.  The bear took off into the bush and up Osier Creek.

In retrospect I probably shouldn't have bluffed that dumb ol' bear but the risk paid off.  I admit that I have been taking my time and scanning the woods in the clearings to make sure he's not around since the encounter.  In the end, all that I can do is hope that he is smart enough stay clear of these parts.  Otherwise the score might be settled in the fall...  

The materials that built this tent platform all have their orgins within a stones throw from the site.  The rock is local, the balsam beams were cut on location and the spruce deck boards come from a tree that was harvested and milled on the property.

The block foundation for the tool shed.

There is simply no such thing as a typical day out here!  The second my daily chores become monotonous, a bear, wolf or storm enters the picture to spice things up a little.  It only makes life interesting.  In the meanwhile, I work, take a stroll down the trail and scheme up the next step.  Before I knew it, a brilliant summer on the North Shore of Lake Superior has rained it's days and is coming to an end with warm wind through Spruce Knob...