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...

Old Faithful

Penelope giggles in the next room as her mom dresses her for the day.  The wood stoves crackles with poplar and birch warming the chilled air.  The low temperatures in recent nights have hovered right around 20 degrees.  With a fresh brew of coffee in the mug I'm lying on the couch wrapped in a wool blanket reading a Canadian wilderness adventure and enjoying the first real rest I've taken in a long while.  Just beyond the horizon is winter.  In the North, this is a time to recoup, rest up, and plan the upcoming work season. 

Winter, however, is not quite upon us.  Before I can rest too much I have firewood to process.  We've added a new tool to our arsenal.  This week our "new to us" wood splitter arrived.  I fired her up right away eager to start working at our pile of bucked birch.  Being a used machine, I knew that I wanted to start our with fresh hydraulic fluid.  This, however, is my introduction to hydraulics.  I followed all the sage wisdom that I've absorbed talking with folks trying to limit the amount of air that I let into the line.  Slowly the gurgles decreased as I filled the cylinder with fluid.  Then, seemingly as random as a geyser, fluid shot straight up five feet into the air.  I was left with a pink goo mess that I buried in saw chips to absorb the petro-based mess.  The geyser lasted for barely five seconds but left me with a sheepish smile on my face.  Our splitter had a new name: "Old Faithful"!

She started right up and has effortlessly split every piece I've placed in her jowls.  So as gentle snow flakes fall and bald eagles soar the shoreline of Lake Superior below me "Old Faithful" purrs as we eat through chord after chord of firewood... 

Running Water

It wasn't quite a "light switch moment" but was close.  The feeling of warm water is pretty breathtaking after months of work.  While there was no "ah ha!" reaction to the tepid water as it flowed from the faucet there was again was the feeling of satisfaction and gratitude to all the efforts that we have been working on as well as the help from so many to complete this plumbing project.

I take from this plumbing experience a similar lesson to wiring: I enjoy the planning and rough plumbing but could take or leave the nitty gritty aspect of plumbing fixtures and appliances.  It sounds crazy but I don't mind drilling holes in the attic with my head jammed up against a rafter in hundred degree heat and my jaw rattling to the vibration of a drill hammer plowing through a top plate of the wall no more than inches from me but torquing a wrench around the outlet of a pressure tank or water heater drives me bonkers!

Cutting Concrete

The most difficult part of the project was the drain lines.  Here our friend Ben is grinding away at the footing of our concrete slab to obtain the space needed to get the drain line out. 

Apart from the warm bath at the end of the day, my favorite aspect of plumbing is the simple science of it all.  Plumbing, more than many trades, reminds you constantly that the laws of physics apply.  This reality is not very subtle either: gravity prevails and the water runs down slope, hot air rises, masses move from high to low pressure. 

Trimming out the Tub

Tub, faucets and surround all installed the only thing left to do is trim it all out!

Running water is something that many people take for granted.  Most folks move into a house that is hooked up to city water and sewer and never put a second thought to what kind of infrastructure is necessary for them to turn on the faucet and wash the dishes or brush their teeth.  This is part of the detachment that many humans in first world countries have with the natural world.  They don't know what it takes to get the conveniences that many take for granted.

This is something that I want to take out of this experience.  Just as it is easy to look at a gorgeous mountain scape, ocean, or lake everyday and get so used to it that you don't relish in it's grandeur; humans need to stop and think for a few minutes everyday about the amenities they do have and the work that is required to have them.  I never want to take running water, electricity, warmth, a roof over my head or food on my plate for granted.  The truth is that before I started hiking up the hill to clear this land I went through the motions without any thought. 

Humans seem to be losing the knowledge of what it takes to live the way we do.  Maybe everybody should have a start with a raw chunk of dirt and figure it out?  It teaches you what hard work is.  It instills an appreciation for how good we have it.  In turn this appreciation makes you think twice of leaving that light on and wasting electricity or letting the faucet run.

While there is plenty of finish work to be done before the project can be officially proclaimed "complete" I am proud to say that we have officially achieved the modern convenience of running water!

P is for Pumpkin

Cold rain falls on the North Shore.  Light snow has occasionally been in the air for about a week now.  Minor accumulations were reported in the highland areas of the Superior National Forest.  Thousands of birds flock south to warmer winter habitat along the Sawtooth Mountains.  Tamarack (American Larch), the only deciduous conifer in Minnesota, has turned yellow.  During the growing season tamarack appears much like any medium-sized conifer in the bogs and wetlands they prefer to inhabit.  Come late fall, however, they shed their short, thin needley leaves.  The range of the tamarack extends into the far reaches of the north and are commonly found just shy of the Arctic Circle.  Around here they provide a last gleam of color after the brilliance of the fall colors have all been blown away!  Grouse season continues.  A couple of immense bull moose have been harvested in the County.  In a couple of weeks the rifle deer season as well as a highly-contested wolf hunt opens.

  

Blustery cold autumn day.  The first snowflakes of the season blew in and left the trees bare.  Southeasterly winds pounded waves along the North Shore.  Lows in the upper twenties and highs barely in the 40's.  Moose season is open.  Firewood chores continue...