Orange & Blue

Wood Shed

Wood sheds are crucial to successful fire wood production.  Under the roof of a shed and not exposed to elements split wood will cure.  Cured wood burns hotter and cleaner than green wood leaving you warmer and the stove pipe cleaner and free of creosote.  

I tested out a new construction technique for this structure. It is the first time I've built a post & beam with local spruce posts.The frame was bolted together with lag bots.   The posts are peeled spruce all harvested within a few hundred yards from the site. 

Once the main frame is bolted together I fastened the rafter ties. 

The inspection process was grueling!

The roof rafters go on.  This really "pulls" the structure together.  Notice the "boss" inspecting my work!

I then roofed it with 1/2" OSB and rolled asphalt.  The two opposite corners are sided with one inch thick boards spaced one inch apart to allow ample air flow to dry the fire wood. 

I laugh because it took me three months to build this relatively simple structure.  Excuses aside, Penelope was born the week I started the project so I was a little preoccupied!  Now I have a dry place to make my cuts and dry our wood for the winter... 

Crisp and blustery.  Huge rolling waves are crashing over the Grand Marais breakwater.  Light rain throughout the weekend left a relatively lush and colorful forest.  The under story is ablaze with the vibrant reds of moose maple and golden ferns.  Poplar and birch began the season deathly brown from the drought but have regained their autumn glory!  Most nights the temperatures hover right around freezing.  

A broad-wing hawk literally flew into our living room window.  He survived the impact and perched himself atop a snag at the edge of the clearing to clear his lenses.  A grouse spooked Amy under the bird feeder.  We even found some very rare moose tracks down at the intersection of the County Road!

We harvested carrots, the rest of the tomatoes, onions and both of our apple trees before the blue jays could get all the fruit.  The apples taste great!  We are already planning to expand our orchard next spring...  

Our first freeze of the year left the air chilled and the apples about ready for picking.  Although the white spruce are stressed with browning boughs due to the lack of rain, the poplar trees are all brilliant yellow.    A much needed gentle cold rain washed over the shore yesterday.   Grouse season is open.  

We have officially begun our plumbing project.  I have left the County twice in the last week for the first time in years on material runs to Duluth.  Late night drives back up the North Shore is like running the deer gauntlet!  Last night I hit one on the highway just meters from where I spotted a wolf the other night before.

Cool crisp nights and sunny windy days.  With the wind, low humidity, and lack of recent precipitation the fire danger is very high for much of the state and the North Shore.  The temperature has been dropping into the forties at night leaving the poplar leaves with a tinge of yellow and maples red. 

The black bear hunting season has started.  The word around the town is that five bears have been taken from our area!  Grouse stir in the poplar stands during our evening hike.  It seems like there are plenty of birds in the woods this year for the season. 

We have had a fire in the stove most nights this week to bump up the house temperature. Our birch woodpile is all bucked. One of the three poplar piles is cut.   Preparations for winter have begun...

Warm, sunny days.  A small forest fire burns northwest of Ely.  Lake Trout have been caught in shallow as thirty feet of water around Five Mile Rock.  A few of the maple trees have begun to turn red.  Aster is blooming.

The fall bird migration along the North Shore has begun.  Each year hundreds of thousands of southbound birds are funneled along the prominant ridges of the Sawtooth Mountains to follow the shore of Lake Superior on their way to warmer winter grounds.  As the birds fly south they encounter the huge expanse of Lake Superior.  Instead of flying over it's hostile waters where there is no emergency landing or food the aviary wisely elect to fly along the shore.  As a result, the woods within a mile or so of the lake explode as a microcasm of a boosted food chain.  Fierce competition erupts around the ussually mundane pecking order of a roadkill feast!

Every day an unfamiliar bird call pierces the woods.   Huge Golden Eagle and Osprey to tiny warblers and sparrows pepper the sky.  Sometimes flocks of hundreds fly over at a time.  More often than not, however, a single kestral or Sharp-shinned hawk swoops through the meadows in search of one of our local rodents to sustain their journey.

This time of the year life on the homestead is filled with harvesting the garden, processing firewood, and preparing for the winter.  Onions and garlic are drying on the racks.  Carrots and parsnip remain in the ground.  Apples continue to ripen on the trees.  Bucked firewood is piled and awaiting the splitter.  

Weather Pending

Watching the Water Swirl

A warm, dry August wind swirls the otherwise stagnate air.  Just enough rain has passed through with the typical late summer cloud bursts to keep the garden happy.  Fungi of all color dot the forest floor.  Each cool autumnal evening brings with it more color to the hills.

We have been busy with our new life as parents and trying to find a balance between raising Penelope, work, the homestead and our recreational pursuits. Last week we took a short hike along the Superior Hiking off the Arrowhead Trail.  A couple of weeks ago we got back on the Caribou Rock Trail along the Gunflint.  This last weekend Penelope made her second voyage into the Boundary Waters with her grandma, grandpa and auntie.

Watching the water swirl...

It's been a late start to the firewood season.  With the woodshed nearly complete, I have been stacking wood and sharpening the chainsaw for bucking the 5 cords that I hope to process this winter.  Up until recently it's been too warm for chain saw work.  But now it's time to finish sharpening the chain and have at it!

The other day I was lucky enough to find a wasp nest while stacking poplar.  I say lucky because I only got stung once.  It hurt.  My arm remained swollen for days.  Pest are a constant nag this time of year.  Everything is scrambling in attempt to find the best accommodations for the winter.  The "mouse wars" continue.  One died in the car's heater fan.  I also had the pleasure of taking apart the glove box and fan assemblage in order to find it.  There's nothing like a decaying mouse in 80 degree heat to liven up your day!

Other than that we are busy planning our plumbing project, harvesting potatoes, onion, garlic, zucchini, tomatoes.  Our apples are about ready for picking.

Finally, Penelope would like to remind you all to eat your vegetables!

The "locals" are keeping us busy!

The "locals" are keeping us busy!  Our compost design was successfully tested as a bear attempted  to no avail to break into it.  Every night I bring the bird feeder inside.  Seemingly every morning new evidence of marauding critters greets me as I bring it back out.

Bear tracks decorating our property.  Notice how they are raised in relief relative to the ground.  The bear walked over moist ground and compacted the sand grains together.  The uncompacted sediment around the tracks were less resiliant to the coming rains and eroded more quickly than the now silicously-cemented tracks.

Just passing by.  Wolf and bear headed in opposite directions.  To put this into perspective, our 80lb dog's prints are just above the bear's on the upper right corner of the picture.  Compare that to the wolve's.

While temperatures at night have been cold enough to antagonize some yellow out of the brush and even some red out of the maple; August is the beginning of the harvest.  Berries are in the freezer.  The walleye fishing is picking back up.  Lake Trout have been hitting all summer.  The apple trees are beginning to bow to the stresses of burgeoning fruit.  Chard and spinach continue to florish.  Garlic, onion, parsnip and carrot are slowly cresting to the surface.  The peas and beans are delicious.  Our tomatos are beginning to blush.

The first harvest.  Red and Russet potatoes with a lone "test" garlic on the left and the start of our outdoor tomato and bean harvest on the right.

Penelope at 12 weeks!

The sky was full of contrast after a storm swept over the North Shore.

Round-Snipe-Ham Lakes Loop

The realization that we are officially day-tripping weekend warriors has come and gone.  Our days of month-long forays into the bush departed with our jobs and limited vacation.  We embraced that reality by splitting our normal trips into shorter, long-weekend travels.  We've made due.  The truth is our life is lived in the woods.  Everyday our routine revolves around the wilderness life we always dreamt of.

Now it is Penelope's life.  Through our daily hikes into the forest, our leisurely afternoons swimming and hanging out around the fire on the beach, nights falling asleep to the low soulful howl of timber wolves, mornings awaking to finches at the bird feeder, and canoe tripping; Penelope is already living a unique experience growing up in the north woods.

A couple of nights ago we decided that it was time for her to sleep her first night in a tent.  We made camp.  Granted the tent was pitched on our property no more than shouting distance from her cradle it was a new experience nonetheless.  She went to sleep under a clear crisp diamond studded starry night and woke up to trembling aspen glittering in the soft morning breeze.  It was a great start to our weekend adventure.

Penelope's first camp: our backyard!

Happy baby in the morning!

Heading up the Gunflint Trail with the canoe atop the truck and gear in the bed is a great freeing feeling.  Just knowing that solitude and new sights in only a couple paddles and a portage away reinvigorates me.  Penelope contently watched the forest and lakes cruise by her window.  At the landing she quietly laid down on the blanket in front of her mother as we launched her on her first wilderness canoe trip.  A loon greeted us within a paddles length of the starboard bow and a bald eagle surveyed Round Lake as we crossed.  Penelope just stared up at shining sky.

Penelope, clearly enthusiastic, crossing into the wilderness for the first time.

Our first portage of a 140 rods (one rod is sixteen and a half feet long, 320 rods equals one mile) followed a small stream, crossed a couple of springs flowing out of a bedrock contact, around a small moose pond and to Missing Link Lake.  Penelope rode in the front pack like it was a stroll in the park at home.

After paddling the small scenic lake we carried another 180 rod portage over rock ledges and through black spruce bogs carpeted with sphagnum moss into the gorgeous Snipe Lake.  Keeling and prying our way around sheer rock faces we soon found ourselves over the short, cobbled portage and launching into narrow Cross Lake.  Powering over beaver dams we realized that we had found the rhythm that we had hoped for!  A rhythm when time is determined by j-strokes, wind speed, waves and the weight on our backs.  All the while Penelope shared in our adventure.

The "porpoises" of the North's sphagnum-rimmed muskegs; river otter playfully followed our canoe.

At Cross Lake we found pitcher plants.  These colorful carnivorous plants are found in bogs where the methane rich waters and acidic soils make conditions difficult for much else to survive.  These amazing plants attract unsuspecting insects with their color.  Their leaves that are cupped and when the insects land on them their slimy leaves trap them.  Slipping into the main body of the plant the prey is then dissolved by bacteria.

Hundreds of pitcher plants lined this lake.  All awaiting insects to be lured to their ill fate.

Now paddling north we shared the route with three river otter and a huge snapping turtle.  A tail wind aided the travels.  Before we knew it we were crossing Ham Lake.  The day almost complete we took advantage of a stiff breeze and easy landing to watch a Bald Eagle soar the thermals above us.

Prehistoric relics of the Jurassic; this snapping turtle was content enough on his warm rock to let us get to within a paddle's length away!

 We ended the paddle with a couple of simple carries over the iron orange weathered slate of the Rove Formation.  The portages snaked through old growth white and red pines that were spared by the Ham Lake fire that started nearby.  The final portages around mild rapids on Cross River led to a leasurily paddle to the landing which completed the adventure.  Penelope's first canoe trip was a success!