On the home front

What with all the travel and adventure this summer, it has been quite a while since I have updated you on domestic activities. I have been trying to remember to have breakfast on the patio when the mornings are pleasantly cool.

Breakfast on the patio with the chickens in the background--blueberry muffin, hard boiled egg, banana, and green tea

We harvested the garlic the Monday after I got back from the Boundary Waters. Recall that we had had 2” of rain two days before. It was a muddy process. The whole family was involved. I dug the garlic. Hilda and I trimmed of the ball of mud and roots. Hilda hosed the rest of the mud off with a hose. Dad cut labels from a plastic milk jug. We have found that a China marker (black wax pencil) and a plastic label last longer than anything labeled with a Sharpie. I tied the garlic together in bundles with their plastic labels. Terry hung the garlic under the deck to dry.

Garlic under the deck

Six more days until we send the meat chickens to freezer heaven. So far, I don’t feel bad about it at all. If my transition to Farm Wife is truly complete, I will not have pangs of sadness on the day we take them to the butcher. I’m looking forward to only having the new laying hens to take care of in Coop 2. They will be a lot less work.

When Terry first (over)built Coop 2, we had a terrible time moving it. It was way too heavy for the wheels he put on it. I successfully lobbied to put it on a trailer, which we accomplished with the help of the Pumpkin Party guests. With a dozen people, it was much easier to lift. Last year we raised dual purpose chickens, which were agile and active. They had no trouble getting up and down the ramp to the coop. They also took forever to mature, and even after four months had hardly any meat on them. We put them down more out of exhaustion than because they were ready.

So we went back to Cornish X Rock broilers this year. Being overweight and sluggish, they take exception to walking up and down the ramp. Like all couch potatoes, however, exercise is good for them. I have read recommendations to raise regular chickens along with the broilers because the regular chickens will pester them into moving, sort of like a personal trainer, I guess. You may recall that we have three Rhode Island Reds and three Americauna hens in with the broilers, and they do chase them around.

We developed a system for moving the chickens in and out of the coop based on food rewards. I have mentioned that we have to take the food away at night so that the broilers don’t outgrow their legs. We accomplished this goal in 14 of the 15 chicks. One rooster grew even faster than his companions. I noticed by the second or third week that his right hip was not developing normally. We call him Gimpy, and he has to be lifted out of the coop in the morning and into the coop at night. Other than that, however, he is able to move around some. In my research, I found a USDA 10-point Scale of Gimpiness (lameness, actually) on which Gimpy scores about 2. They didn’t recommend culling unless the chickens get up to 10.

For the rest of the chickens, getting them out of the coop in the morning is easy. Open the door, show them the feeder, and here they come!

At 5:00 each evening, we take the food out of the run. A bonus to this system is that all the chickens, broilers included, walk around the run grazing and looking for bugs. At 7:00, we put the food, the water, and Gimpy in the coop. The more mobile and ambitious chickens run to the gate the minute we get the food from its hiding place in the storage box. Most everybody will then go up the ramp to eat, because two hours is a long time for broilers to be without food. At 8:30 when the sun is going down (when chickens instinctively go in the coop to roost for the night), we chase in the last of the broilers, take out the food, and shut the door for the night. Here’s a video of the process, along with some daytime activities.

Don’t these chickens look happy? This is what I find most gratifying about raising meat chickens. They spend their short, accelerated lives doing normal chicken things, eating, drinking, lounging in the shade.

Hanging out

Size comparison of a laying hen and broilers at 6 weeks

A definite upside of having the coop on the trailer is that the coop stays a lot cleaner. When the coop was on the ground, the only midday shade the chickens had was in the coop. We had to change all of the bedding every day for the last two or three weeks, and nasty work it was. Now they spend most of the day under the coop instead of in it. We can get by with changing the bedding every two or three days with spot cleaning in between.

At Coop 1, Gracie had gone broody again. We tried our previous cure, which was to put her in the kennel in the run for a few days, but she always ran right back to the nest box. I hypothesized that it was because the weather was so hot that her belly didn’t cool enough. My next solution was to wrap ice packs in a towel, put them in the bottom of Della’s carrier, and put Gracie on the ice packs.

Gracie on ice

How long would it take? I didn’t know. The trouble was that she didn’t have access to food and water in the carrier. I started with 45 minutes. That didn’t work. Over the next three days, I got her up to 2 hours on ice alternating with 2 hours in the kennel, where she had food and water. That brought us to Wednesday night. When I let her out of the kennel, she was in the nest box in a matter of minutes. Now at my wits’ end, my next plan was to leave her in the kennel overnight.

I had an evening meeting yesterday. When I got home, Hilda was just coming in from putting the girls to bed. She was very worried about leaving Gracie out. “Do you think a coyote will get her?” she asked.

“How could it?” I responded. “She’s in a cage enclosed in the electric netting. I don’t think coyotes come this close to the house anyway.”

Yet even things that are unlikely do occur. I was not completely free of worry until this morning. Gracie looked miffed in her cage but was very much alive. And so far, she has been out in the run with her companions. Fingers crossed.

I was thrilled to pieces to see numerous cardinal flowers in my restoration area. I love the intensely red blossoms. The weird thing is that the species is not listed among the seeds that were in the seed mix I ordered. However, I think it more likely that the seed mix list was not correct than that seeds survived in the seed bank through all those years of farming.

Cardinal flower

I also have another flower that I had never seen before. I couldn’t find it in my wildflower guide because I looked under blue/purple, and it is in the pink section. I knew it was a mint because of the opposite leaves and the square stem. I tried the taxonomic key but got bogged down in the vocabulary and couldn’t tell some of the characters from the picture. Rather than walk out to the flower, I went through the seed list, searching for pictures of the probable suspects (flowers that I didn’t know) on the Prairie Moon Nursery website. And finally I found it when I got to the P’s—Physostegia virginiana (Obedient Plant).  It is so named because the individual flowers stay wherever you move them. Something to try next time I’m out that way.

 

Obedient plant

BWCA Days 7, 8, and home

Thursday, July 16, 2015

I got up at 6:30 to a cloudy day. It started to rain lightly by the time Jane got up at 8:30. I made blueberry pancakes while Jane cut up a peach. We ate the last 5 slices of our pound and a half of thick-sliced bacon. The intensity of the rain progressed to a downpour when we finished eating.

“I’m glad we’re not canoeing today,” Jane said as she finished her last cup of coffee.

Our plan was to pack a lunch and drive the Greenwood Lake loop, which we do every year. I made steak sandwiches out of our leftovers and put them in a cooler along with our water bottles, yogurt, trail mix, and the last of the carrots. I had my doubts about an outdoor picnic at McFarland Lake. We would see. We had to do the loop in reverse this year because we needed to get gas in Grand Marais before driving anywhere else.

We drove out of the rain and into a nice day soon after leaving the Hungry Jack area. After filling the gas tank, checking our messages, and making phone calls while we had reception, we headed up the lake shore to Hovland.

We turned on the Arrowhead Highway. We saw things that we had never noticed when we drove the other way, such as a sign that informed us that the white and red pine we were seeing were 185 years old. Jane and I talked through the math and arrived at a planting date of 1830, which I guessed was after the first time the area was logged. An open question is when the sign was put up.

We had a nice picnic at McFarland Lake. The sky was blue. The breeze off the lake was sufficient to keep the flies and mosquitoes at bay.

Picnic area at McFarland Lake

View from the picnic area

We saw grouse at three different places along the road that runs north of Greenwood Lake. The last one had five little babies with her. I wanted to get a video of the babies but they were way to fast.

Crappy photo of grouse and babies taken through the windshield

Two of the three grouse, including the one with the babies, fluffed their neck feathers and waved their outspread tail feathers up and down, presumably to warn us away. I thought only males did that.

Grouse with fluffed up neck feathers and spread tail

At the intersection of Greenwood Road and Gunflint Trail, I said, “It’s 2:15. Do you want to go to Sydney’s?”

Jane gave me a big smile. “Do you?”

“We didn’t have any custard yesterday,” I pointed out.

“And from here it is only a 32-mile round trip instead of 60.”

We stopped at IGA to get a box of baking soda to get the tea stains out of the cabin mugs. I thought it would be easy in and out. Well. IGA does NOT keep the baking soda with the sugar and flour. It keeps the baking soda with the raisins and other dried fruit. Go figure.

Meanwhile, Jane had noticed in the reflection of the car in IGA’s windows that one of the headlights was out. We checked all the other lights and the blinkers, which did not go well because Jane failed to tell me what she was turning on and off, and I didn’t know what to look for. In the end, it was only the one headlight that was not working.

The next step was to look up how to replace a headlight bulb in the manual. It did not seem obvious to me. We proceeded to the new Grand Marais Welcome Center next to the Dairy Queen. Jane asked the lady at the desk about mechanics. There were two, she said, and they were across the road from each other down by the IGA.

We had spotted them before, so the new information was that there were no others. Jane picked the one that was next to the Napa auto parts store so the mechanic could just run next door if he didn’t have the bulb on hand.

I waited outside while Jane went in. In a few minutes, a mechanic came out, popped the hood, removed the bulb, and walked over to the Napa store. A few minutes later, it was all done. $12 for the part, $8 for the labor. Jane handed over a $20, and we both felt better.

We went to Sydney’s, which was hopping. I put in my usual order of two single chocolate cake cones.

Jane and I sat on our bench by the shore and ate our cones. A family of ducks swam by. The babies were so big it was hard to tell them from the adults.

Our traditional custard-eating location

Duck and and ducklings

I made G&Ts for happy hour. There was a little bit of tonic left in the bottle. We sipped off the top of our drinks while sitting on the deck enjoying the beautiful afternoon. I emptied the bottle into our glasses and took it to the recycling can around the side of the cabin. On my way back, I didn’t lift my foot quite high enough to get it on top of the deck. Before I even had time to form the thought, “I’m falling,” I had my face in the big rock at the end of the deck railing.

The scene of the accident. Step I missed to the left, rock I landed on to the right

I will never be able to piece together exactly what happened. My glasses, which were more of an immediate concern to me than my head, were folded neatly on the deck as if I had taken them off and put them there. I had a shallow cut and a lump the size of a walnut at my hairline. There were two scrapes in the middle of my forehead above my right eye, one below my eyebrow, one at the bridge of my nose, and one on my cheekbone. I had a sense that the rock had neatly fit into my eye socket in such a way that it caused damage all around while leaving the eye alone. There were two scrapes on my right knee where the denim had taken off the skin. Why two? Why not one continuous one? I had a cramp in my neck and another in my left hip.

We poured out the G&Ts, mine because I saw Tylenol in my future and Jane’s because she saw driving in hers.

And we debated. Go to ER? Not go to ER? The only injuries that were really giving me pain were the crick in my neck and the scrape on my cheekbone. I was pretty sure I was fine. I didn’t want to have a lot of expensive and ultimately unnecessary tests to determine that I was fine. Jane, on the other hand, was afraid I was going to die of a brain bleed like some actress I’d never heard of who was in a skiing accident. In the end, we decided it would be best to go. I got one of the half-thawed ice packs out of the cooler we’d had for our picnic and wrapped it in my hand towel. It was perfect. The thawed gel around the outside fit the contours of my face while the frozen core kept the pack cold.

I believe in ice now. I kept that ice pack on my face for the 45-minute drive to Grand Marais and never had any pain in the cheek afterward. It was amazing.

The emergency room seemed to be staffed by one nurse. She was very nice. I explained that I had done a face-plant on a rock and handed her my driver’s license and insurance card. She gave me a clipboard with a form to fill out. I returned to the bench in the hallway and started writing my name, address, next of kin, and so forth.

When I returned with my filled out and signed documents, the nurse whisked me off to an exam room down the hall because the emergency room was full. She brought me a small ice pack wrapped in a full-size pillow case for my head and began asking about the extent of my injuries. I had to hike up my pant leg so she could see my skinned knee. By this time, a paramedic had also shown up. She asked him to get ice for my knee. He left and returned with a washcloth and a zip-top bag with about ½ cup of ice chips in it. Thanks, buddy. Y’all got an ice shortage here? I didn’t say anything. The knee did not concern me. There was no brain behind my knee.

“Any neck pain?” the nurse asked.

“Yeah, I got a stiff muscle here,” I replied, pointing at the side of my neck.

“I’ll get a brace.”

I am not a real doctor, but I was pretty sure my neck was not broken. Still, procedures are procedures, and I knew the nurse was working through a checklist. If neck pain, then neck brace.

Neck braces are not comfortable. I felt like I was choking. She adjusted it again, explaining that it was the pediatric brace, and it just wouldn’t go any smaller. She left the room to check on the other patients back in ER while I waited for the doctor.

There I am, sitting on an exam table with a sandwich bag on my knee, a pillowcase on my head, and a neck brace. Jane, in a touching show of sympathy, got out her cell phone to take a picture. We laughed and laughed.

Me in the emergency room

The nurse came back and started going through my medications. The doctor came in toward the end. She was a solidly built woman who radiated quiet confidence. She started poking and prodding. I answered her questions, giving a detailed description of what happened (which didn’t take long); that I had not lost consciousness, no headache, dizziness, or nausea; where I had pain; etc., etc.

After she looked in my eyes and ears, a bed was open in the main ER. The doctor and I walked down there together so I could lie flat for the neck exam. She took off the brace and held my head gently in her hands, moving it this way and that, asking if it hurt. I told her the only pain I had was exactly the same as when I slept wrong.

“You seem to be fine,” she concluded. “It’s not that people with broken necks can’t walk into ER, but you don’t seem to have the kind of pain they do. I don’t see any reason to expose you to radiation.”

“That’s the right answer,” I assured her.

“I don’t see any sign of bleeding or concussion. And you seem exceptionally with it.”

“I thought I was probably okay. I wondered if I should come in at all.”

“No,” she said firmly, “you were smart. You were also very lucky. If you start to feel funky in any way tonight, come right back in.

Dr. Emery told Jane to wake me up every couple of hours to be sure I knew who she was and gave me pages and pages of discharge instructions downloaded from the Internet—closed head injury, contusion, and wound care for abrasions and punctures. And we were free to go. The whole thing was over in an hour and a half. Not bad for an emergency room visit.

The ice pack in the car still had a frozen core. I put it back on my face for the drive home. It wasn’t quite dark yet. On our way down Hungry Jack Rd., a black animal somewhat larger than a standard poodle but with a more rounded back ran in front of the car. I said the first thing that popped into my head, “Dog.”

Jane, remembering where we were, said, “I don’t think so.”

“Ah. Bear. The hips were too low.”

“And dogs don’t run that way.”

The bear put both front feet forward and then brought up both back feet. Dogs move the front right with the back left and vice versa. From the size, we figured it was an adolescent cub. 

After a quick supper of leftover brats, I took my Tylenol and went to bed. It was a restless night with migrating muscle aches and neck pain.

Because I am always up during the night more than Jane is, we had agreed that I would wake her up to tell her I was fine rather than the other way around. I got up twice to go to the bathroom. Each time, I stuck my head into Jane’s room and said, “Hey, it’s Bev. You’re Jane. I’m okay.”

And Jane groggily replied, “Uh-huh. I’uz just gettin’ up tacheck.”

Friday, July 17

Morning did come eventually. We had scones for breakfast. I was supposed to take it easy. It was too windy to take the boat out, even if I had been up to rowing. It was a nice day to sit on the deck. The wind kept the bugs away.

So that’s what we did. Jane and I drank our coffee and tea, respectively. We took pictures of our favorite cabin scenes, such as the stairs down to the lake with a moss covered log floating in the water in the background. We watched the birds.

Stairs to the lake

Close up of the moss-covered log

While I was napping after lunch, Jane sat on the deck and watched two of the largest rabbits she had ever seen wander back and forth across the road. “They had really long back feet,” she reported. I guessed it was a snowshoe hare. I walked up and down the road to see if it was still around. No such luck. She had also seen a hummingbird. I miss all the fun.

We went to the office to settle our bill. Nancy confirmed that they had a bumper crop of snowshoe hares this year, including a pair that had been hanging around their property. “If you want to see them, just drive around at night. They are everywhere.”

We took showers and put on clean clothes to go to the Red Paddle Bistro for our customary last night meal of Bistro burgers. We arrived well ahead of the dinner rush at the restaurant. Jane had fries with her burger. I had the creamy mushroom soup of the day, which was very good. It had not only mushroom slices, but tiny bits of mushrooms chopped in a food processor. I must remember that. It was very mushroomy.

View from our table at the Red Paddle Bistro

My Bistro burger and mushroom soup

We were back at the cabin by 6:30. We set aside our clothes for the following day and packed everything else. We got everything that could go in the car in the car. We put all the dishes away, threw away all the food we weren’t taking back with us, and made sure we had enough freezer packs for the coolers and my head for the way home.

For the first time in a week, I set the alarm on my cell phone before I went to bed.

Saturday, July 18

I woke up a few minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off at 5:30, which was a good thing because I had only set the alarm; I hadn’t saved it. If I used that alarm more often, I might remember that it was a two-step process. A look in the mirror told me that the blood from the bump was on the move and that I would have two black eyes, not one.

I took a shower to wake myself up and got Jane out of bed. While she showered, I emptied the contents of the refrigerator into a cooler and put the cooler in the car. We had so much room this year! We must be getting better at streamlining our pack lists.

We stopped for breakfast at the Cascade Restaurant by Cascade State Park. I sat with my right side toward the wall because that black eye was worse than the left one. We both had the breakfast special, two eggs, American fries, and a 3-ounce slice of ham, The ham was very good, and the eggs were perfectly cooked.

And we drove. Every time I looked in the vanity mirror behind the visor, my black eyes had gotten worse. It was amazing how fast the blood was spreading.

 “I suppose,” Jane said, “that if we are getting pie in Osseo, we can’t get ice cream in Chippewa Falls?”

“They are quite close together,” I observed.

“We could get the pie to go,” Jane suggested. I agreed to the plan. Last day of vacation. What the heck.

The Norske Nook was our last planned stop. I called Terry to tell him we would be home between 7:00 and 8:00.

“Walworth County is under a tornado warning until 5:00,” he said. “We just had a hell of a downpour here. You’d better call me back in a little while to see what’s going on.”

I didn’t have a chance, though, because Terry called me back in an hour to tell me the front had moved though and was gone. They had gotten 2” of rain in 30 minutes. A tornado had touched down in Harvard just northeast of our house.

And we drove through sunshine all the way home, eating nothing but desserts all afternoon. 

Here's how I looked by Sunday morning:

BWCA Days 5 and 6

Tuesday, July 14

I don’t have a photo of the cherry walnut muffins we had for breakfast. I had made the muffins at home and frozen them for the trip. This was perhaps the first meal we had had where we didn’t overeat. We packed our fishing gear, including the leeches, into the car to try our luck at some of the fishing docks scattered through the National Forest. Dave recommended Kimball Lake and Two Island Lake.

We went to Kimball Lake first. There was a boat landing, but no fishing dock. The fishing dock was on the next lake over and was infested with small children.

We unloaded the car back at the boat landing on Kimball Lake, set up the chairs, and baited the hooks. Not a nibble. Far on the other side of the lake, we watched a bald eagle soaring. (Disclaimer: all bird identifications are speculative. It was a long way away. It seemed too dark for an osprey, but it did behave like one. So it may have been an osprey.) Twice it tucked its wings and headed for the water, only to pull up at the last minute.

“It can’t find any fish either,” I said.

On the third swoop, it hit the water. As far as we could tell, however, it emerged empty-taloned.

It was getting to be 11:30. The only food we brought along was trail mix. I’d eaten my pack before getting my hands leechy. Jane said she would have to have more to eat than nuts and berries. We went to Grand Marais and had lunch at Sydney’s. We both had chicken gyros. The pita was excellent. The gyro was messy, with tomatoes, lettuce, and lots of tzatziki. I lost one tomato slice to the pavers. It was a tragedy because it was a pretty good tomato. We had our usual chocolate custard cones for dessert.

We drove to east side of Gunflint Trail winding around by Devil Track Lake to Pine Tressel Road to get to Pine Lake. The tressel remnants were still visible as a double row of piles sticking up out of the water from one side of the lake to the other.  The fishing dock was a supposedly handicapped accessible deck that was 4” above the road. The “ramp” to get to the deck was about 6” long. I would not have wanted to pull anybody up that ramp onto the deck, and it would be worse going down. The surface of the lake was several feet below the deck. If we had caught anything, our net would have been far too short to do any good.

There were no fish at the fishing dock. Why would they build a fishing dock where there were no fish? We saw one loon far away. I walked down to another fishing area that was little more than a wide spot in the road and sat down on the rocks to see if there were any fish there. A flutter of wings drew my attention away from the water. I turned slowly around to see a pair of cedar waxwings eating serviceberries from the bush behind me.

Cedar Waxwing eating serviceberries

The last fishing dock we tried was at Two Island Lake. It was by a very busy boat ramp and also had children running around. We headed home, taking the backroad up and down Pine Mountain.

I bailed the rowboat when we got home, but as it was getting to be time for happy hour, we didn’t take it out. It was hot in the sun anyway and so very pleasant in the shade of the deck. We drank margaritas and enjoyed the afternoon. The butterbutts tormented me by being visible not quite long enough for me to get a picture. I finally got a good one after several that were either out of focus or had no bird in them.

Yellow-rumped warbler

A loon danced quite close to us. It had been hidden behind the trees so that we didn’t see it until it started moving. It moved by pumping its wings and legs. After it disappeared, loons called and called. “I wonder what they are saying,” Jane said.

“Four days of rain,” I replied, repeating what Jane had heard for the forecast before we left.

Jane spotted a loon and a baby far on the other side of the lake. After a supper of Zupp’s brats on the grill, potato salad, and green salad, we took our chairs down to the dock to watch the loon and baby.

We played one game of Farkel. I was ahead right up to the end, when Jane rolled 5 of a kind. The 2000 points put her over 10,000. I was able to beat her score with my last turn. Finally, I won something!

8:30 is not too early to go to bed.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

It was one of those mornings when it was hard to tell what the weather was going to do. The sky was partly cloudy. There was no wind. We ate eggs with stuff, including one of the leftover bratwurst with bacon and toast for breakfast and debated what to do. It began to sprinkle, then let up, then sprinkled again. While Jane did the dishes I took a walk to our dock and Dave and Nancy’s dock to get a better look at the weather. A good deal of the sky was blue. The clouds were white and wispy.

“From the way the sky looks, it should not be raining,” I reported to Jane. I also told her that I had seen the baby loon. I got my camera and went back to the dock. The baby had both parents with it for a while. 

Parent loons feeding little fish to the baby. Loon on the right has a fish in its beak.

The parents both fed the baby small fish. They worked their way around the edge of the lake toward me. One parent popped up right in front of me and then disappeared. The baby and the other parent were more wary.

One parent taking a photo op.

The baby kept lifting one foot out of the water and waving it around. It was very cute.

Baby loon waving its foot

When the loons were beyond my focal distance, I returned to the cabin. The weather had gotten better. We loaded the fishing gear into the boat and set out. There were no fish biting along the shore in the main part of Hungry Jack Lake. We saw a big snapping turtle floating near the boat. Jane estimated that its shell was at least a foot long. It was camera shy, however, and dove before I could get a picture. Then we were worried that it would go after our leeches. Hooking a turtle is not a pleasant experience. It seemed best to leave the area.

We returned to our cove. Over in one corner, Jane caught a good-sized (6 or 7”) small mouth bass, and then one that was a little smaller. These fish were followed by small perch and bluegill. I didn’t mind baiting the hooks when we caught something now and then.

The first small-mouth bass Jane caught

Representative example of the fish I was catching

The wind had come up, and we kept blowing away from the good fishing. Jane put her hook just deep enough in the water to keep the leech wet while she moved the boat to a better location. A relatively huge bass grabbed her hook. Did I have the net ready? I did not. As I scrambled to get the net out of its storage pouch and snap it in the open position, Jane exclaimed, “The leeches!”

I looked down. I had kicked over the leech locker. Did I have the lid on the leech locker? I did not. Other than turning the base of the leech locker upright, I ignored the leeches for the moment and netted the fish, which was maybe 12 to 14” long. Once the fish was in the boat, I handed Jane the fish glove (to avoid fishy hands) and said, “You take care of the fish; I will pick up the leeches.”

Most of the leeches were still in the leech locker. A half dozen were squirming in the bottom of the boat. It is not easy to pick up leeches. Just saying. They were either squirming quickly toward any dark area or had their posterior suckers firmly attached to the bottom of the boat. I went for the former first and then started prying the latter loose with my thumbnail. And Jane needed the hemostat to get the hook out of the bass. I took a break from the leech round-up to dig it out of the fishing bag. I made her hold the fish until I had all the leeches contained and could get the camera.

Best fish caught (by Jane)

What fun we had that morning! The fish were biting; the flies weren’t. It was not too hot, not too cold, not too sunny, not raining. Perfect. We ended up sitting in the boat at the end of our dock,

The cabin and dock with me returning from a bathroom break

putting leeches in the water and pulling out bluegill. Very fun. We used up all the well-traveled, baked leeches from the day before, which I wanted to do before we got any fresh ones. They had survived the ordeal pretty well, but I did notice that some of them seemed a little swollen. I took this to be a sign of stress.

We got our gear into the cabin just as the rain started again. Perfect timing.

We spent the afternoon driving up the Gunflint Trail. We did not see any wildlife on our way to the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center. I noticed a sizeable cement slab near the parking lot and another smaller one up by the museum. I asked what they were building. The lower building is going to be a separate nature center and the upper building will be an administrative office. This will allow them to expand their gift shop area and museum. We were glad they were doing so well.

This year’s temporary display was called “The Paper Trail.” It was devoted to everything that was written down along the Gunflint Trail in the days before computers. The display explained that even telephones were not used much. Outfitters and lodge owners printed brochures to distribute information to potential customers. People made their reservations by writing letters. Can you imagine?

For supper, I warmed up the pulled pork barbecue that Jane had made and frozen before we left. We had that on Abby’s buns with potato salad and the last of the lettuce. I baked the scones that I had made and frozen. The refrigerator was getting empty.

We played several games of Farkel. In one of them, Jane had maintained a substantial lead throughout the game, but the great thing about Farkel is that one good turn can change the tide.  My hope vanished, however, when she rolled a 1-6 straight (1500 points and hot dice, which meant she had to roll all the dice again), followed by three pairs (1500 points and hot dice), followed by four of a kind plus a one (1100 points). And with that 4100 points in one turn, she beat the pants off me. I lost by 7500 points.

My, we were up very late! It was after 9:00 and almost dark when we went to bed.

BWCA Days 3 and 4

Sunday, July 12, 2015

I got up at 6:00 to the morning chorus of all sorts of bird species. After I got my eyes open, I sat on my bed for some minutes watching white throated sparrows forage for red berries in the shrub outside my window.

I couldn’t find coffee filters anywhere. I was on my way to the office to see if we were supposed to bring some just as Nancy pulled out of her house on her way to the art festival. We chatted a few minutes in which she told me that the festival wouldn’t be at all crowded after 1:00 that afternoon because all the weekenders would leave by then. I said we would take it into consideration. Meanwhile, the question of the morning was about the coffee filters.

“I knew they were getting low,” she said, turning off the engine and getting out of the car. “With getting ready for the art show, I forgot. I was going to be ready in March.”

Nancy got the coffee filters for me and resumed her trip to Grand Marais.

We had blueberry pancakes with peaches and maple syrup along with bacon that I had somewhat overcooked. 

Blueberry pancakes with peaches

We went up to the office to get our fishing licenses and two dozen leeches. Dave explained that the licenses were now “angling licenses” because someone had gotten busted for fishing without one and successfully argued that because he was releasing all of his fish, he was angling and not fishing. The court decided that “fishing” was not a legally defined term, and the State of Minnesota began issuing angling licenses.

The sky had some low dark clouds that made us reluctant to take the boat out. I took the folding chairs down from the cabin and set them up where I thought we could fish without hooking each other. When Jane came down, she pointed out that her chair was too close to the end, and she would not be able to stand up without pitching herself into the lake. Picky, picky.

We fed leeches to the little fish around the dock. Seriously, the effect would have been the same with less effort if we had thrown the leeches in the water without putting them on hooks.  Jane successfully landed one small perch, and that was the extent of what we caught. I never saw any of the fish that cleaned my line.

We fished until noon and had a quick lunch of ham sandwiches, carrot sticks, and yogurt. We took our showers and put on clean clothes to go to the art festival. A few drops of rain hit the windshield as we were driving down the last big hill before town. Parking was still tight when we got to Grand Marais even though it was well past 1:00, when Nancy said everyone would be going home. We found a spot just outside Beth’s Fudge and Gifts, which was only one block from the beginning of the artists’ tents. And just as we got out of the car, it poured. We weren’t wearing our raingear, of course, and got wet as we scrambled to get it out of the car and on our persons. It was not a warm rain, either.

A bedraggled seagull fledgling wandered around the bank parking lot looking for scraps of food. I’m sure a McDonald’s parking lot would have been better foraging, but there is no McDonald’s in Grand Marias. In fact, there aren’t that many parking lots of any kind. Perhaps the bank parking lot gets occasional scraps from the World’s Best Doughnuts across the street.

Baby seagull in the rain

On the sidewalks of Grand Marais, people were walking under umbrellas or scurrying for shelter in the shops that were open or under the awning of Ben Franklin, which was closed. We had hoped to look for a few items at B FRANK (as all their price tags say) while in town, but were thwarted. Lots of people were having a late lunch at the Blue Water Café.

Low cloud in Grand Marais

The art festival was very nice. I heard one of the artists explaining that it was a juried show, which explained the total absence of crafty crap. Beautiful paintings, photographs, baskets, jewelry, ceramics, carved wood, and glass beads filled two blocks of tents. Jane was particularly taken with small tables that had solid wood tops and artistically arranged branches for legs. They were striking. The price seemed reasonable--$400—but the legs would not survive a trip home in the car, and Jane is not short tables.

Grand Marais Art Festival in the rain

We visited briefly with Nancy but didn’t want to be in the way of potential customers. We found Betsy Bowen in one of the tents and bought our calendars, as has been our habit for the last two years.

On our way back to the car, we passed a tent where a young man had a foot-pumped lathe set up. A half-carved bowl of birch wood was on the lathe, and the ground was covered with shavings. He wasn’t working on it when we went by.  The foot petal was hooked to a rope that wound around the drive shaft. It seemed to me that the spin would reverse as the lathe was pumped. I wondered afterward how that would work. If I’d thought of it at the time, I could have asked.

Foot-powered lathe with birch wood bowl

Jane waited in the car while I picked out a postcard to send to Kate for her birthday in Beth’s Fudge and Gifts. I had never been in Beth’s Fudge and Gifts before. The store was larger than it looked from the outside and stuffed to the gills with every souvenir imaginable. The postcards were right in the front.

Posing outside Beth's Fudge and Gifts (that's me on the right!)

We went to IGA next. Our planned menu was steaks on the grill. Jane was concerned that it would be too wet. We got pasta, tomato sauce to mix with the leftover WondeRoast chicken, and garlic bread as a rainy day backup. And then we went to Sydney’s for custard. Of course.

Back at the cabin, all was dry. It seemed as if the clouds were clearing. I thought we should go ahead with the steaks because 1) they had been thawed for three days and 2) we could save the chicken pasta for a day when it was raining, should there be one.

I began peeling new potatoes and garlic to make a foil pack while Jane started the grill. As soon as the grill was lit, thunder rumbled ominously. We hoped it would stay to the north until we were done cooking dinner, which it did. I made enough foil pack potatoes to have leftovers for breakfast.  I also cut the baby zucchini in half and rubbed them in salt, pepper, and butter.Jane was able to successfully complete grilling supper, and it didn’t rain all evening. 

Grilled steak, zucchini, and foil pack potatoes with garlic

We played Farkel after dinner. I almost won the first game, but Jane beat me in the final round. I was not even close to winning ever in the second game.

Monday, July 13

I woke at 5:30 to the sound of a light rain. The light coming in the window was green-yellow. The birds were singing their little hearts out in spite of the weather. I lay in bed listening to the sounds. There was no wind and therefore no need to shut the windows. The air smelled of rain, earth, and balsam fir. I was so very glad to be warm and dry, so very glad I did not have to roll up a wet tent, eat a cold breakfast, and start paddling in the rain. Even back in the day, I didn’t enjoy that part of canoe trips.

The view of a rainy day from the dining table

I made scrambled eggs with leftover foil pack garlic potatoes, grilled zucchini, and fresh spring onions. There were enough leftover potatoes to save half for another breakfast. I sprinkled bits of cheese curds over the top before serving. We also had bacon and toast.

Eggs with stuff

What to do? Jane suggested driving up the Gunflint because sometimes wildlife is out in the rain.

“And sometimes you drive all over creation in the rain and only see ducks,” I said, remembering a trip a couple of years ago. And so we put together a jigsaw puzzle. Once Jane gets started, she can’t be stopped. She kept at it even during our lunch break (more ham sandwiches).

Jane had to stop for a little while when all that was left of the puzzle was the sky. Her back hurt from sitting so long in the same position. It was going on 4:00.

Jane sat on the couch and took a little nap. By this time, it was raining harder than it had all day. It would have truly been a miserable day on the water, canoeing all day in the rain and cooking dinner with wet wood. (I am still quite proud of my ability to start a fire with wet wood, but no one seems really interested anymore.) So nice to have a cozy cabin and a stove. I worked on the sky part of the puzzle until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I made the WondeRoast pasta and a salad for supper. 

Pasta with leftover chicken, garlic bread, and salad

Jane finished the jigsaw puzzle, sort of. She couldn’t tell one sky piece from another, and ended up putting them where they were close enough.

Completed jigsaw puzzle with the "close enough" sky on the left.

After supper, I asked if I should put the puzzle away or fix the sky.

“Do whatever you want,” Jane replied. I put the puzzle back in the box. I love our jigsaw puzzle days. It’s one of those things that you never have time to do at home.

Our Yahtzee games were notable in that we each got at least one Yahtzee in nearly every game, and one time, Jane got three!

Boundary Waters, Days 1 and 2

Jane and I began our annual trip to the cabin near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area on Friday, July 10 at about 10:30. We had lunch at the World’s Largest Culver’s near Madison. We made our usual stop at Carr Valley Cheese in Mauston to get fresh, squeaky curds for our trip.

And on to Chippewa Falls to Olson’s Creamland Dairy for ice cream. Remembering last year, when I learned that you can get a small cone for less money than the “regular” on the menu, I ordered two small mint chip cake cones. Unlike the Circus World Museum, I avoided the reader’s penalty.

We looked around Leinie’s Lodge, but there were no good sales. As prearranged, I called our old camp friend, Julie, to figure out where to meet for supper. She had suggested either Lehman’s in Rice Lake or Birch Point on Marshmiller Lake near Bloomer. Jane and I had not had a very good experience at Lehman’s two years ago, and Birch Point is near and dear to our heart as one of the few surviving Wisconsin supper club/dive bar from our camp days so long ago. We knew that the food would not be good. But it would be nostalgic.

Jane and I got to Birch Point well ahead of our 5:15 rendezvous time. Jane ordered a brandy Manhattan, her favorite Up North cocktail. I had a beer. We sat out on the deck watching the fledgling orioles eat grape jelly from a feeder. Jane reminisced about watching bald eagles fish on the lake. It was a lovely afternoon for sitting outside and remembering the old days.

While we had overestimated the time it would take us to get to Birch Point, Julie and her husband, Pat, had underestimated. They were 10 minutes late, but the dining room had not yet filled up for Friday Night Fish Fry Buffet. We were seated immediately.

The buffet was the only thing they were serving. Lucky for me, it include things other than fish. Not being sure, however, I started by serving myself a bowl of chicken dumpling soup. Hoo-boy, was that salty! There was an excellent salad bar, which included chocolate pudding. I’ve never really understood that.

The buffet itself included (with comments on what I ate): broasted chicken (dry), pork ribs (great!), fried shrimp (small, bready, and greasy), fried fish, baked fish, linguine, spaghetti sauce, meatballs in gravy (good with the pasta), onion rings (also bready and greasy), and French fries. A side table was stocked with Snack-ens, cheese spread, rolls (good), and condiments (ketchup, tartar sauce, and cocktail sauce). I meant to have some cheese spread, but I forgot. I had plenty to eat.

As the waitress cleared our plates, she said, “Save your fork for dessert.”

We exchanged glances. What was for dessert? Was there more than the chocolate pudding on the salad bar?

Julie said to Pat, “Go see if they have cake. I like cake”

Pat returned without finding cake. We asked the waitress what there was for dessert. She replied, “Vanilla pudding, chocolate pudding, cherry fluff, and chocolate mousse. It’s on the end of the salad bar.”

And the fork would be for?

Pat took our picture at a giant chair outside the restaurant. 

Julie, me, and Jane outside Birch Point

We said goodbye and got into our respective cars. Just before we pulled out, Jane said, “Look at the grease dripping down from the exhaust fan.”

Grease trailing from the exhaust fan

Jane and I continued our trip with a stop at the Ice Age Trail Visitor Center. The hummingbirds were not as numerous as last year, maybe because we were there later in the day.

Mr. Hummingbird

We saw a gold finch and rose breasted grosbeak at the feeders.

Goldfinch and rose breasted grosbeak

Our final destination for the day was the Best Western Rice Lake, where we passed an uneventful night.

Day 2: Saturday, July 11

After a doughnut and coffee at the hotel’s breakfast area, we hit the road. Our first stop was at the newly opened Duluth Trading Post store in Duluth. Paradoxically, Duluth Trading Post is based in Mount Horeb, WI. I suppose “Mount Horeb Trading Post” doesn’t have the same ring. We didn’t buy anything, but I was glad we stopped. When I look at things in the catalog, I wonder what the fabric feels like. I took the opportunity to feel a lot of fabrics. If I ever win the lottery, I’ll know what to order.

Geez Louise, it was festival day all up and down the north shore. Heritage Day Parade in Two Harbors. Bay Days in Beaver Bay/Silver Bay. Art Festival in Grand Marais. Traffic, traffic, traffic.

We got to Grand Marais at 3:00, our earliest arrival time ever. Our first stop was, of course, Sydney’s to get frozen custard. In a departure from our usual custom, we ate on the harbor side of the peninsula. Note the haze in the air. We conjectured that it was smoke from the big fire in Canada.

Alternative custard-eating location on Grand Marais

After picking up our WondeRoast chicken and Genes’ [sic] IGA, we headed up the Gunflint Trail. Dave was waiting in the office for us. Nancy was down at the Art Festival and had not been around for the final cabin inspection, but he was pretty sure it was clean.

The white-throated sparrows welcomed us with their songs. We settled in and had a simple dinner of WondeRoast chicken and a salad with lettuce and radishes from the garden.

WondeRoast chicken and salad

Baraboo, WI

Monday, July 6, Terry and I took a day trip to Baraboo, WI. We had always wanted to see the Circus World Museum, and this was our opportunity to check that off the bucket list. We arrived in Baraboo at the awkward time of 10:50, a little too early for lunch. I figured Circus World would have circus food, but Terry agreed that we might eat better in town before we went. Where was downtown Baraboo? We drove past a few restaurants and motels, wondering if that was all there was. After a short drive through a residential area, we saw a sign pointing to the city center. I turned left and soon came to a beautiful building. “What is that?” I asked rhetorically.

My question was soon answered by a sign out front that said “Al. Ringling Mansion” and in small letters underneath “tours, weddings, receptions.” I parked the car.

Al Ringling Mansion

A man and a woman were seated on the porch with two girls hovering near them. There were also four older women standing around. The man told us that he 11:00 tour would start in 5 minutes. The tour took 45 minutes, which would make it officially lunch time when it was over. Terry gave one of the girls $20, and the girl gave us each a ticket.

The mansion was built in 1905 by Al and Lou Ringling at a cost of $100,000 at a time when the average cost of a home was $2000. In today’s dollars that would be about $2 million. The exterior walls were Lake Superior sandstone. Al only lived in the house 11 years, since he died in 1916. Al and Lou had no children, and the house was abandoned for a number of years. When it was on the brink of demolition, the Lion’s Club bought it. They added a ballroom to the back with a bowling alley underneath it. They also gutted the dining room to put in a bar. They used the bedrooms upstairs for office space. They still have a lease on the basement.

Two years ago, our tour guide, his wife, and another couple bought the mansion for $250,000. Joe (the tour guide) and his family live in the servants’ quarters. As we took the tour, Joe explained what was original to the house, what was on loan from the Ringling family, and what he’d found after extensive internet searching. He has really put is life into restoring this house. Someday, he wants the house to be a bed and breakfast.

The house was built when electricity was new. All the light fixtures are electric with gas jets as a backup. The switch plates are engraved with Thomas Edison’s patent, presumably on the back, because the engraving on the front only labeled the switches. Here is the switch plate from Al’s library. Note that switches are push buttons.

Library push-button switch plate for East Panel, Center, and West Panel lights

The library had pictures of the Ringling brothers. They looked a lot alike. Part of it was that they all posed gazing off to the left for (I assume) one of their promotional posters and also because they all had luxuriant moustaches. Albert (Al), Alfred (Alf), Charles, John, and Otto Ringling began the circus in 1884. Two other brothers joined later, Henry in 1886 and Gus in 1889. There was one Ringling sister, Ida, who apparently didn’t have anything to do with the circus, although her sons became involved as their uncles died. Joe explained that Ida had married and moved off somewhere.

I wanted to ask if she had bought the Dole Mansion in Crystal Lake. I remembered that some Ringling relative had owned it long after the Dole family had moved elsewhere. I looked it up this morning, and it was Elliza “Lou” Ringling, Al’s widow. She bought the Dole Mansion in 1922 and turned it into a country club. Like so many things, that went bust in 1929. She sold much of the estate to development after that.

Front entrance with example of the leaded glass used throughout the house

Across the foyer from the library is the ladies’ parlor, where Lou would have greeted her guests. Joe pointed out three cherubs in the mural on the ceiling. These represented the three miscarriages that Lou had. It was common in that time to commemorate lost babies this way.

This is the thermostat for the ladies parlor. Each room had its own thermostat, which controlled steam heat radiators. Joe apologized for the lack of air conditioning, even though the house was not uncomfortably warm with the windows open. He told us how much the installation of air conditioning would be. I don’t recall the number, but it was enough to take one’s breath away.

Original thermostat

At the bottom of the grand stairway was an original mirror. The frame was real gold leaf and the mirror was made of silver.

Silver mirror in gold-leaf frame

A conservatory extended outside the house halfway up the stairs. It is believed that this area was built to mimic the end of the train car on which they spent a lot of their life.

Conservatory mimic the rear of a train car--the outside of this feature is above the car port in the photo of the house exterior

Al and Lou were both performers in the early days of the circus. Lou was a snake charmer. I asked if she continued working after she married Al. Joe explained that she did, as they were already married when Al and his brothers started their circus, and everyone performed in the early days.

The house still has its original bathrooms. A unique feature of the bath is that the water goes in and comes out of the same hole. The tub filled from the bottom when the faucets were turned on. The white knob in the middle says, “WASTE,” and drains the water away when it is pulled up.

Bath tub with unusual plumbing

Al and Lou had separate bedrooms, which was common at the time for anyone who could afford that much space. They also had separate bathrooms. The bedrooms were joined by a huge closet. Al’s unmarried brother Otto had another bedroom, and the fourth bedroom had been built for a nursery that never got used. The room is currently being used for storage of items that need to be restored. One of these items is the original china cabinet from Al and Lou’s personal train car. There are velvet-lined compartments for each glass and dish. Pretty deluxe.

Velvet-lined china cabinet from the Ringlings' train car

At the end of our tour, Joe recommended the Little Village Café, just down the block and across the street. We had a nice lunch. I ordered the grilled cheese sandwich special, which included white cheddar, goat cheese, basil, and a yellow tomato (which I wore down the front of my shirt for the remainder of the afternoon). Terry thought he ordered a grilled cheese sandwich also, but that was followed by a lengthy discussion of the soups of the day, and the waitress only brought him a cup of the seafood chowder. I gave him a bite of my sandwich (which was small, as restaurant sandwiches go, or I would have given him half) and most of my corn chips. He thought that would be enough food, so we didn’t try to re-order the sandwich. I told him he could probably get a hot dog later.

In spite of our detour through town, we were still only a couple of blocks from the Circus World Museum. Admission was an annoying $19.95 for adults. Really, can’t they just charge $20 and be done with it? I gave the woman at the front desk $40, and she gave me back a dime. It was a good thing we’d eaten lunch because there was no going out and coming back in.

We stopped at the information desk two steps away to get a map. The lady pointed out where the circus wagons were kept and told us that the next tour was at 1:00.

“Do we have to take the tour?” we asked.

“No, you are welcome to walk around on your own,” she replied.

The building at the entrance has lots of posters and information about the Ringling Brothers as well as some of the other famous circus owners and performers. There was a collection of musical instruments in one room, set up for demonstrations.

Collection of circus musical instruments

I hadn’t thought much about the expression “get on the bandwagon” until I saw the bandwagons.

Bandwagon--not just a figure of speech

The circus had not only bandwagons, luggage wagons, and wagons for animals, but special carriages just for the Grand Pageants, which was the parade through town when the circus arrived. That must have been something to see. Each year had a theme, such as fairy tales or chivalry. In the same room as the bandwagon and musical instruments, there was a fancy carriage for Cinderella.

We were most interested in seeing the collection of over 200 circus wagons. When we got to the giant warehouse where the wagons were stored, it was 12:55, and the tour guide for the 1:00 tour was already talking. He was a very old man who talked very fast and had an annoying habit of asking why and answering himself, e.g, “You will notice that the front wheels are always smaller than the back wheels. Why? Because the smaller wheels in front don’t splatter as much mud.”

Several times, the guide explained that he was giving an abbreviated tour so that everyone could get to the 2:00 magic show in the next building over. Yet, he kept talking and talking, never moving from his spot by the entry way. Why? God knows. I whispered to Terry, “Do you want to just look at the wagons?”

“Yes,” he whispered back, “I don’t think I can listen to this guy another minute”

It wasn’t that we didn’t learn anything. Several of the wagons had real gold leaf. The tour guide gave excruciating detail about the size and thinness of the gold leaf squares and how hard it was to apply them. The difference between the wagons with gold leaf and the wagons with gold paint was remarkable.

Mother Goose in gold leaf

Stereotypes of Asians. A wagon for the peoples of the Americas was in the Wagon Restoration building

Gladiators (gold paint)

"Hippopotamus from River Nile"

A patriotic float

Calliope wagon

One side of the room had two rail cars loaded with circus wagons.

Circus wagons on train cars, which also shows the size of the warehouse

The circus had to move the poles for all of its tents also.

Wagon of tent poles

It occurred to Terry that they would have to move seating as well. One of the wagons, painted with nursery rhymes, explained that originally the wagons were for hauling luggage and were just plain wagons. As the idea of the Grand Pageant into town developed, even the luggage wagons were ornamented and painted with themes.

In the back corner was a human cannon.

Human cannon

The logistics of the circus were mind boggling. It would take an army of woodcarvers and painters to create and maintain the wagons. Many of the woodcarvers came from the shipping industry, which was moving away from wooden sailing ships and into the steam ship age.

Kitchen area of a rail car used for a residents. Not as opulent as the Ringlings' car, the china is not well-secured in velvet

When our feet were tired, we went outside and took a ride on the carousel, which had a genuine North Tonawanda Wurlitzer organ.

The Wurlitzer on the carousel

Terry got his hot dog, which was awful. I went to the ice cream wagon. There was only one price listed for an ice cream cone, and that was $3.50. So I ordered one chocolate cone, even though was more than I wanted to pay and more calories than I wanted to eat (two scoops). Interestingly, the woman working the ice cream stand was a dwarf.

When Terry finished his hot dog, he ordered “a small cone.” And the woman said, “One scoop is $1.75.” And the lesson, apparently, is that you should ignore the menu and order what you want. I paid $1.75 in “reader’s penalty.”

We walked down to the side show tent, which had models of the freak shows of the past. I had to reflect that the changing norms of the modern world had rendered the “fat lady” attraction obsolete.

There was nothing going on at the Big Top until later in the afternoon. Elephant rides were only given briefly before and after the show. We saw some camels lounging in the shade of another tent behind a fence.

The last area we visited was the row of original buildings where the animals were housed during the winter.

Original buildings for overwintering the circus animals

They are slowly being converted to displays. The former elephant building had displays of costumes. Some of the costumes were displayed with the original sketches and cloth samples. Every year was a different show. Every year needed new costumes. Add designers and seamstresses to the army of circus workers.

The year of the Cossacks--they carried May poles instead of flags

Sketch and fabric samples for the Cossack uniforms

Another building had intricate dioramas of the circus through the ages. I don’t recall when they were made, possibly for the 100^th anniversary in 1984. They were donated to the Circus World Museum in 2011 by a woman in New York. Terry and I imagined the conversations between this woman and her children over this collection that had to be taking up a lot of storage space.

On our way home we took a side trip from the main road to visit the Leopold Center. They have done a nice job with their prairie restoration. The main area had displays about Aldo Leopold, passenger pigeons, and the Leopold children, all of whom became notable experts in ecology and/or conservation, even the girls.

Prairie restoration at the Leopold Center

We were too tired to take the one-mile hike back to Leopold’s cabin. We’ll do that another time, maybe when we visit the Crane Foundation.