Back from the north woods

My vacation with Jane went too fast, as usual, and yet when I think of everything we did, it seems like a lot. Needless to say, it was difficult to decide which of the 97 photos I should post.

We took two days (Friday, July 20 and Saturday, July 21) to drive up. Our first stop was the new Duluth Trading Company outlet store in Belleville, WI. We found some bargain hats, shown here in front of Cabin 1.

New bargain hats from Duluth Trading Company

On our second day, we stopped at Bargain Bill’s in Rice Lake. I found a Mini-Gourmet Cocktail kit that included plastic swords, monkeys that hang on the side of a glass, little umbrellas, coasters, a guide for giving cocktail parties including recipes, and a collapsible shot glass (which turned out to be completely useless). All this for $2.49! Gotta love Bargain Bill’s!

Our cabin was situated on a little bay of Hungry Jack Lake. The water lilies were blooming. Before the week was out, I discovered that water lily flowers close up at night.

Water lilies near our cabin

We hung around the cabin on Sunday, recovering from the long drive. We fished from the dock and from the rowboat, with limited success. Lots of strikes, but few actual catches. Bluegill put up a good fight, though, so it was fun.

On Monday, we drove around the back roads on our way to Grand Portage State Park, just south of the Canadian border. We did not see much charismatic megafauna except for deer. I got a picture of one that was standing in the road, but not of two others that spooked more easily.

There were a few blueberries at the Otter Lake boat access, but not like the bumper crop of last year. We each got a handful. I took a picture of the berries in my hand to give an idea of their small size. They are not like domestic blueberries.

Tiny wild blueberries

We stopped at the county park at McFarland Lake for a break. We usually have lunch there, but this time we were too early. We like the view from the picnic area.

View from the county park at McFarland Lake

We ate chicken salad sandwiches in the pavilion at the state park overlooking the mouth of the Pigeon River and a restored prairie.

Restored prairie near the mouth of the Pigeon River at Grand Portage State Park

The Pigeon River is the border between the United States and Canada. The falls and rapids in the river are the reason the voyageurs preferred to carry 180 pounds of beaver pelts along the 8-mile Grand Portage. The trail to the falls is a combination of asphalt and boardwalk and is completely accessible right up to the stairs to the falls viewing area. The sun shining on the falls made a rainbow.

I broke out the cocktail set for happy hour that evening. Umbrellas make a drink look so much more vacation-like.

Festive umbrellas in our drinks

Here’s a picture of us (taken with the timer, which explains why there is so much railing in the shot) enjoying our beverages while overlooking the lake. We saw hummingbirds visit the impatiens in the flower boxes nearly every day.

Afternoon beverages (with festive umbrellas) on the deck

Tuesday was another fishing day. Our luck was about the same, which is to say not much. We only catch and release anyway. Even if cleaning fish wasn’t a lot of work that makes your hands stink forever, I don’t like eating pan fish. We watched a loon having more luck fishing than we did.

Loon with fish

In the afternoon, we drove down to the Chic-Wauk Museum and Nature Center at the end of the Gunflint Trail. On the way, we saw a bear cub run across the road. I was able to get a not-very-good picture of it in the underbrush.

Bear cub in the underbrush. Its nose is above the fir branch next to the tree at the righ

On our way back, we saw a deer standing in a creek eating water plants. Are deer supposed to do that? I associate that with moose behavior. The deer had quite a time getting its feet out of the muck.

Deer foraging in the water. Note water vegetation hanging from its mouth.

We woke to rain on Wednesday. We finished a jigsaw puzzle and then drove south on Highway 61 along Lake Superior to make a loop through the National Forest. We took a short hike up to the falls at Cascade River State Park. These videos are of the upper and lower falls, which cannot both bee seen from the same place.

We ate lunch overlooking Lake Superior in the Temperance River State Park. We drove and drove through Superior National Forest but spotted no wildlife except a duck and three ducklings. We were too far away to determine what kind of ducks they were.

Thursday was rainy again. We fished from the dock in drizzle. The fish were biting better that morning, but we got chilled and had to retreat to the cabin for hot showers. We spent the afternoon visiting art galleries in Grand Marais. We had frozen custard at Sydney’s, as is our habit, and ordered a pizza from the wood-fired oven for supper. We got the traditional Margarita—cheese, tomatoes, and basil. The crust was incredibly thin and crispy. We would get that again.

Margarita pizza from Sydney's

The weather was back to beautiful on Friday. Mist hung over the smooth water.

We went for a long row across the lake to a bay where we once caught a lot of big bass, but not this time. It was a great day to be outside.  After lunch we fished from the dock. I caught a pretty good sized bluegill. I had Jane photodocument since it was our last chance for a fish picture.

Probably the biggest bluegill I caught. Too bad it is the same color as the water in this picture.

Here’s the obligatory sunset picture to end our vacation.

Sunset on Hungry Jack Lake

Here’s a bonus picture of the moon rising and reflecting in the water. We were feeling melancholy about leaving. A week without responsibility is nice.

Moon over Hungry Jack

Now I’m back home. It’s time to start putting up pickles and green beans. Tomatoes will be ripe soon. The chickens seem to be about full size. Classes start in three weeks. Egad.

Let us do the Dance of Joy!

Finally—the deluge. Oh, we had measurable precipitation Saturday morning, but just barely (0.1”). It accomplished little except for creating intolerable humidity as the temperatures soared to the upper 90’s. “Like air,” to quote Bailey White, “that has already been breathed.” But we were grateful for the rain nevertheless and dared to hope that it had broken the seal on the drought. It seemed it hadn’t, as one dry, hot day followed another. This afternoon, we got 0.3” of rain before I got home and more since then. Just now (7:45 p.m.) we had a downpour of serious proportions. Terry had forewarned me that it was coming, so I put the girls to bed early. I asked Terry what he was going to do with himself tomorrow when he didn’t have to spend 4 hours watering. He hopes that the ground will be soft enough that he can plant the large number of trees that have outgrown their pots. The drought isn’t over, but maybe we’re into a more normal weather pattern. We can dream.

Yesterday, Mom, Dad, and I made the water haul to the wildflowers about 9:00, when the heat was already bad enough to give me a headache. On the way back, I came quite close to two female turkeys with at least 8 chicks. Chicks are hard to count when they are moving in the tall grass. I didn’t have my camera, and running for it was out of the question. Even if I hadn’t been in danger of heat stroke, the turkeys were not very likely to wait for me to get back. I was delighted to see the family (or one very much like it) reappear this afternoon shortly after I started cooking supper. I asked Terry to watch the burgers and dashed upstairs to get my camera. So here you go: turkeys with chicks. They are really quite beautiful birds.

Turkey families (two hens and chicks) out for a walk

I’m off for the north woods on Friday. I’m not thinking I’ll post again in July (where has the summer gone?), but hopefully I’ll have some awesome wilderness shots when I get back!
 p.s from Thursday morning: We got somewhere between 2.2" (the small colorless rain gauge) and 3" (the yellow gauge). Whee!

Experiments with video

Today the rain missed us to the north, something of a change of pace from  all the times it has gone south of us. The effect, however, was the same.

I drove Mom and Dad to IKEA yesterday. I planned to get the cucumbers picked when we got home. I forget what traffic is like in the real worlds. We didn’t get back until 3:30. I’d had the zucchini and cucumbers on an every-other-day rotation, but I couldn’t bear the thought of putting on my gardening clothes and going out again. Thus, we had to pick both zucchini and cucumbers today. Already I am spending more time at the sink than in the garden. I don’t mind so much when it’s so darn hot out.

I was alarmed yesterday when I went into the coop to install the “air conditioner.” We’ve been putting ice frozen in gallon jugs into a covered storage bin with a little water at the bottom to create a cool microenvironment. On top of the storage bin was a small puddle of water that could have only come from the back end of a chicken. Did someone have a disease? If so, how on earth would we find out who? Was it the heat?

Thank goodness for backyardchickens.com! I put “watery poop” in the search box, and sure enough, I got several hits on the disease discussion board. Someone had posted my same questions using the same terminology, to which another more knowledgeable person replied, “It’s just the heat.” Well. That seems maladaptive, doesn’t it? Losing water when one ought to be conserving? But then, I get a little crampy on a hot day sometimes myself.

I made short videos of the morning ritual. The first clip is the charge out of the coop.

In the second, a chicken fight between Bridget (all white) and Julia (grey head) is visible on the right side of the screen.

While we were in the Farm and Fleet in Mandan, ND last week, I found some Happy Hen Treats, which are freeze dried meal worms. The label was careful to state that they were not for human consumption. In case they looked good to you. I bought them to help us train them to come when called.

The claim that the chickens would go crazy for them is true!  We had them eating out of our hands, which was a bad idea because both Hilda and I got painful nips. There was no long-term damage, but it wasn’t pleasant. The chickens do seem to have learned to recognize the container.

I mentioned before that we have electric netting powered by a solar unit around the chicken run. We tested it with a tester after we first got it installed, and it showed 3000 volts, just like it was supposed to. But was it really working? At the Grand Opening on Sunday, whether by accident or as a result of unrestrained curiosity, someone put a finger to the electric netting. Nothing happened. So we all had to try it. I could detect a very faint pulse. I thought I’d have to call the company to see if that was right.

On Monday, however, Terry told me, “If you grab it with your whole hand, you’ll wish you hadn’t.” He held his fist out horizontally to demonstrate. Then he added, “I tried it three times.”

I didn’t ask.

Grand opening

We had the grand opening of Chateau des Poulets on Sunday. Dad made signs and put a ribbon across the door to the coop. Pat and Nancy came out for the festivities.

The coop in readiness for the Grand Opening

Festive sign that Dad made

Dad, Mom, Me, Terry at the ribbon cutting ceremony. Too bad my SpongeBob socks don't
show up as well as my pasty white legs.

Back row (left to right): Pat, Nancy
Front row (left to right) Ellie, Sara

The chickens celebrated with watermelon rinds, a favorite treat. The humans celebrated with steaks and a bottle of Prosecco.

Hilda gives watermelon rinds to the girls

Sara pecks at the rind while Jennifer looks on.

I figured out how to use the timer on my new camera so we could all be in the shot!

The sky got dark during the grand opening, as it often does. We hoped for rain even if it would spoil the outdoor festivities. Dad, Hilda, and I each felt one drop, bringing the total precipitation for the day to three drops.  

What if it never rains again? It is hard to remember rain. I tromp in and out of the house without ever giving a thought to tracking in mud. The creek has dried up. Deer are eating the cucumbers. We assume it’s for the moisture because they have never bothered the cucumbers in past years. I can’t tell where the septic field is anymore because all of the grass is the same crispy light tan. Terry worked so hard to get the lawn started. Is the grass merely dormant or really most sincerely dead?

While Terry and I were gone last week, Mom and Dad figured out a way to haul water to my wildflowers in the wetland and near the creek by hooking my gardening wagon to the lawnmower. We are continuing to haul water this way even though I’m back. Because the creek is dry, and I can’t get water out of there anymore, and it is too far to walk with full watering cans. My dad likes the ride out. Hilda and I walk for the exercise.

Dad hauls water to the remote areas.

The girls are getting bigger all the time. They are slowly developing combs and wattles. Ingrid and Ina have pronounced black cheek feathers. We have wondered from early on if Bridget was truly an Aracana because she is pure white. She is getting the typically cheek feathers, so we’re sure. We now wonder if her eggs will be white or the typical pastel blue or green.

Ellie is getting her comb and wattle. She is also developing more pigment on her beak,
which is making it harder to tell her from Giada and Sara. Giada and Sara are
nearly indistinguishable even up close.

Ingrid with her black beard.

Bridget's white cheek feathers

Despite the deer damage, the cucumber harvest is gearing up. We had enough to take 13 pounds to the food pantry on Tuesday. The zucchini are starting too. I cooked bacon in the oven last night for BLTs (store bought tomatoes). As I looked at the baking pan full of bacon fat, I was inspired to try something new. After pouring off most of the fat, I threw in some baby zucchini and fresh garlic, stirred them around to coat, and popped the tray back in the oven at 400° for 30 minutes. It was really good. I had the leftovers for lunch today.

The peas are all done for the year. As I was cutting off the vines to make room for the cantaloupe, I found a moth that looks just like bird poop. We call this cryptic coloration in the business—protecting yourself from predators by looking like something one wouldn’t want to eat. I had hoped it would be sleepy enough for me to get a picture of it on my hand, but it flew off when I disturbed it. You can tell it’s a bug by looking for two hairy legs sticking out at the top. I think is is a pearly wood nymph moth. My guidebook says they are widely distributed, but I had never seen one before.

Pearly wood nymph moth

Fourth of July in Mandan, ND

We spent last week on our second trip of the summer. We left Saturday morning and went as far as Shoreview, MN, where our friends Diane and Tom live. We toured Diane’s raised beds and native flowers with their golden retriever, Chloe. We had shrimp on the barby for supper. The day had been hot, but the deck was on the east side of the house and was a pleasant setting for our meal. Diane and Tom live on a shallow lake populated with ducks and egrets. Thus, the bird watching was quite entertaining while we ate. We had ice cream and red raspberries that Terry and Tom had picked while Diane and I were cleaning the shrimp before dinner.

The next day, we all piled in the car (except for the dog) and went to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.

A wire and rock sculpture welcomed us in front of the visitor center. We had seen sculptures like this for the first time on our trip out west at one of the reservation gas stations in the middle of nowhere. Must be a new thing.

Sculpture of an ant on top of an anthill

For an arboretum, there were lots and lots of floral gardens. It was beautiful! We walked through the hostas, lilies and daylilies, annuals, perennials, roses, home demo gardens, and Japanese gardens.

Japanese garden



Lily garden

We retreated to the air conditioned visitor center for lunch at a high-end cafeteria. It was nice to cool off and get rehydrated.

After lunch we braved the heat again to do a longer walk called the Green Heron Trail. It wound around a boggy lake and was partly a board walk. I took quite a lot of pictures for my classes. Our most notable finding was the lesser purple fringed orchid, which we were surprised to see so late in the season. Diane said the trail has many different kinds of orchids in the spring.

Lesser purple fringed orchid

We took a driving tour of the rest of the arboretum in air conditioned comfort. I was spent by the hot weather and had a little nap on the way home.

Diane grilled again for supper, this time Cornish game hens split in half and marinated in wine, vinegar, and herbs. She made a salad of cherries, quinoa, goat cheese, and wild rice. It was an unusual and delicious combination of tastes and textures.

Monday morning we left for Bismarck, arriving about 2:30. On our way, Terry’s sister Kathy called (really, what did we do before cell phones?) to invite us to dinner that night. I was most grateful, since any home-cooked meal is better than going out when on the road.

Kathy served grilled pork tenderloin (Jim did the grilling), wild rice pilaf, carrots, and cucumbers in sour cream (a Schmidt family favorite).

The next morning, we met Kathy, Jim, Elaine, and Dewayne in downtown Mandan at Art in the Park. I didn't take my camera on these busy days because I didn't want to lug it around. We spent the morning looking at the vendors. Terry got a wind sock with apples on it for possible use when he had apples to sell. I didn’t buy anything. Because of our recent move, I was well aware of how little I needed any more stuff.

We spent the afternoon with Terry’s friends. The evening found us at the Moose Lodge catching up with more of Terry’s friends.

Wednesday, being the holiday, was busy. It was also cloudy and almost chilly! We had breakfast at the hotel, then headed to Mandan, parked at Elaine and Dewayne’s house, and walked to Main Street for the parade. The parade was a disappointment. There were only two or three floats that showed any effort at all. Most were just flatbeds with our without straw bales for people to sit on. There were troops and hummers and giant tractors and lots of politicians. There was also, as Terry put it, “more candy then Halloween.” Nearly everyone in the parade tossed candy to the kids. Elaine and Dewayne’s grandchildren filled bags of the stuff. Kathy and I talked them out of their Tootsie Rolls, which we love but none of the kids liked anyway.

We hung out at Elaine’s for the remainder of the afternoon. Dewayne cooked up his homemade bratwurst for supper. Iris made baked beans with jalapenos. Elaine made German potato salad (why don’t I ever make that?); Kathy furnished the cole slaw. Everything was excellent.

We went to the rodeo that evening. The Mandan Fourth of July Rodeo is one of the oldest in the nation, celebrating 133 years. It is a sport in decline, however. There were only six to ten contestants in each event. As a consequence, it clipped right along. We weren’t on any one thing long enough to get bored. They added two carriage races around the track to stretch things out. Still, everything was done at 10:30, and it was still too light out to start the fireworks. The fireworks started at 11:00 and went on for about 30 minutes. We had to wait quite awhile to get out of the rodeo grounds, getting back to the hotel at 12:45.

Thursday was our day to relax. I wanted some prairie pictures, so Terry took me to a couple of spots. I didn’t get the unbroken vista of grasslands that I most wanted, but we did see some native plants.

Prairie rose

We drove along the river in the afternoon, visiting the full-size replica of Lewis and Clark’s boat. It’s amazing to me that they went on an expedition with 33 people and that tiny boat. Of course, most of them walked, hauling the boat upstream behind them. The boat was more for carrying their supplies, gifts for Native American nations, and specimens of plants and animals than for transporting people.

Terry in the replica of the Lewis and Clark boat

 We had dinner with four of Terry’s sisters, and that was the end of the trip except for the long drive back on Friday. We started in heavy rain, which was a pleasant change from the hot dry weather. I tried to pull the clouds along behind the car but was not successful.

Still no rain

Hilda has been in the habit of letting the chickens out in the morning when she gets up. I have been in the habit of making a cup of tea and checking my email before I get dressed. Today, however, I was up early and, hearing no sounds from upstairs to indicate that Hilda was awake, I put on my gardening clothes and went up to open the coop.  It was so hot last night when we put the chickens to bed that I feared someone might expire by morning.  All ten of them charged out like kids on the last day of school. I realized I’ve been missing quite a show with my slothful habits. The girls run around flapping their wings as if relieved to finally have some space. They seem to re-establish the social order as well. One challenges another. They face off, rear their heads back with neck feathers ruffled, and fly smack into each other—the original game of chicken. It is not clear to me who the winner is, but it is obvious to the chickens. The one brief encounter settles something. One or both run off and soon resume pecking at the grass as if nothing happened. Ina, who has been a pistol from the get-go, fights the most. I wonder if she is the leader of the pack.

After a few minutes, everyone settles down. They scratch in the dust bath, graze, and hang out on the perches in the cage.

Hanging out in the cage

After doing the chicken chores and having my tea and breakfast, I went to the garden. I uncovered the summer squash, cantaloupe, and beans today. I am a big fan of row cover for pest management. If the bugs can’t see the crops, they can’t eat them. I can keep the cabbages and beets covered forever, but the beans, melons, and squash need to be pollinated. Once the flower buds start to develop, I take off the row cover. The plants look beautiful. It won’t last, but having a good start, they don’t normally get so many bugs that it interferes much with the harvest.

Zucchini (right) and cantaloupe (left)

Beans

About 9:30, the sky to the south got dark. Very dark. The clouds moved toward us, and we began to hope that it might storm. I saw lightening and heard distant thunder. The clouds took on a peculiar appearance. “Have you ever seen clouds like that?” Terry asked.

“Not often,” I said. “Maybe never.”

Bizarre clouds preceding NO rain

The sky didn’t turn that dark gray-green that happens right before a tornado, and I didn’t see any funnel clouds dipping down. At 11:00, I put all my tools away. The chickens had retreated to the coop, and I shut the door in case we did get a terrible wind. Terry was watering his trees. I persuaded him to come inside by quoting the lame tag line from the Weather Channel: “When thunder roars, move indoors.” 

For the next two hours, we watched radar map on the Weather Channel.  Light green, dark green, yellow, and even red moved west to east along the Illinois-Wisconsin border, headed straight for us. And then it went around. All around. There was one tiny hole in the storm front over northwest McHenry County. We got nothing. It is getting hard not to take it personally.

I expect the orioles will be leaving soon. Early in the week, I saw a juvenile beg a male to feed him, and the male gave an unmistakable “get your own jelly” lecture. It wasn’t a subtle, “Son, it’s time for you to make your own way in the world.” It was more like, “This is MY jelly. Go away!” The juveniles have responded by feeding themselves. When they are strong enough, they’ll all go to wherever they go.  Usually they disappear right after we take one spoonful of jelly out of a new jar, and then we’re stuck with the jar in the refrigerator until next May. The hummingbirds stay all summer, though.

Dust bath

Conventional wisdom suggests that chickens with access to a dust bath suffer less from ectoparasites. My expectation was that the chickens would tear the lawn to shreds quite readily and make their own dust baths. But after four days, the lawn looks essentially the same. Monday morning, Clarissa was hanging around by the gate. Hilda noticed that her motivation was not escape, but the dirt around the base of the post where we’d dug in the PVC pipes. So I got the shovel and shaved off a bit of sod. I made the dust bath about the size of one chicken because what? I thought they would take turns? Please. I should have known my girls better than that. It was just another excuse to have a fight.

At first they just pecked at it, either because they found something good to eat, or they wanted gravel for their gizzards, or they simply wanted to check it out, and their beaks are their best sensory organs. What if they didn’t know how to bathe in the dust? If this was something they needed to learn from their mom, they were out of luck. Even if I were willing to roll around in the dirt (which I wasn’t), it seemed unlikely that chickens would be able to learn anything from my demonstration. Luckily, Julia came to the rescue. Just as she took the lead in eating caterpillars (another thing I wasn’t willing to do myself), she pushed her way through the crowd, gave the dirt a couple of good scratches, flopped down, and started fluffing her feathers in the dust. Innate behavior wins the day again! Others followed, and it got quite competitive. And 15 minutes later, it was all over. The girls retreated to the coop to hang out in the shade.

Checking out the hole in the sod

 

Ellie, Ingrid, and Sara compete for the dust bath while
Clarissa wonders what I'm looking at.

Monday night, our friend Diane came to dinner. We hadn’t seen her in a long time, and what with eating and visiting, it got to be 8:30 before we knew it. The sun was going down. Hilda excused herself to put the chickens to bed. To our surprise and delight, they were already in the coop. Victory! They know where they belong at night. It was a cool evening. Eight of the chickens were jammed together on the east side of the roost. Two were in the west corner. We have decided to put the girls to bed a little later, when all we have to do is shut the door.

Eight chickens all in a row

Two outcasts on the other end of the perch

Today we harvested the garlic. At our previous house, we had an old hog shelter that had a roof but no walls. It was a great place to dry onions and garlic. After some discussion, we decided to hang the garlic under the deck. Hilda was concerned that it would get wet when it rained. I know that it is never going to rain again, so I am not worried. If it does rain ever again, I expect that the garlic will dry out quickly afterward. We tied the bundles of garlic to the netting Terry put up to keep the robin from flying at our living room window. We got a nice crop of garlic this year. But what are we going to do with 200+ bulbs of garlic?

Digging the garlic


Hilda hangs the garlic under the deck

Some of our better garlic bulbs

Tonight all 10 chickens were on the east side of the perch. Ellie was on the west end of the line and tried to walk over the others. I’m not sure where she thought she was going to fit in. There was not a millimeter of space between the roosting chickens. Whatever her intent, Ellie only accomplished a disturbance of the peace after which she landed on the floor. We filled the food, changed the water, and left them to sort it out.