Posts Tagged ‘cabin’
Thistle Seeds
We are at the lake! After an uneventful drive (other than the fabulous cheeseburger and fries on the road from the Lake Magnor Restaurant in Clayton) we arrived just before sunset and (oh, we also stopped in Hayward to pick up a pizza from Coop’s and some essentials from the grocery store [did someone say “ice cream?”]) we set about the routines of arrival.
“Do you have the key?” Check.
“Turn on the water.” Done.
“Can you start a fire in the fireplace?” Of course!
“I’m going to turn on the end of the football game.” Sure!
“Do you want to sleep in the loft or in Mom’s room?” Either’s fine with me.
“What the heck is in this drawer!?” Uh oh.
There was too much for it to be mouse turds. Was there a bag of wild rice up in the loft? No, that’s birdseed. Thistle, to be precise. We checked the pantry where birdseed would likely have been stored. Sure enough.
How could such a little hole lead to such a big spill?
This had to be a couple of lifetimes’ supply for the mice. I wonder how many trips up to the loft it took for the amount of seeds Cyndie found stashed up there. Being a wily sleuth, Cyndie checked a kitchen drawer that has had mouse droppings in the past.
Oh, yeah. About four-fifths thistle to one-fifth turds.
I found some old-style mouse traps in the basement mud room, and we baited them with thistle stuck on peanut butter after some intense sweeping, vacuuming, and scrubbing.
After pizza and some ice cream (not necessarily in that order) and the movie, “Conclave,” we were ready to turn in for the night. I climbed in the crisp, cool sheets and Cyndie went to get another blanket. She came back with the quilt sewed by Hays seamstresses many years ago up here when we brought my family for a Wildwood getaway.
Then she spotted mouse turds. Uh oh, again. Did they come from the quilt? She gently carried it out to inspect over a tile floor. I climbed out of the sheets and found more turds. Moving the pillows, it was obvious they hadn’t come from the quilt.
“How many mice have been sleeping in this bed?!”
Sheets were stripped and the bed was remade. I presented the option of sleeping in the loft, but we’d already settled in, and the bed would need to be remade anyway, so we soldiered on.
Cyndie eventually checked every other bed in the house, and the one we picked was the only one that had been messed up.
I checked traps this morning, and they hadn’t been touched. Birdseed is all moved to the garage and stowed in metal canisters. A load of garbage has already been dumped. Here’s hoping that’s the last of the stashes of thistle seeds.
The temperature outside right now is 2°F, and the wind chill is below zero. Only the edge of the lake has started to freeze, and the open water is steaming up thick clouds over the surface.
We are definitely up at the lake.
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Hello 2022
Happy New Year! Good Riddance, Old Year! Let’s hope the coming year will bring the ultimate demise of the current global pandemic so we can better focus on dealing with the growing weather calamities caused by the ever-warming planet. We find ourselves under the spell of a deep freeze of -31°(F) this morning here just north of Grand Rapids, MN.
We celebrated the last day of 2021 yesterday with a hearty snowshoe hike in the woods on nearby Wilkus’ property before the temperatures plummeted well below zero.
They have christened the property with an acronym’d designation garnered from Barb and Mike’s grandchildren: Maggie, Allie, Jackson, Jack, and Caleb.
It is a perfect name for the magical plot of varying elevations with thick tree growth and a pond nestled in a bowl surrounded by a prominent ridge.
With almost two feet of relatively fresh snow accumulation creating iconic winter landscape views, we let Delilah bounce ahead to break a trail that we widened with our snowshoes.
For some reason, I kept noticing a mental image of a steamy cup of hot cocoa forming while we clomped through the powder. Barb made my dream come true after we got back to the cabin.
As you might imagine, Delilah was in her glory, pouncing about like “T-i-double guh-er” of Winnie the Pooh fame in the deep snow.
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It took extra effort to dissuade her from a fixation on a tree in which she spied a nut-weilding squirrel energetically climb. So many new sights and smells for her to explore.
She didn’t seem all that fired up about our staying up late to hoot and holler over the Times Square ball dropping in New York at 11:00 p.m. our time. As long as it was midnight somewhere, it was good enough for us to call it a night.
May the new year treat you all with big love in all the best of forms that can be manifest!
Peace!
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Co-Favorite Place
For all of my adult life, Cyndie’s family vacation home on Round Lake near Hayward, Wisconsin has been my favorite place. As I wrote yesterday, my affections are now split between our paradise of Wintervale Ranch in Beldenville and Wildwood Lodge Club up north.
I now have co-favorite places.
It is wonderful to be up at the lake again.
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As always, the special feature of the lodge club is communing with the other families and we received an early dose of camaraderie when the next door Whitlock clan showed up just after Cyndie and I arrived. Much love ensued.
There is a lot to do around the property to make it look less neglected as the ravages of winter appear to have wreaked havoc on anything left out in the elements.
Case in point: The front steps to the Friswold “cabin” for which I was so proud to have repaired a single paver block last summer are now failing en masse as the foundation underneath appears to be giving out.
Entire rows are tipping forward. I suppose it’s unfair to blame one winter for this, but it sure seemed fine last year.
I can’t blame the extreme state of the smoke clouded doors of the living room fireplace on anything but neglect to tend to the task of cleaning them in a timely manner. When Marie asked me to build a fire, I figured it wouldn’t add much to the ambience if we couldn’t see the flames. It took a lot of ash-soaked newspaper to rub off the insanely thick baked-on accumulation of smoke on those glass doors.
At least I had the joy of trying to ignite unseasoned firewood that had been supplied for our fire-building pleasure. No wonder there was so much gunk on the glass of the doors.
Maybe, if I love this place as much as I do home, I need to more equally split my attention to maintenance chores. Is the building of a lake-place woodshed in my future?
I would sure appreciate the luxury of selecting dry wood for our fires. So would the chimney flue.
The more immediate concern will be cleaning the beach today. The lake ice pushed a new berm of sandy leaves about a foot high along the full length of our beach shoreline.
What a wonderful location for putting in a day’s work.
My co-favorite place, in fact.
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Happy Place
We’ve had a pretty good few days of lake-place pleasure, despite yesterday’s doses of thunderstorms that disrupted most activities except for the napping. Unfortunately, on this most gorgeous of mornings with a promising-looking day of lake weather ahead, we are going to venture home to tend to the landscaping chores there before the work-week begins again.
Grass and garden are growing wild. The lawn is tall and tomato plants are heavy with fruit. Our getaway weekends need to be brief. (In case you didn’t notice, I took an extra day off work last week and we hustled up here on Thursday, so ignore my comment about it having been “brief.”)
I strolled down to the beach moments ago to absorb a good dose of the lake view in the early light and found a squirrel busy in the oak tree branches overhead, trimming and nibbling acorns that were then unceremoniously raining down on the sand.
We may be leaving, but I have soaked up the view to take with me for a balm against the onslaught of the daily grind that lies ahead.
It’s our happy place.
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Coolish Fun
For a weekend at the lake, we are spending more time away from the water than in it. That hot summer sun is not so prominent and the temperature of the lake is a little chilly, inviting us to pursue alternative activities. Cyndie and I started with another exploratory trek through the forest across the road with Delilah.
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Julian brought up his Onewheel and provided Steve an introductory lesson on the basics of starting and stopping. No participants were injured in the exercise.
Julian and Allison also brought up custom-made cornhole boards that were a groomsman’s gift from a friend whose wedding Julian was in. With a fire in the firepit and pork chops on the grill, the bag toss game fit nicely as further entertainment up and out of the chilly lake.
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Cabin Fever
On a sunny weekend afternoon in the middle of winter, when it hasn’t snowed for a few days and there aren’t a lot of projects demanding attention outside, too much time inside can be a little crazy-making.
I took some pictures.
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It’s a good thing we have plenty of glorious snow-covered acres right outside the door providing the perfect antidote for spending too many hours indoors.
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Other Views
There used to be two pine trees above the pond fountain, but they were outgrowing the space available and not really thriving, so Cyndie’s parents had them cut down. In a moment of inspiration that is very familiar to me, they chose to leave a few feet of the stumps as pedestals. It’s a perfect spot for a couple of flowering plants.
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With the trees gone, I was able to capture a rare view of the “cabin” from the back side.
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I arrived to the house from that direction because I had been walking through some of the trillium carpeted woods that surround us. This forest is one that feels so perfect for me. There are other natural landscapes over the world that are spectacular, but these trees and all that comes with them resonate the most profoundly with my soul.
I must have spent a few past lives in places just like this. I know the smells and the sounds, the colors, the critters, and the majority of growing plants somewhere deep in the cells of my body.
There are many a days when I dream of what this area was really like when the first tribes of people were able to call this home, long before the time when logging on an epic scale ravaged the growth.
I’m particularly pleased with the “Wildwood” name this property holds. It couldn’t feel more appropriate.
The stroll that brought me through these trees had started down at the beach, below the front side of the house. Camera in hand, I walked onto the footbridge that crosses our little boat lagoon and looked out at the lake and up toward the lodge.
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These are both views I don’t usually capture. As leaves open, the sight lines will become more obscured. The views are no less spectacular, but the camera doesn’t come close to what the eyes perceive.
I will never take for granted how lucky I am to be able to visit this space in person, where I can see, smell, hear, and touch a natural environment to which my soul feels so emotionally attached.
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Rainy Getaway
While a valuable soaking rain washed our world yesterday, Cyndie and I began preparations to drive to the lake. Delilah sensed something was up and lolled around, somewhat restlessly at first, and then fatefully. I think she figured out we had an agenda that didn’t include her.
She would be staying home to play with Mckenna, our house and animal sitter who has known our horses longer than the time we have had them.
Memorial weekend is the traditional work weekend at the lake place. Sounds like this year the main goals are cleaning up the beach area and preparing the water crafts.
The rain may have something to say about how much work actually gets done.
Shortly after noon, Cyndie and I were taking turns updating Mckenna with details of the latest animal escapades, when Delilah decided to help out with a demonstration of how she is becoming more aggressive in her dominations over Pequenita.
“Yeah, like that.” I said.
Check the pond, dump the dehumidifier, switch for the ceiling fans is over there, the door handles latch upward, animal food in the cupboard, ‘fridge and freezer stocked with people food, paddock gates can be left as is. Good to go!
Our drive north was painless, requiring windshield wipers about 60% of the time. Gray and wet is the pattern for the time being. We were the first to arrive and got the water turned on and a fire started in the fireplace. I changed a burned-out lightbulb and Cyndie prepared a late-afternoon appetizer for those who would be arriving soon after us.
About the time darkness fell, Cyndie’s phone rang. She could see it was from Mckenna, but couldn’t get the connection to hold. She tried returning the call using the cabin’s landline. After several misconnections, success revealed news that Pequenita had flown the coop and couldn’t be found.
Hours earlier I had been describing to Mckenna how surprised I was just a couple of days ago that ‘Nita had dashed out the sliding screen door before I even got my first foot out.
Seems our little feline might have been making a practice run with me. I texted Mckenna not to worry, but of course she felt horrible. I suggested that our sweet little cat may have finally decided she has had enough of Delilah’s repeated harassments.
Although I’m sure that it felt like an eternity for Mckenna, it wasn’t long before we received text messages that our escapee was home again, safe and sound.
Maybe Pequenita was just jealous that we went away for the weekend, and she wanted a getaway of her own.
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Precious Weekend
What a fabulous time we had at the Wilkus’ cabin north of Grand Rapids, MN over the weekend. We all marveled over the gift of a friendship connection that feels so natural that time and distance away from each other have no bearing on the comfort and ease we all feel when we are able to spend time together once again.
We hiked woods, boated and swam in the lake, and enjoyed bountiful food with lively social conviviality. It was a truly priceless time together that I will cherish for a long time.
Let’s just see how well I get my mind back on work at the day-job today with all the fine memories still freshly percolating in my head.
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Thank you Barb, Mike, and Ryan!
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Road Trip
We’ll be hitting the road today for a jaunt north in Minnesota to spend the weekend at the cabin of our friends, Barb & Mike. I raced home from work yesterday, changed clothes in a blink, and hopped on the lawn tractor to mow grass in hopes of getting it done before dark, so I wouldn’t have any pressing chores delaying our departure today.
I was also hoping to have it all cut before the predicted rain arrived. It can be so frustrating to have it rain on the one day I set aside for mowing, compared to the good feeling of getting it done a day earlier to beat the precipitation.
My hopes were fulfilled by some speedy maneuvering, which I was able to achieve because, for once this summer, I was mowing at less than a full week’s interval, and the growth has finally slowed down a bit. I was able to get it all done.
Our freedom to get away this weekend came about after Cyndie checked with one of our trusty property/animal sitters about the possibility of covering for us over Labor Day weekend, so we could go to Cyndie’s family lake place in Hayward. When the holiday weekend didn’t work, McKenna offered her services for this weekend as an alternative.
We can make that work! Since this weekend the Hayward beds are all filled during Cyndie’s parents’ golf weekend with friends, we inquired with Barb & Mike and hatched a plan. One of the enticing things about our plan is that involves no plan at all. We are going to relax and enjoy whatever strikes our fancy in the moment.
With luck, maybe one of those moments will involve a nap in a hammock among tall trees overlooking a lake. That, and some good food shared among fine friends. More than enough motivation for the few extra hours we will spend driving, to get us there and back.
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Relative Something 