Well, if you are planning a trip to the Keweenaw to check out the colors, you better come quick! Interestingly though, some parts are full on color shows and others are still pretty green and some trees are both at the same time! The trees along our route to and from town, are starting to come along. I suspect another week or so in spots before they are in their glory.
The weather has been quite summer like the past few days, with highs in the low 70’s. It made for a nice afternoon at a local park in Calumet for Grace and I. We had some down time between two of Grace’s after school activities, so we grabbed a bite to eat and hung out at the park. After the meal, Grace found a nice comfortable rock and took to doing what she loves most. This week is suppose to be much cooler the weather guy says. Might be time to dig out the warmer coats, just in case he is right!
The big news around here is all Houghton county schools are moving to virtual for a two week period. We knew it was a possibility and we figured it would happen. I think the majority thought we’d be in school a bit longer before it happened though. It was a bit sad to see all the long faces on Thursday when the announcement was made. Usually, if an announcement for a snow day or school cancellation is made, one can hear cheering and hollering coming from the halls. On Thursday you could hear a pin drop. My experience is the kids just really want to be in school with their friends, enjoying a bit of something that seems “normal”. I knew Gracie would take it hard, and she was holding back tears as she came into my office on Thursday. We were holding on that some other extra activities like skating would still be a “go”, but we received the news yesterday that today would be the last day of skating for a few weeks as well. Totally understand, but it’s such a bummer. Gracie picked up summer skating this year and it really was what kept her spirits up.
It’s funny, because our winters are really busy. Between skating a few afternoons/evenings a week, piano, church etc. we really don’t have much time to do a lot of extra things. At times, especially come February when the rink is freezing, and it’s dark at 5 pm, we (meaning the old folks around the Dee house) just long to be home, cozied around the fire. I realized this morning that all those things are what keep us going during the winter. We really do LOVE the snow, but it’s a pretty extended season around here. I sure hope we don’t need to see what a winter would be like without all the fun things to keep us busy! I’m sure we can find plenty of things to do like skiing, snowshoeing etc. but I do believe keeping busy get us through the long months of winter.
My garden status is…..that’s a wrap folks! Well, actually I do have some beets to pull and a friend/neighbor was kind enough to lend me a row for some carrots. I plan to get those in the next few days. Other than that all that’s left is to pull it up. I planted 3 sunflowers this year….It took forever for this guy to bloom, but it was worth the wait. The flower is so heavy the stem can barely hold it up. Oh and the raspberries! The golden raspberries are ripe and man are they delish! The only problem is Kashi has been watching me and now helps herself. I enjoyed sharing my garden with all the four legged Dee members this year, mainly because I felt sorry for them, eating the same thing day and out. But, next year will be a different story. I’ve found the perfect fence and a fun project for the hubby for next year.
Friday night we had a pretty good storm roll through. Everyone was tucked in for the night and I was doing a little browsing through the internet and saw a friend from Houghton had posted “holy wind”. I knew we had some rain coming, but I was pretty surprised to see the radar all lit up. It looked like the first round might stay north of us, so I put the phone away and went back to my book. Within 10 minutes it started to thunder and the wind picked up in a pretty intense way. Gracie and I sat and watched the storm for awhile, hoping we wouldn’t lose power or worse yet, have a tree come down on the house. The good news = the house is still standing. The bad news is we did lose power around 9:30 pm. John and I were both up off and on throughout the night, mainly because no power means John can’t use his c-pap machine. So around 3 am he went over to the shop where the big generator is, and was able to get a few hours of sleep. We went about our day and by the time we left for town around 3 pm, still no power. The closest big tree down to our house fell on the front lawn of the community center. Some boys that have a family camp down here were kind enough to cut it up and get the road fully passable again.
On the way to town we saw two sections of line that had downed trees on them. The crew was out working on them so we knew it wouldn’t be too long. I rec’d a text from a girlfriend around 6 pm saying we were back up and running. The storm hit the L’anse/Baraga area much worse than us, so I suspect the crews were busy handling things there. We’ve learned that when you choose to live at “the end of the line” so to speak, you end up waiting a bit for things like power when it’s out. Thankfully, we do have the generator so we weren’t suffering that’s for sure.
I hope you all have a great week….stay well!
Good day from Jake!
