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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!

 

For about as long as I can remember, this time of the year has typically been a pretty busy time for me. In some years, downright frantic. With the warm days limited and the closing in of winter, the race to get all chores done outside has been a vigorous one. This year is different. I still have tome things to do, but nothing that actually HAS to be done before winter.

There is some wood that needs to be cut, but we are not heating with wood, so it is more for the ambience of the fire, not the heat. Plus, I am talking about a face cord, not 18 full cords! For those that do not know, a face cord is about 1/3rd that of a full cord. So the wood needed to be cut is 1/54th of what I used to have to cut when we were heating with wood.

I also want to install some outdoor electrical outlets and a spot light on the shop, but could live without them for the winter. I did get the electrical wires between the generator and transfer switch put in the conduit and would like to put a shelter over the generator, but again could live without it. A shelter over the back door of the house would also be nice, but is not critical.

So, what am I doing with all this lack of jobs that HAVE to be done? Well, at a comfortable pace, I am chipping away at those that I would like to. I have spent some time helping my neighbor with some jobs he has and this past Thursday I took a quick trip to Green Bay to pick something up. On that trip, I got to get a glimpse of how the colors are coming along in other areas of the UP. The most color I saw was in the Covington Jct. area. There the colors were probably 65-75% along and were magnificent. I was a bit pressed for time, so I did not stop to take any pictures and did not take any while driving. I did stop a little further south, almost at Crystal Falls and snapped this shot. The colors there were not as much along. 

The colors up here in the Keweenaw are mixed. There are areas that the color is much like those in that last shot. Here is a shot taken between the Airport and Calumet, just off of Hwy 41. Yet, just down the road a bit, the colors in Houghton/Hancock have hardly changed at all. You can keep tabs of them by going to the NCN and clicking on the cam for Houghton and Hancock. Here is a snapshot I just took from that page.

So it would be safe to say that if one were to want to come up here to see the colors, next weekend would be the peak weekend for areas in the higher terrain, but away from the lakes influence, like Covington Jct., Michigamme, perhaps even areas like Rockland and Mass City, but I cannot confirm those last two. In about 10-14 days, the colors in the higher terrain from Twin Lakes to Delaware will be at or near their peak and in about 14-18 days, the lower terrain of the Keweenaw will be at peak.

We did have our first hard frost and light freeze Friday morning. Those that covered their gardens were able to save them and those that did not are likely seeing mixed results. The plants that are not very hardy are likely gone, but most other should be OK. That is what happened to Nora’s garden. The pups got wind of the pending frost, so got busy harvesting and eating as many of the vegetables as they could Thursday afternoon. Here is Huck getting ready to chomp into a cucumber. 

Nora’s giant sunflower plant finally opened its flower. For some reason hers took longer to flower than some others around here. We also have some golden raspberries that were planted by the previous owners and some of them are just beginning to ripen. I have discovered that I cannot eat the berries with the small seeds, as it irritates my gut, but I did sample one by just squeezing it between my tongue and roof of my mouth and it was unbelievable. So sweet. Most certainly the best tasting berry I have ever had. 

This morning, Nora and Grace went to our friends that live in the yurt to shuck some beans. Not the green type, but the kind you would put in chili or use in a bean dip. If you have ever wondered if the beans like to be freed from their shell, here is your answer! By the time they had left, they had made pretty good progress on the shucking. 

That about covers it for the past week. The upcoming week looks fairly uneventful. I am hoping to be able to stay in Jake for most of the week and get my outdoor wish list taken care of as much as possible. It seems like I am still running to Calumet or even Houghton/Hancock way more than I wish I had to. The weather looks to be quite delightful. This past week was nice, but autumn like, with highs mostly in the 50’s and low 60’s. The next few days will have us in the 70’s for highs and then down into the 60’s for the end of the week. We have been rain free for about 10 days and look to remain that way until Wednesday. No signs of snow and that to me is a good thing. The less snow before the firearm deer season opener usually means more when it will stick around and be able to be played in!

Hard to believe next week’s entry will be the last one for September. Even harder to believe that the deer season opener is less than 2 months away! Even though I am currently fine with 60’s and 70’s rather than snow, I am very much looking forward to the snow season. Nothing beats the beauty of the flakes falling to the ground and frosting everything under a thick layer of the white gold!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

With school starting, I guess we are officially in a new countdown mode. The count down for first frost, first snowflakes, first accumulation of snow, peak colors, deer season and then the start of snowmobile season! As I have grown longer in the tooth, I have also become a more patient man. I am good with some nice September weather for a few weeks and then true autumn weather can arrive.

For the first time in many years, I do not have a lot of outdoor chores to get done. I need to put the electric wiring from the generator to the transfer switch inside conduit, install a few outdoor power outlets and a motion sensor spot light. I also need to cut a bit of firewood, but the amount I need to make for the season should not take more than an hour or two, with help stacking! Nora showed me a picture of where we were last year at this time, as far as the barndeeminium and it inspired me to look through my camera roll to see what I had. This is the only picture from the 13th of September 2019, but the previous 3 days showed just the slab, then the next day the slab with one wall up, then a little later that day, all the walls up. The 12th showed them setting the trusses.

I would not want to trade places and go back to that date at all! I still have a lot to do on the barndeeminimum and we have some fairly large projects we want to do on the house, but just about all of the house projects will be done by a contractor and the things in the barndeeminimum will just happen one task at a time. I am currently working to finish up the electrical, once done, I can begin to close in the walls, as the plumbing rough in was passed a long time ago. The first walls to get done will be those in the shop. For one, all the lumber for them is on site and also outside, so I do not want to be having to haul it in once the cold and snow hits. Secondly, once the shop walls are done and contractors do the ceiling, then it will be ready for the final push to finish it out and make it 100% ready for use. Right now it stands at about 75% ready.

As mentioned, school started on Tuesday. The schools up here are doing in class teaching, but with masks. They are also offering an on-line program for those parents that do not want to have their children physically go to school. Grace is in the same building as Nora for the next 3 years and so far so good!

Before starting school, Grace took advantage of her last day of summer break by enjoying the beautiful weather we had for Labor Day. Then the next day, before the sun even rose, it was up and Adam and out the door for day number one in 6th grade. Grace loves school, so she does not have much of a problem getting up early to get ready and take the trip to Calumet every morning with Nora. Nora does not mind either. They use the time to and from school to chat and keep the mother-daughter bond strong as ever. 

Wednesday was Gracie’s first cross country meet. It was actually a home meet and they ran out at the cross country ski trails in Sweedtown. It was a little chilly day, but not too bad. Probably perfect for the runners and not too cold for the spectators.  The boys run first and then the girls line up along the starting line and wait for the gun to go off. Grace has always loved running long distance. I can remember back to the time when she was just a few years old and Nora and I would walk with Huck and Millie and our fairly quick pace was the same speed as little Grace’s jog. Our typical walk was around 2 miles and Grace would only stop a few times and much of those stops were done to check something out rather than rest.

Cross country is not really a spectator friendly sport. We do get to watch them take off from the starting line and then they all run out and away from the spectators. They do then return to a finish line in the same area as the starting line, so we get to watch them finish, but for around 20-30 minutes, we are all just standing around! I was pretty surprised by the finish that Calumet had for all the runners. the final 300-400 yards was all uphill and in sand! Talk about punishment! All the runners really had to give an extra push to get up the hill through the sand and all did well. 

Friday evening, Nora got together with two of her girlfriends from down here for a bonfire. No boys and no kids allowed, so they are able to fully relax and enjoy each others company. They also were treated to a magnificent sunset, courtesy of the wildfires out in the western US. Did I ever mention that this is a pretty nice place to live?!

Other than the schools starting this past week, there has not been a lot of things going on up here. This seems to be a time of the year when most of the locals are just concentrating switching gears from summer/relaxed mode to autumn, back to school and back to the busy schedule mode. The color show is slowly progressing. We do not have much color at all here in Jacobsville. A little bit up the road, there is a spot where the trees on the side of the road are further along, but I have been to Calumet as well as down to Houghton/Hancock this week and their colors are still mostly green, although a more faded shade of it. The colors do change earlier in the higher terrain of southern Houghton County. Not way earlier, but on average around 4-7 days before our peak up here in northern Houghton and most of Keweenaw County. I suspect that it should be a pretty good show this year. The trees got plenty of water and also plenty of warm temps, so they should be fairly healthy. Each season is different and like Forrest Gump says, you never know what you’re going to get. I will promise to do my best to capture the color show up here. Perhaps not all areas, but as much as I can. Who know’s, I may even charge up the batteries of Snowflake 1 (the drone) and get some aerial shots/video.  

I guess that wraps it up for this week. Have a great third week of September and be safe everyone!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

Summer 2020…stick a fork in her. At least in the Keweenaw. It was a warm and wet one. I don’t have the specifics yet, but will soon. I know August saw around 175% of rain fall. Temps for August were around 2 degrees above average. That may not sound like much at all, but is fairly considerable for a 31 day period. 

The final full week of August was not exceptionally hot, but was humid. We had highs in the mid to upper 70’s on most days and dewpoints in the mid to upper 60’s. Every morning we would awake to a super heavy dew that would sometime stick around until 4-5 pm that day. It made for a challenge to cut the grass that’s for sure! Somehow I did manage to get all of the lawns cut.

The main reason why I did not write last Sunday was because I am lazy! But I did have a second reason. Nora’s brother and his wife were up for the week and we had been spending time with them, including last Sunday evening. So I figured I would just roll it over to this week.

Nora had to work the entire week they were here (except the weekend), so she did not get to spend as much time with them as she typically does when her schedule is more flexible. Grace did a good job of filling in for Nora. Riding her bike down to their camp a few times a day. Grace and and Nora’s brother Joel also tried their hand at catching some minnows. Not much luck, but there are not a lot of places they could put the trap and be off of private property, but also not out in the open where the trap and anything inside could have been stolen. 

The late August evenings have to be my favorite of the year. The sun is low enough on the horizon that it is not blasting you with heat. Temps are usually not too hot or cold and the bugs are all but gone. Makes for some great bonfire times, as well as sunset watching. 

With the pending cold season knocking on the door, the critters of the woods are all busy trying to fatten themselves up. The hummingbirds are coming back through, on their way to South America for the northern hemisphere’s winter. Deer are being spotted a lot more frequently, as they venture into areas of human population where there might be some more food for them. We have had a rafter of wild turkeys hanging around our property for a month or two. Around 2-3 weeks ago we were all going somewhere and were in Nora’s vehicle just pulling away from our driveway, when an adult turkey popped up out of the high grass in the ditch. A second later, another adult popped up, followed by one last adult and two young chicks. We stopped and watched all the action and while we were stopped, the chicks kept popping up out of the ditch every few seconds and by the time the last one appeared, there were 19 total! The other day they were roaming the yard behind the shop and I snapped a picture of them. I did not count them all, to see if they had all survived, but the chicks were nearly as big as the adults.

Grace has been taking figure skating lessons for much of the summer. The only ice up here in the summer is the sheet that MI Tech plays on, so we have been making the drive down to Houghton a couple of times a week for that. That program is now over, but we stopped in the pro shop in Houghton last week to get her skates sharpened and saw this cool chair. I would love to have something like that, only have it be a lounge chair or at least a more relaxing angle for the back rest. Still a very cool idea!

Last Friday we went to a bonfire at our friends that live in the yurt. There are still a lot of summer residents in Jake. Most actually do not leave until early to mid-October, when the temps are too cold to live in their places, which have minimal heat and no winterized plumbing. So the attendees to the bonfires are still fairly healthy and it is so nice to be able to gather and have conversation with the neighbors we have in Jake. It is really a special community, everyone loving the area so much and just being comfortable to chat about fun and entertaining topics. No friction between anyone, just friendship. We are so blessed to have all of them as friends. 

In the past, they used to have a handful of summer gatherings. Most of them organized affairs at the community center. That was not the only time the folks back then would communicate with their neighbors. Nora has told me stories of how it would take her and her grandfather 2 hours to make the last mile of road to their house, because he would stop and chat with anyone he saw out. We tend to do that too, although the conversations are a bit more brief and we make that last mile in far less than 2 hours!

Nora has been really excited about establishing some traditions in the “new” Jake community. The first was a cook out at our place on the 4th of July. Another is the Labor Day weekend cool out at the community center. So she and her second cousin who lives down the road from us got things organized for this years event and yesterday we headed down a bit early, set up the grills and a table and the residents of Jake came with a dish to pass and stories to tell. We could not have had more perfect weather. Temps around 70 and loads of sunshine. This picture was taken before everyone arrived, in total I think there was around 26-28 people that came.

So summer has sun it’s swan song. We had our first “autumnal” storm this past Thursday. I put it in quotes because the temps were still quite warm so it was not like the storms we have with cold temps and battleship gray skies. However, it did pack a punch in the wind department. The Houghton County Airport saw a wind gust of 62 miles per hour and out on the big lake. The weather station on Stannard Rock reported a 71 mph gust (just 3 mph short of hurricane strength) and a freighter just north of Big Bay reported a gust to 70 mph. 

We have a low and front coming through tonight that will bring us a bit of rain and another round of strong winds. Not as strong as Thursday’s, but still gusts to 40 mph+. I am hoping for around 4 days of good weather to be able to finish up some small projects outside. Then all of my work will be done inside. We do plan to get some new windows for the house before winter sets in and hopefully a new furnace too. Both of them can be done in cold conditions, but not the dead of winter.

The trees are still largely green up here. I am surprised at the amount of locals commenting on how they are still so green, but that is pretty much how it goes every year. We get a few early turners, trees that are under some stress to change color, but really, nothing more than a few splashes until the last 10 days of September and then the peak around the 8-12 of October. Nora and I took a drive today and did spot an early turner, it sure did look beautiful and got the blood pumping for winter and snow to come.

I have some really cool things planned for the website this season and am excited to see them rolled out. The changes are likely to be quite extensive, so they may not all be rolled out until November, but it should be really cool. I am working with a design team out of the Atlanta area that has some incredible talent and great ideas. Stay tuned!

Good night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

Here we are another week that has come and gone. Time just seems to speed up this time of the year.

I thought I could get out of writing a journal last week and just skip me all together in the “cycle”, but I guess you aren’t all that lucky. In preparation of today’s writing I had planned to take lots of extra pictures and have my act together. You know what they say about best laid plans.

Our little garden is growing and has served us all very nicely. And by all, I mean furry Dee members as well. I’ll admit it wasn’t the smartest of ideas to give the race dogs beans as treats. Being as smart as they are, it was learned rather quickly that a human friend was not needed to partake it the garden treasures. I really don’t like to have a fence around my gardens. We have a fence around the yard so that keeps the wild animals out of it but doesn’t help with the dogs. We put up a small section of fencing to protect the beans and Kashi has such a cute little petite face, it’s no problem to squeeze through and help herself to the beans. We had a few dinners of fresh beans and I waved the white flag. Help yourself furry friends. I have actually found her in the garden, all sprawled out, just chomping away. Gracie and I roasted some fresh beets last week and wow they were amazing. So even though our garden is about an eighth of the one in Mohawk, it’s really served us well so far. The tomatoes and cucumbers are coming in nicely and hopefully the season will last long enough for them to mature nicely.

One of the things I’ve realized that I really love to do is container gardening. Plants and vegetables alike. I planted some seeds in these old galvanized pots and they are just starting to produce some color. I suspected I’ll find some of these very flowers past the fence line in the coming years. The day I planted these flowers, Dune was out with me. I had all the packets of seeds placed in the pot, trying to decide what to plant. He came out of nowhere, which is not uncommon as he’s so fast, went between my legs and grabbed a packet or two of seeds and ran like the wind. By the time I reached him, he looked at me and I swear I heard him gulp. It was right around this time he earned the name “Swiper”.

Some of you have reached out to me the last few months wondering how we like living in Jake and what’s in like to be back on my grandparents and great grandparents homestead. I’ll tell you all it’s been nothing short of a dream come true. Sometimes I brew coffee and the smell will take me back to 1978. There are some things that need to be done to make it more energy efficient and the previous owners didn’t really change much other than a new kitchen. It really was like coming home. We are blessed to live in this wonderful community and have made some lifelong friendships. We are excited for what the future holds.

People ask a lot “what about the drive”? Maybe it’s just me but the drive doesn’t bother me at all. Gracie and I have always used drive time to chat and catch up with each other. I suspect that it won’t be long and she’ll be using the drive as homework time. She’s the type of kid who wants to be involved in every activity going on. We’ve tried to minimize that to keep things manageable for our family. Being gone 5 days a week just doesn’t fit us well. I did warn John that we are entering a new phase. Middle School means activities, sports, band, dances etc. So, we’ll see how dad will adjust to that. His little girl is growing up.

As I type, I can hear the rumbling of thunder in the distance. Our days this week were a little bit cooler but that humidity hung on. Not a lot of full sun, beach type of days.

I’ve noticed that the snow lovers are starting to stir a bit. Social media posts with snow shots and people talking about their new sleds. If you look hard enough you can see a few trees starting to change around here. I love all the excitement that fall and winter bring. It’s been a great summer here and although I’m not ready for it to be over, I do look forward to cooler, Fall days.

For those of you who have been long time readers, can you even believe that Gracie is going into Middle School? It seems like yesterday we were just getting home from Texas and adjusting to our new love. She’s super excited about school and can NOT wait to see her friends. She’s missed them all so much. We don’t know what the year will look like, and we will be keeping a very close eye on things. The last thing we want to do is get sick and bring it home to John. She feels a little robbed of the normal excitement and things of entering 6^th grade but I doubt she’ll sleep the night before the 1^st day.

As summer ends so do the afternoon “hangouts”, the late-night bowls of ice cream, and spending extra time with this old guy. Huckie is getting around slow these days, and you can tell his hips are failing him. I honestly didn’t think he would be around this summer. He’s not in pain and loves to try to run and he can cuddle like a champ. Bleau will go to school with us every day so that isn’t much of a transition for us…for him yes but not us. I’m hoping he’ll remember how to be a good therapy dog! He’s not been in school for almost 6 months and he’s pretty accustomed to lounging around all day being a lazy dog. Grace has already expressed that she’ll miss hanging out with dad. This is the first summer she’s been home all day. It’s been super fun for her!

The only thing left to talk about his John. I think he’s really felt a load of his shoulders with sharing the writing of the weekly journal. So with that I say, thank you all for bearing with us guest writers. I know it’s not the same, but I promise he’ll be back in no time!

Parting words from me…..have a great week and show kindness to someone, even when it’s not easy

Good night from Jacobsville!