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Happy Mothers Day to all the moms out there! I hope you all had an enjoyable and relaxing day! I think Nora enjoyed her day. I cooked breakfast and dinner and did so in a manner that left her with less dishes to wash than she normally has! Haha. Just kidding, I did the dishes too. My apologies for not writing the past two weeks, I just found myself busy Sunday evenings and also the past two Monday’s. I am very grateful to be able to say that it was not illness related and knock on wood, but this is the first time in around 5 years that I did not have some kind of medical situation land me in the hospital.

So not only is today Mothers Day, but it is also the 24th anniversary of me moving to the UP! I can still remember most of that day quite vividly. I drove the biggest U-Haul truck that you can, chock full of all my house and shop belongings. Baileys was in the truck with me and my dad followed us in my car, along with Burt in the back. I can remember loading the truck, taking off from their place in WI and then driving until the turn off for HWY 8. It was there that I stopped and checked to see how my dad and Burt were doing. We then stopped to fuel up at the Holiday station in Eagle River and then arrived in Houghton and picked up the keys to the Lake Linden home. Got to the home, unloaded EVERYTHING and then collapsed while having a pizza and went to bed soon after. I also remember letting the dogs out the next morning, smelling the fresh air, with a hint of pine from the pine trees on the north end of the back yard. It was then that it really hit me that I was living out my dream, living in the Keweenaw.

In some ways, it seems like that was forever ago and in some ways it seems like it was yesterday. I suppose that can be said for a lot of major moments in one’s live. I know the same can be said about the day I married Nora and the day Grace was born. Those three have to be the top three biggest moments in my life.

So what has been keeping me so busy the past two Sundays that I could not write. Well, I really cannot remember. Actually, I don’t think I was actually doing anything important on those evenings, but was very tired from my days activities. I do know that I really did want to write last week and even had the pics all ready for the entry, but just ran out of steam.

I know for the past few entries I had been talking about the cabinets that I was building for my office. They are not 100 percent finished, but are finished enough that I have put them into the office and they are being put to use. As you can see, I still need to make the top for them, as well as the doors for the uppers. Plus a keen eye might see that they are limiting the access to the bathroom in my office, but I am going to move the door to the other wall and then slide the cases flush against the wall that currently has the doorway in it. I also need to build the shelves for the uppers and one more drawer to put underneath the fridge, but most of those tasks will have to wait until I am done with the kitchen cabinets for the new home.

I have already picked up the wood that I will use to make the face frames for those cabinets and the sheet goods for the cases, as well as the hardwood for the drawers will be arriving at the lumberyard this Thursday. It will then be game-on! until I am finished with them. I am getting very excited to do them and have been getting the shop as ready as I can for the build. One thing I really wished I could have gotten done is to get my central dust collection system all hooked up, but I am going to be going with piping that is designed specifically for dust collection systems in woodshops and because of that, I need to design the system and order up the parts. I just have not had the time to take measurements and layout the design of the system, so I am just going to use a “portable” dust collector that I have, along with shop vacs for the smaller tools and sanders.

I did get the layout for the kitchen cabinets all done about a week ago. I was really putting in some hours on that, as they are going to be fully custom cabinets. Each cabinet will have a specific use and thus will have some special hardware like a lift for the mixer, special holders for our plates, bowls, silverware and cooking utensils. Like the cabinets for the home in Mohawk, I am going to be building them out of cherry. I just love the look of cherry and thankfully so does Nora. The countertops will be black quartz and all of our appliances are stainless. So it should be a pretty snazzy kitchen when it is finished. The plans that I showed you in the last pic were my drawings done on graph paper. I do that so that I can add all the details to the cabinets and then use a design software to work out all the cutlists for the cabinet parts. The software optimizes the best use of the sheet goods to that there is the least amount of waste. I’m not really sure I could do that by hand and even if I could I most certainly would not want to!

I have also been pretty busy the past few weeks making trips to Marquette to pick up things for the new house. Mainly appliances, but I also did pick up the vanities for the bathrooms. On my latest trip, which was Tuesday of last week, I drove past snow that was left over from the big storm a few weeks ago. That snow was all natural, not piled up by man and the pic was also a week after the storm had finished! The hamlet of Herman set a new state record for 24 hour snowfall. I forget the exact number, but I believe it was 27″! That’s a ton of snow for any time of the year, but to do it in May is crazy. I believe storm totals for Herman as well as some other high terrain spots between Marquette and L’Anse were over 3 feet! We here in Jake only got around 4-5 inches out of the storm and areas like Calumet got around 10-12 inches.

Speaking of snow still on the side of the roadway, the Laurium Glacier is still hanging in there. This is a picture of it taken on Wednesday of this last week. If you are panicking that you missed the opportunity to take part in the meltdown contest, worry not. I did not do it this year. I meant to get it started in the last half of March and kept forgetting and then we took our spring break and by the time we got back, I felt that it was just too late into the spring to start the contest. So we will have to wait until next year to do that!

Backing up to the first few days of May, Nora and I went to check on a friend/neighbors place on May 2nd. It was just as the big snow event in the UP was ending. We spotted a freighter taking shelter in Keweenaw Bay and I also thought it was cool that we could see some of the snow that had fallen in the higher terrain of Baraga county. As I mentioned, the storm did not bring much snow to Jackobsville, but we got a ton of rain. All told, we were over 3 inches of rain and melted snow. I was beginning to worry if we would go over budget on the house by having to build a bridge across the moat that we had! Believe it or not, all of that water is now gone and I spent a few hours this weekend, grading the dirt around the house, just to make it look a little better and to help it dry out even more. We look to be rain free until the second half of Thursday of this week, so hopefully the ground can just absorb it and we do not have any big mud holes again.

The crews are getting closer and closer to being done with their work on the new home. Just about all of the facia is done on the garage and front of the house. The west side and back side still need to be done. The trim arrived a few weeks ago and they got to painting much of it. The actual painting was done in the garage and then brought in to where that rack was setup to dry. We ran out of paint and so did the store we got it from, so we had to wait almost two weeks for the shipment to come in. Here is the pile of trim that still needs a finish coat. Most of that is actually for the base as well as the doors. The doors will be arriving in another week or two, but all of the windows have been trimmed out and I really like the design that I came up with. The doors will be similar, just a little less involved.

This past week they started to lay tile in the bathrooms. Initially, Nora and I said we would do the tile work, but life kept us busy enough that we just did not feel like we had the time to put into doing an A+ job. So we swallowed our pride and asked the contractor if they could and as you just saw, they said yes. The rest of the flooring also came in, so I suspect that this week they will be finishing up the tile work, laying the floor in the master and guest bedrooms and maybe framing in the fireplace or doing the rest of the facia. I suspect that what will keep us from moving in will not be that the home is not finished, but rather we will be waiting for the road restrictions to come off so that the power company can come and get the electricity to the house and/or the contractor being able to bring in the equipment and material needed to build the septic.

That just about covers it for this one. I will leave you with one last pic. It is of Grace posing with her three projects from metalworking class. I was so impressed with the work, especially the box. Every bend was perfectly square and the lid closed and opened with ease! I think it is so cool that they are able to take these classes in Jr High! The courses available to them as high schoolers is even more impressive. Things sure have changed since I was in middle and high school!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

 

 

Well, the memories of the trip to Florida are fading a bit with each passing day and we are all back into the daily routine of life in the Keweenaw. Nora and Grace are busy each weekday heading up to Calumet for school and work. Bleau goes with some days and stays home on others. I have been busy finishing up the cabinets for the office and organizing ideas for the kitchen cabinets I am going to make for the new home.

The weather does not seem to be able to make up it’s mind. About ten days ago, we had summer-like weather occur, with plenty of sunshine and temps in the 70’s. We even hit 82 degrees on the 12th! Then two days later, it was raining and snowing, with temps in the low 30’s. I got into my truck after a few days of not going anywhere and had to turn off the AC and turn on the heat! Ever since that cool down, we have been stuck in more of a winter pattern than spring, with highs in the low 30’s and wintery precip falling. Most of the locals are handling it pretty good. April is likely the most despised month up here and no one expects nice weather, but rather just enjoys it when we can, as we know it will not last long!

As we work into May, its a different story, we really expect to not see much winter weather at all and usually are starting to get into the yards to clean up the mess left behind from winter and to get ready to start cutting grass by the middle of the month. I’m not going to worry too much about cutting the grass for a while, as we don’t have much at all. The landscape around the house is just a big quagmire of mud. Our water table is high in Jake and the soil has a lot of clay. Plus, they scraped off all of the topsoil to build the new house, so all that is exposed is that layer of clay that sat around a foot below the surface. I’m REALLY hoping we can afford to do sod rather than seed in about a month, as going the seed route is just going to create a number of issues. From having to try and keep the dogs from getting too muddy while the seed is taking root to the watering that will be involved to cause the seed to grow. Maybe I should start a go-fund-me page!

So the ground is bare right now, but that was not the case this morning, as we had enough snow overnight to dust everything. Earlier in the week we had a solid snow pack, with around 3 inches falling Sunday night and then another 3-4″ falling Monday night. Here is a shot taken from the apartment Monday morning. 

The guys working on the new house are nearly done with the exterior work. Basically the only thing left for them to do is about 65% of the facia trim. Ever since the weather turned nasty, they have been inside painting and this past Tuesday, the flooring was delivered, so they have been working on laying that since Wednesday. They have one of the bedrooms completely done, a couple of the bathrooms done and about a third of the living room/kitchen done. As hard as I try not to think about the new home and keep myself from getting too excited to move in, I have to admit that I am getting pretty excited! The apartment life has been fine, but there are just so many great things the new home will provide, that it’s just too hard not to be getting excited. Unless something unseen and really big happens, we should be moved in come two months from now.

I made a trip to Marquette to pick up the fireplace, the fridge/freezer and a bathroom vanity this past Wednesday and will be going there again to pick up three more vanities, a mirror and a tool to help me make the kitchen cabinets. We have the other appliances picked out and just need to order them and the interior door order was placed on Friday. We also picked out about 80 percent of the lighting fixtures while in Rhinelander before the FL trip and brought them home with us when we returned from the trip. All of the faucets were brought home with us from Rhinelander. Speaking of Rhinelander, I forgot to give a thanks to the wife of a site visitor for the hospitality we received at the Rhinelander airport. It was a treat to meet you and thanks for all you did!

So the warm temps that we had around the 11th to the 14th caused a lot of melting and that led to some issues with flooding. We did not have any issues here in Jake. Lake Linden experienced a flash flood when  a plugged up culvert above the village caused another washout. There were other areas in the western UP that had some issues with flooding. On my way to and from Marquette, I noticed a section of railroad that was underwater. It will be interesting to see the status of that railroad grade on my travels this week.

Speaking of traveling. Nora and Grace returned home from a couple day trip to Rhinelander. It was not to fly off to some warmer place, in fact they spent the majority of the trip in a cold ice rink. There was a figure skating camp being held there and the two of them went down so Grace to partake in the camp and also get tested in two performances. Here is a shot of Grace practicing with one of the instructors and here she is with a friend, the both of them holding the certificates showing that they both passed their performance tests. She came back all excited for her accomplishments and is really climbing the ranks through the different stages of the US Figure Skating program. I sure do love that smile!

So I think that covers it for this one. I finished painting the cabinets and drawer fronts today and just need to assemble the drawers and install and then I can show you all what has been taking up a good portion of my free time the last month or more. I suspect the contractor will finish up the flooring this week, so will be sure to show you that. Plus anything else exciting that happens, which may or may not happen!

Until next time…

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD

Well, we are home from our adventures in southwest Florida. The traveling to and fro went well and the time down there was wonderful. The vacation marked a milestone for me. It was the first vacation in which I did not have to do my work while on it since 1991! It did not feel too much different from the previous ones, probably because I have not had to wake up at 4:15 and do my regular work for almost 2 years now. None the less, it was so nice to be able to be free from the workload and worries while on vacation!

The weather was beautiful. A bit hot, but I have found that I am way more tolerant of the heat and humidity while on vacation in FL or the Caribbean than I am when home. Temps topped out in the low 90’s just about every day and the sky was free from clouds until the last two days of our vacation and even on those days, it was not a solid overcast. The evenings down there were even nicer than the daytime. There is just something about the sun going down on the west coast of FL that is extra relaxing.

We stayed at the townhome that my older brother had purchased for my parents and got a pool pass that was put to good use both at daytime and in the evening. The pool closed at dark because it did not have any lights, but on a couple of occasions we went down for a last minute dip. One of those was the second night there and I was able to capture the sun setting in the west and painting the sky in yellows and oranges, with the blue of the pool in the foreground. As serene as that shot was, just 50 feet away was a pond that had this creature swimming around in it! Thankfully there was a retaining wall between it and the pool and we did not have to share the pool with it! Pretty cool to see a 6 foot alligator in the wild though. There were also manatees in the marina that is connected to the gulf and a couple of evenings we went to check them out. Here is Grace watching for one to surface to take a breath on the last night we were there. Here is a shot Nora took of one surfacing.

The one downside to the community that the townhouse was in was that it did not have direct access to the beach. In fact, the closest gulfside beach was about 45 minutes away at Ft Meyers. We did plan a trip to the beach, but not Ft Meyers. I had done some research and found a beautiful beach on Gaspirlla Island, almost due west of where we were staying. The beach was as beautiful as my research had indicated and not too crowded either. Back in in September of last year, hurricane Ian made a direct hit on where we were staying with winds of 155 mph. Many of the buildings withstood the wrath of the storm quite well, thanks to the updated building codes, although a handful of the roofs did have damage and even though it was around 6 1/2 months since the storm hit, there were quite a few rooftops without the shingles, just a weather proof barrier. At the beach, there was also a sailboat still there from when the storm tore it from its moorings and pushed it up onto the beach.

It’s hard to believe, but this was the first time to the Gulf of Mexico beach that Grace will be able to remember. The other two times, she was about 6 months old and 18 months old. So she was quite excited for us to get to the beach and was rewarded with a nice shell to remind her of our trip to the beach.

On Friday, I met up with one of my best friends from high school. I had not seen him in around 15 years, but as happens with an old friend, it was like we had seen each other just the other day. We went to lunch, then to his brand new home and then to a shooting range where we took turns firing one of his 9mm handguns and then a .357 magnum, which was rented from the store we were at. I have a 9mm, but don’t fire it too often. I have never fired a .357 before and it was quite the experience! I can’t see the reason why I would ever need a weapon like that. If I lived in grizzly bear territory, that would be a different story, but I will say, it was a thrill to fire that hand-cannon!

On the final night there, Nora and I were inside winding down, while Grace was in the lani, writing her next story. She has around a half dozen under her belt and they are quite good. I believe that anyone reading them without knowing they were written by Grace would think they were written by an adult. One of her ambitions is to be a published writer and I have no doubt that she will be able to accomplish that.

So updates from the Keweenaw are kind of slim, other than to say I believe some of the FL heat found it’s way into our bags! Today’s high was 70 here in Jake and tomorrow we are suppose to warm into the mid to upper 70’s! Needless to say that the snow is melting fast. We are suppose to stay warm and dry until around Saturday, when some rains look to pass through and then cooler for the early part of next week. Maybe even a few snowflakes! That’s April in the Keweenaw alright!

It is my hope the we do not get too much rain and can return to warm and sunny weather after the current round we are in. The area around the new house is like a mud bog and it would be nice for it to dry up so I don’t have to worry about losing a boot coming to and from the house!

That does it for this one, blessings to all of you and…

Good Night from the Keweenaw..

–JD

The countdown is at 4 days and 8 hours (as I type anyway) to get your snowmobiling in for most trails in the state of MI for the 2022-23 season. I had my one and done for this season and am looking forward to the green grass of summer. I know there are some hard-core riders that will go for a while longer yet. There are some trails in MI that are dual-use, meaning they never close to snowmobiles, even if there is no snow on the ground! There are also some private and public tracts of land that can be used to ride on until the snow is gone, but I am not going to be getting into them here and please do not inquire, as those situations can change and thus I am not 100 percent positive of any place other than the dual use trails.

We still have plenty of snow on the ground up here in the Keweenaw to get you through the rest of this week and likely beyond in some spots. It’s old news, but we had an official St Patrick’s day storm this year. Here in Jake it was not too bad. We picked up a total of around 12″, but there was a lot of wind. The rest of the Keweenaw saw around 18-20″ of snow, with the same wind. Schools were closed the day before, only the third snow day all season. This is a shot of our driveway with the vehicles pulled out Saturday morning so I could clear it. Here is a shot looking west down the road we live on. It snowed at varying intensities through mid-afternoon on Saturday and then shut down.

Nora’s dad had passed away late in the St Patrick’s day week, so she drove down to lower MI with a friend of hers who was also going to lower MI for a speaking engagement. That had Grace and I holding down the fort for the entire week, which was quite easy now that Grace is almost 14 and a great kid! The only “challenge” for me was taking her to school in the morning, as they usually leave about 45 minutes to an hour before I get up. I also was in charge of taking G to her skating practices, which also were not too bad, as they were on Sunday and Wednesday. 

Saturday afternoon, after the snow calmed down, Grace and I took a drive up to Eagle Harbor and had a great dinner there. On the way home, we took the “long way home” via the shoreline drive on M-26. The storms strong west winds were still blowing and we wanted to see how angry the lake was. She was rocking and a rolling, and without any shore ice, the wave were able to make it all the way to shore to expend their energy and die, rather than do it well off shore as it more typical this time of the year. There were still plenty of clouds in the sky and with the sun hanging low at that time of the evening, it cast a really cool light on the many different elements of the shoreline. One really does not have to look too hard up here to be reminded of just how beautiful a place we live in.

We had another snow event on Wednesday morning. It had just begun when Grace and I got into the truck to head to Calumet to drop her off at school. However, it really snowed quite hard and in the 30 or so minutes it took us to get to Calumet, there was a fresh 3 inches that had fallen. It snowed about another inch and then stopped and by the end of the day, most of the new stuff was gone and a cold rain was falling.

The rains quit falling sometime during the night on Wednesday and skies were fairly clear for most of Thursday, including Thursday night, which was a blessing, as a fairly strong aurora event took place Thursday night. You would think that because I have lived here for 24 years, I would have seen quite a few Northern Light events, but because of the hours I kept when I was working, I missed just about every one as I was sleeping! There was a big one that was finishing up back in 2003 that I saw as I was starting work. Nora and I were living in Lake Linden and drove out to a dark field to watch them dance for around 45 minutes and then I had to get to work. 

The past Thursday’s event was pretty well advertised by the space weather folks, so I purposely stayed up later than usual to see if I could catch the start of them. At about 9:30 it had become dark enough to see them if they were visible. There was a faint glow on the northern horizon, but there was just enough light pollution from the barndeeminimum to make me question if they were actually visible without any light pollution. So I drove to the White City boat launch and was treated to this sight! The actually did not stay that way for too much longer after I arrived and in ten minutes that vivid look was replaced with something that looked more like thin clouds being illuminated. What made up for the lack of intensity was the fact that they stretched from the eastern horizon, to directly overhead and then to the western horizon. So they were a huge ark across the entire sky. I waited a bit to see if the more vivid version would return, but by around 10:30 they had not, so I decided to head back home and leave the wolves and coyotes to howl at the night sky.

Nora returned late on Friday night and Grace and I were both very happy to have her home. Ironically, Nora and I were both exhausted from our week and got into a little tiff on the way home from picking her up, but we’ve never had a “disagreement” that has lasted too long and by Saturday we were back to being best of friends. I’m so thankful for the fact that we can drop the gloves, but soon afterwards we are back to being a couple of newlyweds!

Saturday Grace’s ice skating club had their spring show. There was an early morning practice that I took her to and then the show at 7pm. Nora took a bunch of great shots and I would like to share a few of them with you. She was in three numbers. The first was the all-club skate and the next two were with two of her best friends from skating. She has gotten quite good for the time she has been involved with figure skating and we are all excited to see her develop her skills and are also all looking forward to her future performances. The one thing that Nora, I and all the others that knew her and were they watching commented on was her personality while performing. She is always smiling and looks to be having loads of fun, which she says is the case. She also is very good at remembering and executing the smaller details to the performance. It makes me a proud dad to watch her skate and some of the other skaters taking their cues from her.

At the end of the show, they do a call-out for all the skaters and have them line up in front of the audience. Here is a shot of her with her two skating besties and here is a shot of the entire group. It was a great show and included a guest skater from Maple Grove MN and also the clubs from Tech and L’Anse/Baraga.  

In house construction news, things are coming along. A bit slower at the moment, but still progressing. The 2 man crew that is doing the drywall finishing is almost done. They told me that they will be done either Wednesday or for sure Thursday of this week. Then the contractors will get onto priming all of the drywall and if we can get them some paint colors, they will paint too. I am letting Nora handle the paint colors, as she is WAY better at it than me. She is kind enough to run her ideas through me, but the truth is, I would trust her even if she didn’t! 

The contractors have been working on the exterior siding and are almost done. About all that is left to do is what you can see in this picture. Both Nora and I are looking forward to when the remnants of the old home are totally gone. I am pretty anxious to have a nice lawn too. I am thinking of using sod, rather than seed. I just am not sure we want to stomach the price tag of sod. If anyone has suggestion for getting the best lawn without sod, I am all ears. The problem with seed is that we really cannot put it down until the very end of May or early June because of the soil temps. So that means that we would probably not have a fully developed yard until the middle to end of August. I’m not sure I want to deal with that!!!

I guess that covers it for this one. I will not be writing next Sunday as Nora and Grace’s spring break starts at the end of the school day this Friday. So who knows, maybe the next time I write, all of our snow will be gone. Not the Keweenaws, just here in the banana belt of Jacobsville.

Have a great two weeks and easter!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
-JD