Happy Memorial Day everyone! Hope that you all are doing well and enjoying the holiday. The Dee’s sure are! We had summer arrive this Wednesday and it has managed to stick around this time. Been in the upper 60’s to low 70’s every day since and we might even have our first thunderstorm of the season in a few hours. Those upper 60’s and low 70’s are cooler than most of the rest of the peninsula have been seeing. Yesterday the airport rose to 79 and so far the high today was 83. So for weeks, I have been cursing the lakes cooling and finally I get to bless it! I think that for the most part, Jacobsville will be a very wonderful place to live in the summer.
With the arrival of summer weather so quickly, it was kind of weird to be wearing a t-shirt and sweating a bit as I folded laundry that consisted of flannel shirts, thermal base layers and fleece long-sleeve sweat shirts. I have broken out the shorts and the whiteness of my skin in the strong sun is blinding! I just hope that aircraft do not mistake me for the airport beacon and try to land.
The arrival of the warmer temps has also spurred on the opening of the buds on the trees, as well as the growth of the grass and other living greenery. The trees still have a while to go, but should be fully opened by the end of this week. I cut the grass for the first time yesterday and had to break down and plant seed in the spots that did not survive the ice rink. I am strongly questioning if I will do a rink next winter. It was a ton of work to put up, maintain and take down and now is still making me work by having to work seed in and water every day. We’ll see come next December what happens.
As I have mentioned in past Journals on Memorial Day, the Keweenaw gives a lot of respect to the meaning of the holiday. The differing American Legions host ceremonies in many of the cemeteries in the community and since Nora came into my life, we have been going to many of the ceremonies held in the Jacobsville Cemetery. This year was the first year in which we did not have to commute! Well…a short jaunt in the car, but if we had wanted to, we could have walked. The ceremony is simple and short. Several of the members of the Lake Linden Legion post say a few words. There is a gun salute and then most stick around, chat for a while and eventually go home. The cemetery is nicely decorated with American Flags at the grave sites of those that served. Before we left, I snapped this shot. The gravestone in the background just above the flag in the foreground is Nora’s grandparents. Her grandfather served in WW II and she also has a great grandfather that served in WW I and received a purple heart.
The warm weather this week kept us outside and working. Nora planted more of her plants, I put in a culvert pipe in a drainage ditch between the house and shop. It was put in by the previous owners to help shed water from the area and they had bridged it with a makeshift wooden bridge. That worked fine for foot traffic and a lawn mower, but was too small for Big Red. So when I was clearing the path for me to get from the house to my office in the shop. I would have to approach it from both sides and do my best to try and clear the snow off of the bridge without destroying it! I added fill on top of the pipe and planted seed, so next winter I will be able to just drive across it with Big Red while clearing snow.
The friends of ours that live in the yurt and are homesteaders purchased a “high tunnel”. It is basically a greenhouse that is able to be permanently left up. It will allow them to grow more food for their family by having a large area that will be safe from the elements, giving them a much longer growing season. They asked if I could come up with Big Red and help them unload the pieces. The frame for the high tunnel is made out of galvanized pipe that is around 2 1/2″ in diameter, which makes it pretty heavy. So Friday evening I drove Big Red down so that it would be ready to go when the high tunnel arrived Saturday. Nora followed me to give me a ride back home and on the way, we played a bit of NASCAR. She edged me out by a few miles, but I hung in there a bit and was tempted to rub her a bit. Here is a shot she took as we were racing.
The tunnel arrived Saturday morning around 9 am, Nora drove me down there and we got the pieces unloaded for Tim and Lisa. We headed home and Tim got busy pounding the posts into the ground that the superstructure would sit on. I am not sure how far he had to sink the posts, but he had 26 to do and did them all by hand. Thankfully the ground down here is not like that in most of the Keweenaw and filled with rocks, but it still had to be a very exhausting job to sink all of those posts!
Tim and Lisa then spent Saturday morning assembling the superstructure and I headed down with Big Red, with Nora following to help them lift the pieces in place. It turned out that Big Red could not lift high enough to get the pieces to the height where they could be dropped into the posts, so Tim devised a modification to the fork lift assembly on Big Red so that it would lift the superstructures high enough. The modification slowed the process down for a bit, but once the first assembly was set in place and we learned the trick(s), we were able to get the rest of the assemblies in place in around 35 minutes. They still have some purlins to put on the roof structure and then the entire structure get covered with plastic, but we were all thankful and surprised things went so well with the setting of the superstructures.
So now I know how to build a high tunnel when we get ours! Kidding of course. Nora would probably kill me if I told her I wanted to do something like that. While on the subject of outdoor shelters, I am selling the auto shelter that I kept many of my woodworking machines in while we moved. It is 10 feet wide by 20 feet long by 8 feet tall. I have all of the parts and it was only used for 3 months. I have it listed in the Facebook Marketplace if you are interested in it.
As I mentioned, Nora planted more things around the house. Gracie helped her out a lot too and the two of them also planted some things down the road at the old school house. It is now a community building, hosting bingo on Wednesdays, social hour after services at the chapel and other get together’s in the Jacobsville Community. Here is a shot Nora took as she and Gracie headed to the old school to their planting. I think Grace is one of the few girls that will have a book in her hand while heading down the road, pulling a wagon full of plants she will be helping plant!
Nora also provided a few more pictures for this entry. In fact they are the best ones in the writings for this week! She met up with a friend to share a cup of coffee as they watched the sun rise over the waters at White City. The sun rises at a little after 6 am and I was glad I was not invited! Although it sure looks like it was both peaceful and beautiful and perhaps when the sun is rising a bit later as we get into August, Nora and I will head down there to catch a sun rise.
The two new dogs continue to get adjusted to their new home. Kashi remains the most adjusted and is still the diva, giving Huck and Bleau her attitude when she feels like it. Dune has really taken to Nora and it is sweet to see the two of them get along and he so comfortable when he is around her. He is getting pretty comfortable with Grace, but is still very cautious of me. I did spend some one-on-one time with him this week and we did some bonding. He loves me when I am holding his bowl of food, tail wagging a hundred miles an hour, but most other times has his tail between his legs and is very timid around me. I am prepared to do what ever it takes for him to be comfortable around me and know it will happen. Just will take time and will have to be on his time, not mine.
Huck and Bleau are doing great too, although poor Bleau is REALLY in need of a hair cut! Now that the warmer weather is here, he gets really hot running around in the yard. Nora has been trying to keep the hair trimmed back enough around his eyes so that he can see, but it seems like it is growing faster than she can keep up with! The other day, they put a hair tie in his hair to help keep it out of his eyes! I believe we might be having a friend over to trim him this week. I sure hope so, because I get hot just looking at the poor guy.
I guess that covers it for this one. Have a great week and stay well!
Good Night from the Keweenaw..
–JD
