The Calm

As promised (for the second time), I have resumed the Sunday night writing. I am going to do my best to stick with it. Sunday is a busy skating day for Grace. She has ice time at the MTU rink from 2-3 and then at the rink in Calumet from like 5:45 tp 6:45. Because of the distance to both of them from our house, it does not pay to go to Tech, then come home and then to Calumet. So for whoever is taking her, they are gone from around 1 pm to 7:30 pm. Today Nora took her, but on day’s I take her, I will have to get creative or have lots of energy saved up to write when I get home!

Anyway, things are pretty quiet up here at the moment. All but one snowbird in the Jacobsville area have flown south for the winter. The last one is a very good friend of mine, so I am happy he is still here. Although he will be leaving in around 10 days. The trees are pretty much bare now, with just a few leaves hanging on here and there. After the snows earlier in the week, the weather also quieted down and looks to remain that way through Wednesday. Even the deer we had roaming around the neighborhood have disappeared. I heard that one was harvested in the last week by a bow hunter. I think I even heard it was a 6 point buck, which most likely would have been the deer I posted a picture of in a journal 2-3 weeks ago. 

So at the moment, things are calm and quiet, but nothing stays the same around here for too long. As mentioned, the weather looks to turn on us around Thursday. First rain and then some snow looks possible by around Friday or Saturday. It does not look like a big dumping, but does look like the low will have a fairly deep central pressure, which would make for some strong winds up here. A few inches of snow may fall into the weekend, to whiten the ground for the hunters taking to the woods on the 15th. It then looks to stay fairly cool for most of next week as well, so hunters will not have to rush their kill to the processor right away either.

The snows of earlier this week did not take anyone by surprise up here, but I know quite a few that were not 100% ready for winter to kick in for good either, so the warm up the end of this week was good. I suppose no one is 100% done with things before winter arrives for good either, but most have the really important things done. I can be counted among those. I still have some things to do, but nothing major and nothing that cannot be done with a few inches of snow on the ground and sub-freezing daytime highs. There are a few more logs I would like to cut for firewood, but our fires are ornamental and not needed for heat. I also still need to put the blower on the front of Big Red, but that is usually done inside where I keep Big Red and that is heated. 

Speaking of Big Red and logs, she and I were very busy for much of the day today. My friend Tim, as well as two seniors from Tech all helped me cut down 8 trees and then haul the branches and trunks to a burn pile on Tim’s property. They were all softwoods, so could not be used for inside firewood. They were all along side the road and were cut because the power company sub contracts out a tree trimming service to keep the powerlines free from trees and limbs that could knock out the power. It does not guarantee that the lines will not be taken down by a falling tree or limb, as they only take the limbs that are above the lines and any trees that are dead and could fall on the lines. So living trees that could fall on the lines are left. in our case, they just “topped” the trees. Cutting just the tops of them that were near the lines. I don’t know who planted the trees, but it was not a good idea to plant them directly under the lines in the first place!

The trees were pretty ugly and many of them were struggling health wise due to the way that they were cut, so Nora and I decided to just cut them down completely. We still have some pines and some hardwoods in our front yard and they will likely be healthier as they will not have to compete for water and sunlight. I was kind of disappointed to have to cut down one of the pines though, as it was an extremely rare variety. It was a coniferous gluteous maximus, otherwise known as a Kardashian Pine. Everyone in our house just called it the “Butt Tree”. We actually only cut it down to the top of the burl and plan to turn it into a planter. It will likely rot in a few years, but before it does, it will remain a conversation piece!

I think I mentioned in my previous entry how I had picked up a grapple attachment for Big Red, but I know I did not have a picture of it, so here it is in action earlier today. It’s hard to explain just how handy it came in today, moving all of the trunks and some of the limbs to the brush pile! Tim and one of the boys from Tech used his work truck to move the rest of the limbs to the brush pile. I did get low on fuel, so was not able to move all of the trunks over to the burn pile, but will be going to town tomorrow morning to pick up 10 gallons of diesel to finish moving the trunks. 

The only other outdoor task I have to do is to hook up the new Woods cam. It did arrive, but with the weather poor earlier in the week and then other things taking precedence later in the week, I did not hook it up yet. It should be pretty simple and hopefully by tomorrow afternoon it will be up and running. I can then finally return my focus to the office and shop. Finishing off the office and getting the shop is good enough shape to be able to fully use it.

I guess that covers it for this one. Perhaps when I write again next week, I will have some more snow photos for you to see!

Good Night from the Keweenaw..
JD