A Separate Peace

In this book set in a private boy's school on the east coast before world war two, John Knowles writes about the friendship between a boy named Gene and another boy named Phineas. As you can guess by the book cover, one of them falls out of a high tree. I won't tell you which one fell. The friendship between athletic, casual Phineas and studious, introverted Gene is compelling.  I read the book with thorough interest until the very end. If you want to read a good, short book I would recommend reading A Separate Peace.

Red River

When we traveled to the East Grand Forks area to visit the Red River park, the fact that the water was flowing north confused my brain. All this water was going to end up in Canada where the polar bears frolic?  Wow. I know the Mississippi flows in all directions including north, south, east and west. This park is strange because each campsite is on green grass punctuated by nursery shrubs such as white lilac in beautiful and fragrant bloom.  This was a neighborhood in East Grand Forks.  After the flood the people had to move out because the city decided this was now a flood zone. So you could, as a former resident, come here to camp in your very own yard!  How strange would that be?  The list of all the former residents in this neighborhood is posted on a sign.  Most of the residents had single family homes but there was a apartment building and a care facility there too. We hiked around the path but it was strange because we felt like we were in a city. We were in a city. We hiked around the shore and through the levee area.  The levee is a big wall where it looks like heavy equipment would add a section to put over the road the next time the water gets high.  I would not like to own a home right next to the levee.  The day we were there was very warm. We asked the ranger what else there was to see around here. He suggested we go into North Dakota and visit the historical museum.  So did what he suggested and were pleasantly surprised.  For only five dollars we got a 2 hour guided tour of the museum from a young and enthusiastic employee.  We had a great time learning about the area and frankly, being in air conditioning felt good for an hour or so.  One of the strangest things we saw was a Lustron home.  This pre-made home is manufactured almost completely with steel. The roof, walls, floors, cupboard doors, closet doors and shelves are steel.  The outside is covered with porcelain enamel. The Lustron homes came in aqua, pink, yellow, tan and grey. This one was in gray. I would have chosen aqua myself.  I was flabbergasted by this great idea.  I think she said the owner of the Lustron company was Swedish. That means these homes are like something I could buy from Ikea?  She said originally the forced air heat came from the ceiling.  When they had this one restored after the flood they put in baseboard heat.  She talked to a man who grew up in one of these homes and he said the house was warm enough but his feet were always cold. Our museum guide said there are 5 other Lustron homes within 200 miles of Grand Forks but she didn't know exactly where they were. I would love to see another one some day.

The Fox Returns

This morning I was awake but not out of bed yet.  I listened to the house wren talking incessantly.  Turkeys were gobbling away. The cardinals called a few times.  The black capped chickadees are much quieter these days. All of a sudden I heard the familiar sound of chicken panic. Oh, snap! The red fox has returned. The last time it came around here was July 3,2017.  I yell out of my bedroom window.  The fox was looking at the chickens and now it looks up at me.  But it doesn't move away. I tell the fox, "I can still see you.  Don't make me come out there."  The fox slinks off but I know it isn't going too far away. Eleven months of no fox and today, this morning, it has returned.  Just yesterday I moved the chicken coop to a fresh spot of prairie. The chickens wanted to get out and walk around but I didn't let them.  I guess I knew the fox must be close.  Lucky for me I got a bottle of wolf pee and some sponges. I can scare that fox away for another eleven months I hope.  I went out there to check out the situation. While I was there I pulled up some woodbine vines.  I heard a deer sneeze.  The deer got up and walked down the hill. The deer sneezed seven more times while standing on the road at the bottom of the hill. I think it was a sneeze.  Air was being forced out through the nose and mouth. Maybe it was huffing at me. Can deer have allergies? I walked over to where the deer was hoping to see a fawn lying there but I could not find one. Many things are happening in this yard at 5:45 a.m.!

Old Mill

We got to Old Mill state park after a long day of hiking and traveling.  This campsite was right by the showers and bathrooms.  Frankly, after quite a few nights of using an outhouse, this bathhouse was lovely.  Running water and soap do not seem that important until you don't have them for a few days.  Each outhouse had a dispenser of cleaning fluid for our hands but nothing beats soap and water. We set up our tents.  I am getting really efficient in putting up my tent now. In the evening, after dinner, I walk to the nearby bridge to see the sights. I step up on the lower board so I can see over the top and look down at the water flowing by.  I stand there for a long time. Then I cross the road and look at the other side of the bridge. I don't see any fish but the water is pretty clear.  I am staring without really seeing when a beaver swims up the left side of the river. This is a chubby full grown beaver. The beaver stops, balances itself with the feet in the water, reaches up the bank, grabs a 24 inch willow tree. breaks it off, and eats the leaves off it.  The beaver uses both hands to hold the tree horizontal and move the stem from left to right.  I can actually hear it chewing.  I go and get my companion so she can see this too.  By the time we get back the beaver is on the other side of the bridge. My companion films the beaver as it eats little tree after tree after tree.  Sometimes the beaver appears to be looking me right in the eye while chomping loudly on the willow.  My companion goes back to the campsite but I stay because I am fascinated.  A woman walks by. I point out the beaver having a snack.  She looks for a minute and then moves on. I continue to watch. Next to the water there is a sandy slope. As the slope continues up a meter or so there is grass and more willow saplings.  The beaver climbs over the sand and into the grassy area to eat more willow. I am overhead looking down at the beaver and I can see the beaver's spinal cord continues all the way down the center of the tail.  The beaver turns sideways to get another sapling.  As the beaver extends it's left paw to reach for another tree gravity works against it. The beaver starts to slide sideways down the grassy slope.  To my astonishment the beaver looses all control, slides to the end of the grass, rolls sideways twice over the sand and flops clumsily into the water.  The beaver rights itself, shakes it's head, and swims a couple yards upstream.  I had to laugh out loud. I have seen beavers before.  I have heard them slap their tail when I get too close in a boat.  But I have never, ever, seen a beaver tumble down a hill before. Somehow seeing this awkward beaver made me feel better about myself and I went to my sleeping bag feeling happy and satisfied with my own physical abilities.

Hayes and Bronson

Wading in Hayes Lake

At the end of the prairie trail we found a 13 lined ground squirrel couple living under the trail One entrance to their home is under the sign post at the left side of the trail and the other entrance is under the fence post on the right side of the trail.  They looked like a happy couple.

We climbed up this WPA project that could be a water tower but is not used as a water tower anymore

While we traveled in the northeastern portion of Minnesota I came to realize that I had a preconceived notion that this was a boring part of the state. I was wrong. This is not bland and boring but a gorgeous piece of habitat.  The land was mostly flat but the soil was rich.  I saw no irrigation systems up here which surprised me. I thought the northeast part of the state got very little rain but it must be enough to farm without sprinkler systems.  The farms looked prosperous.  These two state parks had lakes because dams were built on the rivers to create them. I waded in both lakes and that felt great because the day was hot.  Earlier, at Big Bog state park we met some young people from Wilderness Inquiry, a travel company.  They had six canoes and were meeting school kids to give them a canoe ride and an educational program. Various schools had scheduled environmental field days for what looked like sixth graders.  I met a couple guys from Wilderness Inquiry and mentioned that I had taken three trips with WI. I told them I had gone to the Apostle Islands, Kenya, and the BWCA with WI and had a great time. The guy I talked to resembled a young Brad Pitt, like the Brad Pitt who was in the movie Thelma and Louise. The next day we met the WI group again at Zippel Bay. One of the women talked to me and said she had heard I had gone on three trips with them.  This time they were with students from Lake of the Woods school.  We saw their camp. Some of the WI people slept in tents and a couple slept in hammocks.  There is something about seeing someone sleeping in a hammock that brings out the urge in me to go up to them and set them swinging by giving them a gentle push. But I restrained myself from doing that.  Anyway, as we were hiking around Hayes Lake, we come out of the woods and are walking across the grassy berm when across the lake I see the WI guy who looks like Brad Pitt waving at us (or me, maybe he was waving just at me).  We walk over to them. They are loading their six canoes back onto the trailer. I ask where they are headed next and hoped I wasn't coming across creepy. They were headed to Saint Cloud to party and then back to Minneapolis to turn in their gear. They had been on the road for two weeks meeting various schools at state parks. They were ready to go home and decompress.  My companion and I thought heading to Saint Cloud would be over the line so we choose to stay where we were.  By this point on my vacation I didn't care about my regular worries anymore. I wasn't checking my phone.  I wasn't looking at my computer.  I was enjoying the trees and frogs and lakes and open sky with white fluffy clouds.  The wood ticks were relentless but I would rather have wood ticks than deer ticks. I had lumps on my neck and ears from the gnat bites. The mosquitoes bit too but they didn't leave lumps. I was having a very relaxing, self-indulgent vacation.

June First

Today is the first of June. I know one of my grandmothers had a birthday on June 1st and the other one had a birthday on June 4th.  Early June is always a time when I remember how lucky I was to have two such awesome grandmothers.

Jevne/Zippel

This thicket of young trees along the sandy beach of Zippel Bay is full of yellow warblers and Wilson's warblers and phoebes.  The yellow birds fly around here by the hundreds.  They sing, "Sweet! Sweet!  I am so sweet!" Yellow warblers must nest up here.

Here I am relaxing on the sandy beach which has to be a mile wide. A native lady bug joins me.  I waded in the water up to my knees and it was warm. I heard Lake of the Woods had ice on it two weeks ago.

At Zippel Bay you can get water the hard way by pumping a pump handle 250 times. Or you can get it the easy way by dipping your container into this artesian well were spring water comes up. The only drawback to this method is that you have to put your feet into the little pond on the slippery rocks.  The water is so cold it makes your shins ache. This well was right by the picnic area.

Here I am halfway down this lovely path that parallels the beach. I loved this path!

After we left the Big Bog park we drove to Franz Jevne state park which is right on the Rainy River.  A lawyer in International Falls died and his family donated the land to the state if they promised to name it after him. This is a very small state park but it has nice hiking trails. Right across the Rainy River is Canada. I could see Indian mounds on the  Canadian side.  I could have swum into Canada! I thought about doing that but the water was going fast and it looked cold.  I hiked along the river. I found a lot of hair in one spot. The hair was whitish and 3 to 4 inches long.  I talked to the guy cutting the grass at this park and he said 3 or 4 deer died in that spot.  He suspects wolves, coyotes, or disease killed them. As I hiked I watched the pelicans and the geese and the warblers fly back and forth. I thought, "There goes a Canadian goose, now it's an American goose, now it is a Canadian goose."  How little such silly boundaries mean to the birds and the fish and the dragon flies.  After hiking there for a few hours we drove to Zippel Bay. Our campsite was in the aspen woods.  Aspens are related to cottonwood trees.  And wow, the aspen trees were throwing out cotton like crazy!  The air was full of cotton!  I breathed cotton.  Cotton gathered like snow in the road and our car sent it all up into the air. Nature is so wasteful sometimes.  Yellow warblers were as thick as thieves.  I tried to get a picture of one above my orange tent but no way, warblers will not sit still for anyone!  And the beach!  Oh, my gosh, the white sand beach! It is like Hawaii or Kangaroo Island or Rhode Island.  I could hardly believe this water was fresh. Lake of the Woods is a very large lake. I waded in the water and the sand softened the skin on my feet just like what happened to my feet in the Bahamas. I was careful not to step on the many large mussel shells. We found a couple mussels with their tongues out.  We picked them up and put them in deeper water.  I had no idea that the park in the chimney of Minnesota was this awesome. Toads were calling, Leopard frogs were calling, Peepers were calling, Chorus frogs were calling. This was one strange spring/early summer. Grouse were drumming in the woods making sonic booms with their wings. One morning at breakfast I was eating my oatmeal and drinking my tea when I saw a weasel looking at me.  I (suppressing swear words again) said to my camping companion, "There is a fisher looking at me right now, right over there, staring me in the eyes with big ears and it might be a fisher or a weasel or something but it is looking me straight in the eye and I am freaking out." She asks where and she sees it slink away. We look it up in her books and come to the conclusion it was a pine martin.  Wow. A pine marten gave me the eye!  At at the showers we heard from the ranger that a bear got into the garbage by the showers last night and licked the wrapper of a peanut butter cup candy bar clean. We were just there last night.  I didn't see any bear or moose or wolves but I did see a pine marten and that was super cool. I accidentally left my computer in the showers to recharge the battery.  No one stole it. I am lucky a bear didn't hack my Facebook account.  I slept great in my orange tent and all thoughts of work and normal worries melted away.  Nature had rejuvenated me!