My Pipes Are Tired

After two hot humid days on the water I had to set up the tent to dry, hang the sleeping bags to dry, wash stinky clothes and do my weekend chores.  When I sit I can still feel the movement of the water currents bobbing me up and down.  I had fun but I am too tired to blog.

Will Return After This Adventure

Ground Dwelling Hornets

My first experience with ground dwelling hornets in this yard was when the offspring were still in elementary school.  I was innocently mowing the lawn when all of a sudden I started screaming and dancing.  I had mowed over a hornet nest and they didn't like it.  They stung me four times.  I couldn't tell where they were coming from and was reluctant to let go of the mower because it was hard to start.  Hence the screaming and dancing.  Eventually I figured out it was time to run away so I did.  Ever since that fateful day, I've been nervous mowing - constantly on the watch for round holes in the grass that might indicate a ground dwelling hornet nest.  I've dealt with these hornets at least five years since that time.  This year the hornets decided not to dig out a nest.  They chose instead to move into a hollow space beneath my garage slab where the garter snakes used to live until I chased them out with moth balls.  I first noticed the hornet nest in early July.  I have used two cans of bee and hornet spray which is supposed to kill them.  The spray is not working.  I spray into the hole every night at dusk and every day I see more hornets coming and going . Maybe they mislabeled the pesticide.  Maybe it's really bee and hornet vitamins.  All this hornet coming and going is making me nervous.  I drive my car right over the hornet entrance to get into the garage.  Today I shut the garage door as soon as the car passed the door in case any angry hornets wanted to follow me in.  My next step is to make or buy a hornet trap.  Any other suggestions?

I Ate The First Cherry Tomato From The Garden Today

Smell it.  Bite it.  Seeds and succulent flesh explode in the mouth.  Smoky.  Salty.  Tart.  Acidic.  Pure heaven on earth.

The White Tiger

I read Aravind Adiga's debut novel, The White Tiger by listening to it on compact disks.  The reader had a strong Indian accent and this helped me enjoy the novel because I wasn't puzzled about pronunciation like I am with some books.  The main character is Balram who lives in India.  Balram is the son of a rickshaw driver.  He is writing a letter to an important official in China explaining how he became a successful entrepreneur.  Throughout the book, the author talks about the servant class and the master class.  Balram eventually moves from the servant class to the master class.  The book is a dark comedy that gave me a glimpse of what it is like to live in India.  The book touches on globalization, technology, the Muslim and Hindu religions, corruption, and the constraints of family.  A couple times I thought the book was going too slow and I got tired of hearing about the wealthy versus the poor. But by then I was too intrigued by Balram to put the book down.   



Adventurous Cougar

I remember a trip we took once to the east coast.  We were four of us in a new, air conditioned, Plymouth van and it was a LONG DRIVE.  We rode a ferry from Wisconsin to Michigan.  We stopped at Niagara Falls.  We drove for two days before we got there.  We thought it was a long trip.  Today I read that a mountain lion was killed in Connecticut outside of New Haven.  This same mountain lion walked 2,000 miles to get there because it originally came from the Black Hills of South Dakota. In 2009 and 2010 this mountain lion was in Minnesota and Wisconsin.   I'm pretty sure it didn't take a ferry.  Did it travel around the great lakes via Canada?  Or did it take the southern route through Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania?  How many big cities did this cat silently walk through?  How many close encounters did it have with humans?  Did it eat any pets?  What prompted this big animal to walk that far?  How long had it been since it saw one of it's own kind?   What a fascinating story!

My Bad

Yesterday I noticed that the door was open on the bluebird house outside my kitchen window. I wondered if a predator pried the door open. After mowing, I walked over there to check it out.  I haven't been checking the bluebird houses every week like they say you should.  I don't like disturbing the young.  Inside this bluebird house and still intact was a house wren nest.  I know it's a house wren nest because it was full to the top with two inch sticks.  The house is wedge shaped.  I am unable to just stick my hand blindly into the top of a nest and pull out what is there. I am just too scared to do that.  So I removed the wedge shaped nest with one hand and looked into the top. There I saw 5 house wrens completely naked except for a Mohawk crest of tiny feathers on top of their heads.  Punky little house wrens!  This is supposed to be a bluebird nest.  Then I remembered it is a crime to kill or disturb songbirds so I went to put it back.  Those twigs were crammed in the nest so tight that the nest expanded when I removed it and I couldn't fit it back in. I tried removing a few sticks but that just made the whole nest shift in shape and made the problem worse.  I jammed it in as best I could and shut the door again. I heard a few sticks break as I tried to correct my mistake.  I couldn't get the door completely shut but I jammed the nail into the wood as best I could so the little wrens could stay warm until they were old enough to fledge.  I hope there is enough room for the parents to get in there and feed the children.

PS One of my tomatoes, a cherry tomato, is turning color.  I would say it's a bronze color today.  My mouth waters just to type this.  The first tomato is always the best.

PPS My book club is reading Gone With The Wind.  I wasn't so happy about the selection in part because I thought of it as just another bodice ripper.  And when I picked it up from the library and held the weight of over 1,000 pages in my hand, I thought I would have carpel tunnel by the time I was done reading it.  But the truth is, I love it so much I can hardly put it down. I read 45 minutes past my bedtime last night. Only 600 pages left to go!

You Just Have To Reason With Them

I have had a busy week.  I had many meetings to attend and lots of errands.  So this morning when I sat on the couch and planned to read the Sunday paper, I was not happy to see a squirrel climbing my "squirrel deterrants" to get at my bird feeder.  I got up off the couch, threw aside my comforter (finally it was cool enough to put a comforter on!) and yelled at the squirrel. No sooner than I had sat down the squirrel was at it again.  He climbs on the deck, mounts the pole that supports the cable, climbs over the milk cartons and soda bottles and pvc pipes that cover the cable, and eats bird food. I can see him from where I sit on the couch.  Too lazy to go to the deck door, I rapped on the window instead.  My knuckles hurt like the devil.  I must have been angry when I rapped on the window.  The next time he climbed the pole to the bird feeder, I tried reasoning with him. "Squirrel!  Get off there!."  He listened.  But he came right back.  "Squirrel!  I have had a hard week. I worked 40 hours."  The squirrel left and so far he hasn't come back.  It's been 3 hours.  : )

Owasso

Last night I went swimming at Lake Owasso Beach.  My niece (smartly) decided to have her family birthday party there. I was surprised to find plenty of parking on a hot and humid Friday evening.  We sat in the shade, talked, ate, and joked.  All the kids were swimming. I asked the adults, "You going in?"  All declined.  I may be old enough to be considered an adult but I cannot pass up swimming in Lake Owasso on a hot summer night when I had my swim suit with me.  OMG the water was wonderful.  There was no hesitation in getting wet because the lake was as warm as bath water.  The beach sand is fine.  The lake bottom wasn't too weedy.  The waves from the jet ski's were just as fun as the waves from the boats when I was a kid. I found it strange to be back on this beach again.  As a kid we rode our bikes here after lunch many times a week.  Mom said we had to wait an hour after the bike ride before swimming so we wouldn't get a cramp and drown.  I don't know why but I did as I was told.  I sat, hot and sweaty, on a towel on the hot beach in the full sun, and waited for an hour before diving into the water.  This seems incredible to me now. Back then we had lifeguards sitting on tall white chairs who would whistle at the kids who did something wrong.  We had a swimming dock way out for the bigger kids who could swim that far.  I swam out there once.  I never went back because when I jumped off the swimming dock to head back to shore, I went so far down I nearly panicked underwater.  Many times we came back to the beach in the evening.  My father would drive all of us to the beach to swim while he read the paper.  Then 5 or 6 kids with wet suits, wet towels, and sandy feet would climb back into the station wagon and go home argueing about who would take a shower first.  Can you imagine the mess we made in his car?  Thinking back, it was really nice of him to do that as often as he did.   

Do You Want a Piece of Me?

This morning, while I was eating breakfast, the chickens started a ruckus.  I looked out the window to see what was the matter and I saw the gray fox again.  This is the fifth time I've seen it this summer.  I pounded on the window and it looked at the house but did not move.  I went out to the deck, barefoot, with my breakfast in my hand and yelled, "Git!" (sounding like Snuffy Smith).  The gray fox didn't git.  It stood there and looked at me from a spot in the yard right next to my rhubarb patch.  I went down the deck steps.  It still didn't move.  I yelled, "Do you want a piece of me?"  I get a little feisty in the mornings sometimes and it scares even me.  I walked very assertively toward it.  Like an animal trying to appear bigger, I swung my arms and flexed my biceps while taking the largest steps my sciatica will allow.  You know how when you are driving about 60 mph and when you take your foot off the gas pedal, the speedometer goes down quickly?  That is how my courage-odometer felt the closer I got to the fox.  What was I going to do when I reached it?  Give it my breakfast? Pet it?  Kick it?  Pick it up?  I got within 10 feet of it when it moved quickly away by my compost pile.  And then it stopped, turned around, and looked at me with an impudent air.  The nerve!  Up went my arms and I strode forward again, looking like a total fool carrying pita bread.  This time it strode through the sumac and poison ivy into the neighbor's yard.  My job was done.  I had scared a 10 pound fox off the property.

Perfect Excuse

The weather this week has been hot and humid, tropical!  It's been too hot to clean the house.  Too hot to clean the chicken coop. Too hot to weed the garden and mow the lawn.  Too hot for landscaping chores.  Too hot to clean the garage.  Too hot to knit.  Even too hot to ride the motorcycle.  This weather gives me a rare opportunity - to engage in total laziness without the slightest twinge of guilt.  I'm loving it.  I go to work, exercise in an air-conditioned gym, and go home where I read the paper, blog, and perfect my couch potato physique.

C'mon, really?

See this cartoon?  It's Calvin and his tiger, Hobbes.  This was a syndicated newspaper cartoon that told the humorous story of a philosphical little boy and his adventures with his pet tiger. The tiger only came alive when all adults were out of the room.  They had such great adventures together.  Such a sweet story - I believe one of my nephews is named after this boy.  Many people aren't old enough to remember this comic strip. The last comic was published in 1995. All they know of Calvin is the window clings of him peeing on stuff.  I am going to say it straight out, not hold back.  IT's DISGUSTING!  Are these window clings copyright infringements or did the artist sell out?  A friend who lives in an adjoining county says he sees more of the Calvin window clings in Anoka County than anywhere else. I paid attention after I heard that and I hate to say it but he's right.  I've seen Calvin peeing on car manufacturers, countries, and sports teams.  Today I saw a new Calvin window cling - Calvin peeing on the words "X-Wife."  C'mon, really?

And next to that was another window cling of a bearded man wearing a crown of thorns.

Ironic Day of Extremes

At work today my office was so cold I had to turn on my electric throw to be able to work in comfort.  When I left my office I went to the gym.  The interior of my car was so hot my deoderant EXPLODED inside the gym bag leaving dark and sticky spots on my swimsuit and the other items in my bag.  Too cold. Too hot.  I feel like Goldilocks.

Unusual Ride Home

Chimney Swift (or flying cigar)

I went for a bike ride on Sunday.  As long as I was moving, it wasn't too hot. If I had to stop at a light or a stop sign, I just about cooked myself inside my jacket, boots, long pants, gloves, and helmet with a face shield.  We had lunch at Mai Village - a very cool Vietnamese restaurant in St. Paul on University and Western Avenues.  I had #68-spicy mock duck with lemon grass and it was really good.  When you enter this restaurant, you might be awed by the attractive lobby with beautiful furniture, rich wood carvings, and the real orchids blooming on the tables.  When you are led to your table, you cross a koi pond on a wooded bridge.  If you linger to stare at the koi, they start thrashing together to get closer because they think you might feed them.  You are led to your booth or table.  The furnishings are luxurious and extravagant.  Even the menus are beautiful.  I had a taste of the mock duck noodle salad and that was also delicious.  I was given a gift at this lunch - an antique punch bowl - not the easiest thing to transport on a motorcycle.  Lucky for me it came in a box and I brought enough bungee cords to get it attached securely behind me.  Unfortunately I spent too much time visiting on the way home and once the punchbowl and I got to Coon Rapids, rain started to fall.  I quickly pulled into a funeral home because it had a vehicle overhang (I suppose they load and unload caskets there).  No one was using the funeral home today. I pulled a plastic bag out of my backpack to protect the punch bowl.  By the time I covered the box with plastic the rain had stopped.  As I stopped a red light on Main Street in Anoka, I saw a half dozen chimney swifts flying around the intersection.  There must be enough old buildings with very tall chimneys for the swifts to call Anoka their home.  We made it home safe.  The punch bowl and all the cups were unbroken. 

Perfect Summer Evening

Last night I picked up a friend and Offspring #2 and went to  St. Paul.  We stopped at Como Lake to rent a paddle boat.  With three passengers, I was the lucky one who got to sit facing backwards and relax while the other two did all the work.  Well, that was ever so lovely. I felt like a queen.  The lake was very calm and a little green.  I dropped my water bottle in the lake and needless to say, I gave it a good scrubbing with soap and water this morning.  We saw 11 painted turtles sunning themselves.  We saw an Eastern kingbird, red winged blackbirds, goldfinches, a great egret and a great blue heron.  At one point, we stopped by a dead tree.  A great blue heron was up in the tree.  We were so close we could see it had it's mouth open and the throat was bobbling up and down like an opera singer. Below the dead tree was a great egret. As we drifted closer, the great egret decided to fly off.  As it took off, the egret casually turned it's head to right and snapped up a 2 inch fish.  That was cool to see. After our cruise, we had dinner at Black Bear Crossing which is inside the Como Pavilion.  I love the Pavilion.  It's right on the lake and with huge columns forming the perimeter.  I can imagine my grandparents coming to this same building.  After dinner we saw Rosetown's production of the Wizard of Oz.  We came to see Uncle Henry who was played by my nephew.  He was also a munchkin and a hot air balloon.  He actually had to pick up the Wizard of Oz (a full grown and not very small man) and wrestle him across the stage as he said good by to all the Oz residents.  This production was very creative.  Lots of kids were on stage.  Dorothy had a little brother in this version who was added to handle Toto during most of the scenes.  Toto was a real dog and he did very well.  I enjoyed watching the crows torment the scarecrow.  Kids dressed in black portrayed the crows with definitely urban attitudes.  The tornado was also impressive.  Dorothy was inside her small house (a cardboard box with a window cut out).  She had her face out of one window and she turned around and around as if in a twister.  Her brother and Toto looked out the other window.  They saw a cow go by (stuffed animal). They saw a tractor go by (toy tractor) and they saw a white pick up truck go by (like in the movie Twister - also a toy).  Glinda didn't appear in a big bubble like she did in the movie but she did carry a bubble wand and she spread bubbles all over the stage.  To show the snow on the poppies, Glinda came by with a leaf blower and blew white flakes of something off pie plates on the heads of some of the children. This production stayed true to the movie and they even included a section cut out of the film classic -the Jitterbug.  A Jitterbug comes and makes Dorothy and her crew dance and dance until they are exhausted.  The jitterbug calls the flying monkeys to come and take the tired, defenseless Dorothy away to the castle.  The Wicked Witch of the West doesn't come in a ball of smoke but a handful of confetti instead.  I love the Wizard of Oz - one of my favorite movies.  And sitting outside next to a lake on a summer evening made this production especially enjoyable. 

Summer Rains

Wowsers.  So much rain.  I measured an inch of rain on Friday morning and 3.86 more inches this morning. Everything is good and wet now.  I hope my tomatoes and potatoes didn't get too much rain - they are looking a little worse for the wear.  Hot sun will make the garden GROW. The rain made it easy to weed this morning.  I had a handful of fresh green beans and two handfuls of raspberries.  I LOVE SUMMER!

Woodpeckers

This is the first summer that I have fed woodpeckers.  Other years I quit putting suet out in the spring because I thought the woodpeckers could peck wood and eat insects.  I thought they didn't  need the suet.  And maybe that is still true.  But now I feed the birds not because I think they  need me to survive.  I feed them because I want (need?) to see them.  I could say I'm doing research for my breeding bird atlas and that would not be a lie.  Truth is, I'd feed the woodpeckers even without the atlas work.  I enjoy seeing them.  The pileated woodpecker has not been around lately.  I  haven't even heard it laughing at me in the woods.  I am seeing hairy woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers and red bellied woodpeckers.  This summer is the first time I've seen a hairy woodpecker in the yard - or at least that I knew I was looking at a hairy woodpecker anyway.  At the grocery store I pick up a cake of high protein suet at $1.29 and that lasts us almost two weeks.  Once winter comes, I can set out beef fat in a mesh bag which will be cheaper.  If I set beef fat out now, I am sure it will go rancid quick in this hot weather. 

I Eat Vegetables

The Sun

Last night as I drove my "sotormycle" to book club, the evening sun shone on my right leg as I headed south.  As I passed shadows on the road, I could feel the coolness of the shade cast by each separate tree or building.  My  right leg was hot, cool, hot, cool, etc all the way down the highway.  Now this morning on the same road, shadows crossed from the left side.  And I could not feel the difference between sun and shadow.  Is my left leg less sensitive?  Maybe the difference in the air between sun and shade doesn't vary as much in the morning as it does at night.

The Storey Sisters

I listened to Alice Hoffman's book, The Storey Sisters on my trip to the north shore last week.  This book is about a single mother and her three daughters.  The three girls are all beautiful with long black hair but have very different personalities.  Mom is very protective but a stranger intrudes into their lives and changes course for all four of them even though only two of the sisters meet the stranger.  After that event, the sisters escape by creating an alternate world called Arnelle and another language, Arnish.  Alice Hoffman often has a little magic in her stories and this book is no exception.  Evil spirits are dispelled by keeping jars of salt near the windows and hanging flypaper to catch black moths.  This book kept my attention the entire time.  If it were made into a movie, I think the eldest sister should be played by Liv Tyler.

Catcher In The Rye

My book club discussed Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger last night.  This is an old classic about an angsty teenage boy named Holden Caufield.  I think if Holden were alive today, he would wear a lot of black clothes and would end his facebook posts with the three letters "FML."  I am always sad to see FML on a post.  Holden is a typical teen.  Everything is so important.  His thinking comes in black or in white.  His biggest beef are phonies.  He hates phonies.  Yet he pretends to be all kinds of people to strangers he meets.  He lies outrageously and makes up crazy stories much like a phony would.  Holden is failing out of his third prep school.  He comes from a family that has plenty of money but is short on familial acceptance and connection and communication.  Holden makes a mistake listening to the lyrics of the song "When A Body Meets A Body Coming Through The Rye."  His ultimate goal is to be a hero catching people who are running through a field of rye and about to fall off a cliff.  Much of our discussion last night was about the author.  Salinger was a famous recluse who evidently suffered from battle fatigue after WWII.  As he aged, his concept of the ideal woman stayed the same age and he was involved with women who were subsequently 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 years younger than him.  He got involved in macrobiotics, Scientology, and various religions.  He ended up being one strange dude who, they say, drank his own urine for health reasons.  If you haven't read Catcher In The Rye yet, I would.  It's a short book and Holden Caufield is a compelling character. 

Capstone Project

Two wolves in front of the propane tank.

Another wolf against the building. The Jack-in-the Pulpits are thriving here.C

Two wolves to the right of the path.

The entry from a distance.

How the director of the WSC hooked us into wanting to come again.

I have been working with three other master naturalists on our capstone project for over a year now.  We've been improving the entry garden at the Wildlife Science Center near Forest Lake.  We pulled the weeds out of the garden and replanted the area with native species (dogwood, jack-in-the pulpit, columbine, wild sunflowers, wild ginger, solomon seal, lady ferns, maiden hair ferns, Pennsylvania sedge, etc).  We labeled the species on flat rocks and set the rocks by each species.  We straightened the wooden border, trimmed the trees and added mulch.  For a final touch, we added plywood wolf silhouettes.  Just last week we got everything together.  We plan to go back once a year or so to week and to make sure the rocks are by the correct species.  I have really enjoyed working on this project.  The three other master naturalists were a pleasure to work with.  We seemed to really click.  As we finished up, the director of the center stopped by to chat.  And oh, she is a smart one.  Look what she did to hook us into wanting to volunteer some more-she showed us some wolf pups that the general public doesn't get to see.  Two were 7 weeks old and this one was 9 weeks old.

A Party

We had a little party for offspring #2's college graduation.  This is a photo of my fridge after the clean up process.  Yesterday my fridge was stuffed so full of serving bowls and containers there was no room for the Brita water filter.  Now it has a dozen containers of leftovers packed in Activia yogurt cartons.  And I gave away nearly another dozen activia containers of leftover cupcakes (with two kinds of creme filling), mac and cheese, and Chinese Salad.  So yeah, now everyone knows that I eat Activia.  I admit, I listen to Jamie Lee Curtis and took the Activia challenge.  I don't care.   Thanks to all who came! 

Last Day in the BWCA

This was our last morning on our trip.  I woke up several times in the night. I don't wear a watch so I have always waited until I hear someone else up and moving around before I get up. I was so surprised to be awoken by a verbal "wake up call."  I came out of the tent and could not believe that the other tents were already packed up and breakfast was ready.  How did I (we) not hear all that commotion?  I guess we stayed up too late talking.  After a hearty breakfast of hot oatmeal with granola mixed in, we loaded the canoes and paddled toward our portage.  We got there in a little over a half hour of paddling.  Awww!  I didn't want the trip to be over yet.  How did it take us two hours to get to our campsite and only a half hour to get back?  I helped unload the canoes and this time, I did not fall.  I had fallen about 4 or 5 times during the course of this trip.  My last fall was a backwards one.  During the split second between when I knew I would fall and when I hit, I worried this one was going to hurt.  Lucky for me, I fell just right into a chair shaped rock.  The rock even had a backrest.   Although my underwear was wet, it was strangely comfortable for a fall.  While the canoes were tied down, I stood in the water of Brule Lake, unwilling to leave.  Two yellow swallowtail butterflies fluttered around and landed on me.  I wore them like beautiful brooches for quite a long time.  Northern butterflies are trusting.  I had a great vacation and I believe I learned enough skills to take someone else up there.  Interested?

Paddling at Echo Lake with Jorge

Jorge and I.  He's wearing an oreo beret.

Jorge as our masthead.  The feather flew out so I had to poke it deeper into his head.  He didn't complain.

Jorge roasting a marshmallow.  He wanted a s'more too.

When you're doing primitive camping, it's odd how quickly normal standards of cleanliness dissipate.  The first night, if an onion fell off the cutting board onto our rock (table), we put in in the trash.  By the third night, that piece of onion goes back into the other diced onions without a second thought.  The first night the dishwater was pumped through the filter.  By the third night, the dishwater is taken straight from the lake.  Pumping all that water is just too much work.  As our standards changed, Jorge became a more important member of the group.  His opinion was sought on decisions.  He was offered meals.  When he refused to eat, he was told he wasn't going to get anymore until what he had was gone.  People smiled at him and patted his orange head.  One night he spoke and his voice sounded a lot like Mr. Bill from Saturday Night Live.  Today the wind was calmer and the waves more manageable.  We paddled into a bay and walked a long portage into Echo Lake.  Echo Lake is a two mile long and narrow lake with steep cliffs on one side.  And sounds do echo here, we tried it.  We saw blue flag iris and pitcher plants in bloom.  I saw a garter snake twice in the same spot in the portage.  Echo Lake has no campsites so we had a snack of gorp and oreos while floating peacefully (see middle photo).  At the far end of Echo Lake, a stream empties the water.  We paddled down the stream as far as we could before a fallen log blocked our path.  This would be an excellent place to see moose and moose have been seen here before.  Yet we saw no moose.  Echo Lake had one tiny island with a rocky surface and about a dozen small trees.  We thought about having lunch there but decided against it because of the lack of privacy if someone had to use the latrine.  We had our lunch at the portage - hummus, tabbouli, oranges, summer sausage, and some cheddar cheese that had been warm for so long it was very greasy and almost liquid.  Warm cheese tastes delicious!  Our lunch was at 3 o'clock.  When we got back, we all went swimming and relaxed for a few hours.  We had spaghetti and some excellent garlic bread for supper.  The sunset was beautiful.  A skinny moon rose over Brule Lake.  Some of us stayed up late talking and listening to the loons calling.

Paddling In The Wind



We saw two painted turtles sunning themselves.  One had left when the picture was taken.

So happy to find Labrador Tea!

Light rain fell on our tents last night.  The sound was comforting and when I looked up, I could see the mosquitoes waiting for us above our tent yet below the rain flap.  We had french toast for breakfast.  We had two big packages of oreos in our supplies so we tried french oreo toast.  If this worked, we could make big bucks at the State Fair.  Yeah, not so much;  the cookies were soggy inside.  The day was very windy.  We paddled to Cone Bay which was into the wind.  As we got away from the protection of the islands and into the major open water of Brule Lake, the waves and swells got higher and higher.  I was in the bow and we were paddling like mad.  The bow of the canoe would rise with a wave and slam down in the trough between waves.  Sometimes the water broke over the top of the canoe. The water was thrilling and refreshing.  I leaned back when we were between waves so the front of the canoe did not go down so far.  Were we canoeing in the boundary waters or riding a bull at the rodeo?  Between leaning back and paddling like mad I was really getting a work out.  We had to work our buts off to make any progress.  We could not stop to get a drink of water or to take a picture or rest our arms.  We had to keep paddling as hard as we could until we could get to water that was not as rough. After 90 minutes or so, we paddled into Cone Bay where we could take a breather.  That was an exciting paddle.  From Cone Bay we paddled into South Cone Lake.  The water was high enough that we could float into Middle Cone Lake.  We did touch bottom a few times and I could see the tops of the rocks were flecked with red, silver and blue paint from other canoes.  The channel between the lakes was lovely.  We stopped for lunch on an island campsite in Middle Cone Lake. We had sandwiches and fruit and oreos.  We headed into North Cone Lake and tried to paddle through but the water wasn't deep enough.  We had to get out and walk the canoe through the passage. The water was flowing very fast against us and the rocks were slippery with moss.  I was asked to help another camper get through this.  Actually he did much better than I did as evidenced by the scrapes and bruises I now have on my right elbow and both knees.  We canoed across North Cone Lake grateful to be out of the wind and high waves on Brule Lake.  We came to the portage to Winschell Lake. Our guide found some Labrador tea. He said it can be found near stands of black spruce.  He said black spruce will have their feet in the water while white spruce will be farther back from the lake.  Later that evening he brewed some Labrador tea, something the Voyagers also did.  I tried it. I think it tastes better than green or black tea but not as good as ginger tea.  It had a slightly medicinal taste.  By now it was 3 o'clock and we had spent 5 hours getting here.  We decided to head back.  We scared a Momma canvasback duck and her five babies out of the shallows.  They looked put out with us.  Instead of trying to walk through the treacherous rocks again, we portaged across which was much easier. The walking path was so easy in comparison.  We canoed past MIddle Cone and South Cone.  Once we got out of Cone Bay the waves and swells were huge on Brule Lake.  It was awesome.  With the strong wind on our back, we were CRUISING!  We rode each wave like a surfer.  It was so fun.  The shore line went by so fast the trees were blurry.  With each stroke of the paddle, it felt like we went five times further than we had this morning.  In no time at all we were back to our little island.  From a distance, our island is shaped like a letter B flat on it's back.  Today the paddling was a challenge but when we all pulled together, we got it done.

Camping Trip Continued

This a black admiral butterfly that flew into the soapy pan I was washing.  I set it on a rock to dry.  It may look like it has two heads but the head on the right is a shadow.

Paddle Paddle Paddle!

The morning was foggy.  Clouds of fog rolled by hiding the island that is normally within view from here.

In the morning we had a breakfast of huevos rancheros.  The name of our food got Max talking in a Spanish accent that improved as the day went on.  When a lonely orange got loose in our canoe, Max said it was our mascot and named it Jorge.  He gave it a face with a magic marker and compared it to Wilson, Tom Hank's mascot when he was on an island.  Jorge became another participant on our trip. After breakfast we were visited (inspected) by two park rangers and a volunteer.  The lead ranger was in her early 20's and had a nose ring and a very official National Park Service uniform.  I thought she was strangely rule abiding but that shows an assumption I make about people with nose rings.  She inspected and commented on our wood supply.  We had used a couple nails left in a tree but we didn't put them there.  She removed the nails.  She inspected our permits and reviewed all the rules again.  Before they left, the rangers told us about a waterfall we could find on the portage to Vernon Lake.  We were told to take a side path to the left.  They also warned us about storms coming with hail and lightening expected that day.  At camp, a little bird sang and sang and sang all dang day. I looked for it until I got a sore neck. I knew which tree it was in but the dang noisy bird never moved so I could not find it.  The bird sounded like a red-eyed vireo but a little different.  This bird had more variation in it's song.  I researched the sounds of vireo's and I believe it was a Philadelphia vireo.  That day we also saw vultures, common mergansers, ravens, loons, broadwing hawk, white throated sparrow, swamp sparrow, veery boreal chickadee, robins and eagles.  Many black and yellow admiral butterflies surrounded us.  I saw some twin flowers that I had read about at the ranger station.  We had lunch at a portage. We took the side trail that the rangers mentioned.  For a waterfall, it was very disappointing; nice rapids though. We had sandwiches at another campsite and paddled back to our home again. We had black bean burritos for dinner.  I had a little heartburn after dinner.  Kathy mentioned heart burn too and then commented that we had red and green peppers at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Clouds filled the sky but the rain held off until after I was in bed.  The ranger exaggerated about the storm and the waterfall.  The pitter patter of rain on the tent fly was very soothing.  The sound of the rain, the water lapping at the shore just a few feet away, and the other campers snoring in their tents put me right to sleep.

Beginning of the Canoe Trip

Beautiful wild lupines bloomed in purple, pink and cream on the roadsides north of Duluth.

Our cozy abode on a foggy morning.

The day before my trip, I learned that we were not meeting at the ranger station in Ely but in Tofte instead.  The difference between Ely and Tofte is substantial so I changed my course of action to head north east. On the way up I stopped at Gooseberry Falls to watch the water pour over the falls.  Some of the water looked clear, some was light yellow and some was the color of root beer - it looked like a girl's hair that had been recently foiled.  I met our group at the ranger station.  There were three staff; Max, Leah and Kathleen plus an ASL (American Sign Language) interpreter named Kathy.  The two other campers, Jennifer and Greg, needed the interpreter.  The National Park Service had us watch a video and then quizzed us orally to see if we knew how to "Leave No Trace."  We were not allowed to use soap in the lake.  Any soapy water had to be dumped far from shore.  No paper could be burned in the campfire and the fire must be contained under the grate.  Is this the same outfit that thinks it would okay to mine copper in the boundary waters?  Wouldn't that be worse than a little biodegradable soap in the water?  The National Park Service people are serious about their jobs and it's best not to question them too much before we get our permit.  Our destination was Brule Lake - a 26 mile drive on the Caribou Trail.  Brule is the largest lake in the BWCA.  We loaded our canoes, Duluth packs, bear proof barrels and other supplies into three canoes. One person had to ride "Duff" (sitting in the middle without a paddle).  We paddled for a couple hours looking for a good campsite - one large enough for four tents.  We paddles past black spruce, white spruce, red cedar, white pine, red pine, birch, rocks and water.  All the shores are rocky here.  Getting in and out of the canoe was treacherous because some of the rocks are slimy with moss.  We picked a site about 6 p.m., set up camp, and made dinner of pasta with pesto sauce.  I shared a tent with Kathy.  It was an intimate tent and I am very grateful that Kathy was easy going and humorous because it would have been terrible if we didn't like each other.  We were packed in tight.  I had my Duluth pack at my head and my feet touched the bottom of the tent.  If we both laid on our backs we were fine but if we both curled on our sides and had our knees touching the tent, our backs touched as well. The little yellow tent was one way to get to know someone really well, really fast. 

Back From the BWCA

I'm too tired to write much but I can sum up the trip in three words:  paddle, eat, sleep.  Each day was eat, paddle, eat, paddle, eat, paddle, eat, paddle, eat, sleep.  I love the BWCA!  Details and pictures to follow.