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| Choke cherries ripening alongside the road |
August 9, 2013 – Friday
53 degrees/clear/calm
Pentoga Road
Naturally, the owner of the internet company called
yesterday to see how my service has been since they were out two weeks ago and
lengthened the antenna. I told him that service had been good with only one
small outage that lasted for less than five minutes.
I just turned on the computer this morning and there’s no
internet. It’s gone, out, caput… my life story.
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| Yooper Brother Mark called on Wednesday saying the truck was full. I drove to town, retrieved the truck, unloaded and worked up all the wood, put it in the shed, then took the truck back for another load. It was a healthy workout! |
Wednesday was spent grading end of the term assignments and
working in the garden. Neighbor Mike was down to his camp for a couple of days
and he asked if he might borrow my gasoline-powered weed trimmer. I loaded it
on the four-wheeler and after giving him instructions how to operate the thing
(It’s a bit persnickety. I bought it at a rummage sale for $10 several years
ago.) I sat back to watch him attack an overgrown flower garden. Things went
well until the machine ran out of twine.
Neighbor Mike is a great guy and a heck of a builder, but
one thing he ain’t… that’s a mechanic. I told him to take it apart and I’d run
home to get more plastic twine. When I got back, he was still fiddling around
trying to figure out how to get the spool off.
In the end, I brought everything home, put on my magnifiers,
and disassembled the spool, put twine on, and within twenty minutes, we had his
flower bed completely trimmed. Other than the roast, potatoes, carrots, and
onions, we enjoyed for supper, that was the excitement for the day.
Thursday was the first day this summer that I felt back to
my old self, the “me” who worked around here all last summer, fall, and winter,
until my knee was injured. I’ve grown so lackadaisical that I almost forgot how
good it felt to be able to transition from one task to another and groan when realizing that the day is over. That was yesterday.
I started the day early by making several jars of blueberry
jam. I used to make it while living in northern Maine and have dreamed over the
years of doing it again. Yesterday, my dream came true.
I had my a recipe of berries, lemon juice, sugar, and a
pectin to help it set up. Mike’s a jam and jelly maker and he told me his, close to mine, so I combined both.
Mama told me never to brag, that people don’t like it, but
golly it tastes good. The gods of blueberry jam everywhere were good to me
yesterday.
I worked in the garden for almost two hours. The giant
pumpkins are growing noticeably and it’s become a passion to feed the silly
things twice a day.
I picked several green tomatoes and placed them inside a
paper sack with a couple of apples to ripen. There are no signs of tomatoes
ripening on the vine. Everything is green without a blush in
sight.
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| These went into Wednesday night's meal in the crock pot along with the roast |
My attentions were next turned to the old fire pit between
the barn and the new wood shed at the edge of the woods. It was fun and
convenient when I lived in Alaska and visited here for two months in the
summer, but now that I live here, it was inconvenient
and almost an eyesore. I’d started throwing scrap wood into the thing thinking
it would burn the next time I started a fire and the paving crew threw anything
and everything into it when they were here early this summer. It was time to
say goodbye to the old burn pit.
It took several hours to haul everything to the burn pile,
throw that which was not combustible in garbage cans, haul the rocks to a large
deer lick in the back of the property, and rake and
landscape the area. It was a mess, one that I’m glad is gone.
When the popple woods are finally landscaped, I’ll make a
nice burning area by the gazebo and fountain (hey, guys can dream too) where we
can sit and enjoy an occasional evening fire.
With a shop being built into the barn, there’s no longer
room for the chipper/shredder. I started the machine and let it run for several
minutes, letting new gas flow into the carburetor. After, I moved it into the
woods alongside the barn and wrapped it in a tarp. If I need it this fall, it
can easily be accessed, but otherwise, it’s protected and out of the way.
Mandy Jo called from Sitka and sent some pictures of a climb
up Verstovia Mountain that she and a girlfriend had done last weekend. The
pictures made me homesick. About the
same age as Josh, my oldest son, Mandy Jo and I were hiking buddies and we
explored many mountains, nooks and crannies around Sitka. We laughed, we cried,
we cussed and discussed life, and we were great friends. Along with her son,
Gus, she used to stop by the boat each evening to check on me, then regardless
the weather, insist I come walking with them from one end of the town to the
other.
Mandy Jo helped me through a particularly difficult time in
my life, when I was diagnosed with advanced macular degeneration and going
through a breakup of a marriage, all at the same time. And when I felt the most
lonely, she told me there’d be someone out there who I’d meet someday who would
love me just the way I was. She was right. I wasn’t looking, but God allowed me
to lose my glasses and soon after, meet my favorite optician in the world,
Sargie.
I love my life in the UP, our home, my garden, the woods,
and the lakes and rivers. But I miss the mountains and ocean, and I miss my
little tugboat. Other than living on it for the last year I was in Alaska, I
loved spending hours onboard, even while it was sitting at the dock, piddling
around, fixing something or the other while sipping coffee and listening to
music. Books were best read while at anchor in a remote bay, the sun setting
and the boat gently swaying back and forth.
And I miss Mandy Jo, Uncle Bobby, and the rest of my
friends. They were my family, my support group, my life. All ask when I’m going
to visit. I reply that we’ll be up when the day comes that I tell them goodbye
without crying and wishing I could stay.
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| Uncle Bobby |
I have thought about bicycling to Southeast Alaska for a
visit. Peddle cross the US and Canada, hang a right in British Columbia and
head north until I come to the Haines Junction. Turn left to Haines, Alaska,
then take the ferry to Juneau and eventually, onto Sitka. When I made mention
to Mandy Jo of such an undertaking, she didn’t hesitate to offer to accompany
me on such a journey… a young kid taking an old man on a journey of a lifetime.
She’s a sweetheart, of that
there’s little doubt.
Needless to say, I’ve begun to chart the route. Just like
the Appalachian Trail, whether or not I ever go remains to be seen, but as I’ve
always said, “Half the fun of going is getting there.” If nothing else, I’ll
know every step of the way on paper and if nothing else, I’ll get to make the
journey from my living room chair.
I turned my attention to the large maple tree that fell over
this past spring. After sharpening the chain, I began cutting and removed most
of the limbs. By that time, it was almost 5 PM and time to call it a day. I
felt as though I’d finally done a day’s work and was ready for a shower. Sargie
would be home within an hour.
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| Sharpening the chain |
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| How many times did I tell the boys when they were growing up to be careful and not get the bar of the saw pinched in a tree? |
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| The old Ford tractor to the rescue. I was able to lift the trunk to take pressure off the saw. |
We had fried eggplant last night for supper, beets, turnips,
and green beans, all from the garden. Sargie and I ate until we were stuffed,
then returned to the kitchen for cake and blueberries. No one here is going to
starve in the near future.
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| Eggplant |
Yooper Brother Mark just emailed saying the Man Truck is
once again filled with fire wood. Sargie and I will go in and get that tonight
when we get home from Green Bay. A man’s work is never done.
So are the
tales from Pentoga Road…
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| I picked the first of the broccoli Thursday morning |
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