January 16, 2014 – Thursday

8 degrees/cloudy/snow

Pentoga Road

It’s a deep, dark, winter, that has descended upon Pentoga Road these days. The temperatures have certainly moderated, but with ice fishing so lousy, I’m once again battling the urge to eat… no, to graze.

Sargie made it back from her girl-vacation in good shape. They had to drive in blinding snow the entire way home, but found that once they arrived in Iron Mountain, conditions were much better. It sure is good to have my girl home.

Sargie took an extra vacation day on Wednesday. She relaxed and puttered around the house while I graded university work. My classes are huge this semester. In fact, I spent most of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, doing nothing but reading and commenting. I expect my students to put some heart and soul into their work and I feel the least I can do is the same. So, I spend quite a bit of time responding.

I found myself reading for an hour or two yesterday, then taking a break and letting the eyes rest, reading again for an hour, taking another break, and so on. I finally caught up to yesterday’s submissions last night around 9 PM. I see there are a few more that came in overnight.

Sargie and I took a break and went into town yesterday afternoon. We did a bit of grocery shopping, visited the Insurance Liquidators for bargains, but weren’t gone long.

I purchased one treasure while in town; a Slice O Matic… “as seen on TV.” Supposedly, this light plastic machine will make short work out of making uniform cucumber slices next summer when I want to make huge batches of bread and butter pickles. I enjoying making them, but not the slicing. Hopefully, this will make my job easier.

On television, the Slice O Matic sold for a low low $19.99, plus a half a million dollars shipping and handling, but wait!... I purchased mine at Insurance Liquidators yesterday for $11.00. What a bargain. Yeah… we’ll see.

Neighbor Mike called saying he and his bride were on their way down from Marquette. I went over to his camp, cleared away the latest snowfall, and started a fire in the stove. He called last night saying they’d made it and thanked me for being able to walk into a warm camp. I well remember the days in northern Maine or the arctic…  of walking into a very cold camp and shivering while waiting for it to warm up. Glad I can help.

Sargie’s back to work today… always a tough one after a vacation. Several inches of snow fell during the night, so no doubt, I’ll be getting on the four wheeler and plowing the drive. Neighbor Mike mentioned something about ice fishing. Since he can drive, we might try a new lake. I’m not overly optimistic. I’ve yet to hear of anyone who has done well fishing this winter.

Then, there are those silly assignments that keep pouring into my email inbox. Right now, I don’t see an end to them and if that’s the case, I won’t be writing a log every day. Since the classes pay for the majority of the bills around here, I’ll probably save my eye power to read those. Hmm, makes sense.

But before I get busy, it’s time to get another cup of coffee and listen to the news. After all, a man’s work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road…