One of Wednesday's activities was to dig out and move the Ford tractor.

November 13, 2014 - Thursday

-2 degrees/clear/calm winds

Pentoga Road

I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I just hoped it would be a month from now. My thermometer officially dipped below the zero mark. For Canadian readers, that's Fahrenheit, which translates into something like a hundred and forty-two below in your language. Celsius or Fahrenheit, it all translates into being just plain cold.

The boat, backhoe, and chipper, I put away just a few days ago are buried under there somewhere.

I hopped out of bed and felt a real spark of energy. I think this infection thing that's been calling my colon home has been dragging me down since last summer. I never felt horrible, but I never felt I was firing on all eight cylinders. Amazing what a few antibiotics can do.

It took more than an hour to clean the snow from and out of the truck on Wednesday morning and though it protested mightily, the old engine finally roared to life and I was on my way to town to get our newly repaired snow blower from Larry the Mechanic.

Larry's a great fixer and a heck of a nice guy. We talked for some time, he told me the joke of the day, and I was soon heading for home.

The rest of the morning was spent making the drive and back deck look pretty. Sargie and I had moved the majority of snow, but armed with the snow blower, I could finish the job and make it all look much better.

I was hungry. No, I was darn hungry. After subsisting for three days on nothing but clear liquids, even Brutus began looking good. Hmmn, there're a lot of hams in that bulldog. What to have?

Mom's old remedy of getting back onto solid food after a bout with the flu was always poached eggs. Sure, why not?

Steak has never tasted as good as those two eggs sitting atop the toast. Both went down easily and seemed to settle with no problem.

I took a short nap, gabbed with the Bishop, Brother Reverend Pat, on the phone for an hour, then headed back out the door. My tummy was full, I felt good, and daylight was burning. The Alaska Professor was back in the house!!

The tractor needed to be dug out of some deep snow. I use the front end loader to move large snow banks during the winter when I run out of places to push the stuff. 

There were tell tale deer tracks that cut across the corner of the garden and orchard. It would only take one to make quick work out of my blueberry bushes and apple trees.

I waded out and found the snow had covered the bottom wire, shorting out the entire system. I simply disconnected that part of the fence and cranked it up again. Let a deer touch one of the wires carrying 9,000 volts now! *note to self - if Biker Brother Scotty sends a gardener from the South, he could stand out there all winter and act as a scare crow to frighten away any deer. Keep reading, it'll all make sense.

And so the day went. There was no lack of chores and it was pleasant to go from one to the other.

Brother Biker Scotty called from Georgia last night and we had the best of talks. You might recall that Scotty did his best impression of Evil Kinievel last year and broke not only his pelvis in an accident, but most every other bone in his body. Scotty's doing well, is still having a surgery every now and then to repair one thing or the other, but the boy is mobile and healing well. 

Brother Biker Scotty is always full of useful suggestions, many legitimate. He suggested I spray the plow on the four-wheeler with Pledge to keep any snow from sticking to it. That was a good one.

He also said I ought to think of finding someone to assist me with my ever-expanding horticultural endeavors and offered to begin a search for a good candidate in his area. After all, Georgia is known for their over-the-top fruits and vegetables. I told him that southern gardeners wouldn't cut it in the UP. It's too far north. Besides, who wants to grow chick peas, okra, and eat chitlins, up here? That's for southerners who can't take the cold and snow.  

Golly we laughed. Biker Brother Scotty's a good man. I'm glad he's feeling better and that we keep in touch.

Sargie's working early today, closes Friday night, then has the weekend off. My big project for the day is to drag the fish shack around from the back of the barn so that I can begin a remodeling job.

Yooper Brother Mark has teased me for the past several years about originally building it as only a one-holer so that he can't go fishing when I do. It's time to shut that boy up and make it a true two holer. That boy better get his jigging pole ready. We'll climb in that little bitty shack, catch a fish or two, and tell tall tales of the North Woods. It's what northern men do during the short days of deep winter in the UP when trying to put meat on the table.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

Lake effect snow on Wednesday. A band of heavy snow occasionally pops up out of nowhere, the result of cold winds blowing across Lake Superior and acting much like a snow making machine at a ski resort.