Sasha doesn't carve pumpkins, she creates works of art.

October 31, 2015 - Saturday
41 degrees/rain/calm winds
Pentoga Road

It seems to be dawning a fairly typical Halloween day in the North Country. Temperatures are chilly with skies rainy and overcast. At least no snow is predicted. I've witnessed many Halloweens where the munchkin trick or treaters are wearing costumes pulled tightly over snowsuits. Tonight's candy-gathering expeditions might be damp, but they shouldn't be too cold.

As remote and far out of town as Pentoga Road is, we don't get any ghouls or goblins at our front door. Halloween night is pretty much a non event.

I thought I'd share this Fox News headline this morning. Seems one of our local Iron County residents made the national news. 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/03/10/cat-shoots-owner-with-mm-handgun.html

Even during my years living in the most remote areas of northern Alaska, I can't say I ever did a lot of cooking with a loaded handgun placed upon the counter in the kitchen. It takes all kinds.

Page two

Friday morning was spent taking dirt from the large vegetable planter and filling the strawberry pyramids. I was shocked this summer at how much the soil had settled in each. The plants on the bottom of the pyramids did quite well. Those on the top, not so much. The jury's still out on the success of the pyramids. Stay tuned until next spring. At the very least, they'll make beautiful flower planters.



I continued cleaning out the garden and pulled a few beets yesterday. We'll take those that are left and put them in sand along with the carrots to enjoy this coming winter. There are still several hundred pounds of potatoes to dig.



I do enjoy growing giant vegetables. The beet is NOT a sugar beet, a variety that normally grows quite large, but a cylindra beet, known for it's thin skin and tender texture.



The rest of the day was spent cutting and working up the large amount of white birch that has been sitting by the wood shed. Cut while green and alive, it's fully dry now and should make for some good heat while burning this coming winter.



Speaking of wood, I estimate that I've burned about one-fourth the wood this year as compared to last. Our wonderfully mild temperatures have made heating the house very easy. I know bitter cold will arrive sooner or later... I'd rather it be later.

I also worked up wood from a downed maple tree

Brutus and I made a large sweep of our woods in the afternoon in search of dead maple trees to use for this year's "overnight" wood that will burn slowly, yet give off a lot of heat. We found three maple trees on the ground and in good shape. I'll be working those up in the next week or two.

Sargie was home early yesterday and walked in the house bearing a large family-sized pizza. We had a wonderful and relaxing evening in front of the television doing absolutely nothing. 

Sargie's off today. We'd thought about going to Green Bay, but have decided that with our trip to Indiana to see Mom coming up, we'd save our money and stay closer to home. Sargie can sleep in and get some much needed rest. Yooper Brother Mark called last night and asked if I might want to go to Watersmeet with him to get his side-by-side ATV from the shop. I think I'll keep him company and we can catch up on all the news from this past week.

Oops, time to grab another cup of coffee and throw a log on the fire. It's tough, but someone has to do it. 

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

Jimmy's back! I hadn't seen him yet this fall and was working on the planters when I heard the flutter of wings and felt a bird land on my shoulder. Within seconds, he was trying to climb into my jacket pocket in search of sunflower seeds. He wasn't disappointed.