Back from the grocery store on Tuesday morning, Sargie's disinfecting everything before putting it away.

April 2, 2020 - Thursday morning

24 degrees/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

Living in a rural area with a relatively low population can have its disadvantages. On the upside, with the Corona Virus currently raging in the outside world, I'm grateful for the relative distance that the Upper Peninsula puts between us and the larger urban centers. I don't believe there have yet been any reported cases in our county.

Currently in lock down, we read about everything that is happening, yet we go about our lives in a seemingly unaffected manner. Our habits have changed somewhat, but not our lifestyle. We tend to be solitary people anyway, not that we're antisocial, but Sargie and I just do our own thing. 

Yooper Brother Mark made an interesting statement earlier this morning in his daily text. He was out peddling his bicycle last night on the paved walking path that stretches from near here through Iron River, ten miles away. Mark observed how many people were outside walking, forsaking their digital devices and enjoying the weather. 

Perhaps it's an anomaly that's happening locally, but maybe, just maybe, there's a silver lining in this very dark cloud that's being called the Covid-19.

Distancing? For now it's a cold, impersonal, reality, that we all have to practice.

Exercise? For some it could also be a reality that hopefully, will carry on into the post Covid-19 days.

I returned from my early morning walk on Wednesday and began making a simple box to fit on the back of the red four wheeler. With the snow rapidly disappearing, the Tundra has become of little use for collecting sap.

Talk about luck. I waded through the snow to the garden shed and found a piece of scrap plywood that was exactly the right size. All it took was a bit of trimming and adjusting, a screw here and there and before I knew it, my sap carrier was finished.

Two five gallon pails fit along with a compartment in the center for lids or extra taps or bags.

The snow is getting quite sparse in much of woods now. I pulled the snowmobile down by the storage container last night. It will remain outside for a couple of weeks until we exchange the summer equipment for that used all winter.

The sap didn't run that well on Wednesday and we collected less than thirty gallons. The temperature never dipped below freezing the night before last so there was no gradient pressure to force the sap from the roots into the limbs. Today should be a different story as last night's low dipped into the low 20's. 

Sargie was busy Wednesday cleaning and picking up around the yard. This past winter was brutal on the area trees, breaking limbs and in some cases, destroying entire trees. 

I was working in the red shed, cleaning, sweeping, and throwing things away, when I saw my bride across the yard. The girl was a cleaning machine.



At one point, I heard her call my name, saying the two tire wheel barrow was too heavy to push. Could I help?

I looked out the door of the shed and wondered, "What wheelbarrow?"



The red shed was finally finished. It will be used to store all the milled lumber that is used in the shop. One of yesterday's jobs was to sort through and stack the boards that were removed from the pallets a year ago. Initially, I was going to use them as siding on the garden house, but I'm not so sure now. It's still not out of the question.



There were two tired kids who showered and fell into their recliners last night. I don't know what time Sargie came upstairs, but I beat her up the steps to bed.

I'm heading out the door pretty quickly to take my morning stroll. Hopefully, the sap will (and should) run hard today. Another sixty to eighty gallons should be sufficient for us to call a halt to the maple season and begin our last boil. It will be nice to get everything cleaned up, put away, the bags and taps removed from the trees, and get the drive, barn, sheds, and woods, back to normal.

It's been a fast and furious maple season, not all that great, but not horrible.

Until then, I'm going to continue working, doing the usual chores that demand our attention every spring on Pentoga Road.



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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

Today's random Alaska picture:
Returning from one of my trips around the arctic, I'd found a huge caribou antler on which to carve and had harvested a fox to present to the elders as a gift. This one was made into a cap.