Saturday, March 21, 2015

About that post from the East Pole, here's the "more later"


There's that cedar-lined closet to the right.



I had no great plans going out there this time, just my normal trip in March. About all I expected to do was split some firewood and just be there, live the life and that's about how it turned out.

Off and on as I get older I waver between moving out there for good, and emptying the place out and selling it. Neither holds enough appeal to do something about it, but the weight is toward moving back.

Still I find myself looking at things and sifting through boxes separating what I want to keep from what I don't or just simply don't know enough about to care either way, but that I sense some value so I keep it.  It seems like every time I go, I bring a few things back that I don't want to lose. Among those are selections from the boxes and boxes of photos I have there.  I brought about a pound of them out this time.

In doing this I also end up looking into and cleaning places where I haven't been for a long time. This time it was the closet. One of my best efforts was this closet/divider between the bed and the kitchen. It is four feet high and open to the bed side. It is lined top, sides, back and bottom with cedar planking and has a closet bar for hanging the clothes I leave out there. It also adds a nice cedar odor to the rainbow of scents that make up the enticing perfume of the cabin's lure.

This time I want deeper into the closet, the piles of clothes on the floor, the big laundry basket in the back and the boots I seldom wear. And I found some treasures. One dog or another had hidden a chewy deep in a pile of sweaters.  I swept a dead shrew out of one corner. That sounds yukky but is actually a good sign. Shrews are cannibalistic and if you find just one, that is the survivor among probably several, the last one standing so to speak – and it found nothing left to eat. I also found the pair of XTRATUF boots that got away from me during the last move out there. I have been searching for them for ten years, and had become certain I had lost them somehow. I even bought a new pair when I went out on the ocean a few years ago.

That was about the most excitement the whole trip generated. The weather was clear and cold going as low as minus 20 overnight and coming up to zero or so during the day, not the usual warm days to be expected in March. Northern lights were sporadic and light but visible most nights.

As usual technology failed me. A book I had downloaded to read had disappeared in the last software update on my iPad so I was forced to read some old Clive Cussler adventures. Enjoyable, still, even in a second reading. Otherwise the cell signal was fairly reliable for a change though too slow and sporadic to download that book again. So it goes. I remember telling a kid many years ago high tech means you can't fix it yourself.

What I did fix was the firewood problem. I mean would it be a trip to the East Pole without generating some? I split half a cord from the tree I cut last March and now have almost a winter's worth under the cabin. There is still a considerable number of sections to split so there will be something to do next trip.

All the time spent` outdoors redpolls worked the snow surface for the chatins they eat, seeds off the birch trees.  No clouds of them, but more than I see around the other house.

Incidentally coming out it was cold enough I wore bunny boots, one of those pairs I seldom use.

All told, very peaceful and relaxing and, yes some recuperating from that first trip up the hill, sending me home with the determination not to let myself get so badly out of shape ever again.

Some days the medicine does work
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  1. AnonymousMarch 21, 2015 at 6:52 PM

    I so enjoyed this visit, so happy to be with you. I think you understand my wording, don't know about others. I, personally, would make East Pole as techno as possible, then it would become "home." I have always regarded my cabin as the "End of the Trail" but I'm not as confident now as I wish I could be. This should be a long talk over a jug of vino, some good time.

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