It happened just above where that black sled is upside down.
As I danced around in my predicament yesterday I came to wonder if any of those dainty ballerinas and ballerinos could pull this off.
Picture this if you will. To begin with, I am standing on a hard, snow-packed trail that’s particularly slippery because it’s on a steep hillside. This is the kind of trail where if you lean the wrong direction gravity takes over and you fall, making that choice rather than risking further injury trying to regain your balance. A heavy arm load of something gives gravity an extra advantage in your battle to remain upright. You know you are going to fall where that load has the shortest trip down. It’s also a trail where you accidentally take just one step off it, and your leg sinks thigh deep into the snow. Now add to this the fact you are standing in one snowshoe while you are trying to free your foot from the binding on the other half of the pair. But that’s not all, there’s a long tow rope to a heavily loaded sled wrapped around one leg and underfoot by the other one while your old friend gravity is trying to send that sled flying freely down the hill taking you along with it. Just for fun do it without the gloves you left on the sled so you could more easily manipulate the snowshoe bindings. Oh, yeah, it’s 10 degrees and the pain in your fingers is telling you it’s time to glove up but you can’t quite reach them. You’re down on one knee futilely using those painful fingers to release your foot from the resisting snowshoe binding. Now stand up. And let the dance begin. Your free foot loses its traction and slips just enough to throw off your balance and to remain upright you put pressure on the one with the snowshoe and that slips under the sled as you flail your arms desperately fighting the gravitational pull trying to send you sliding down the hill on your face. You are saved from that fate only because one step off the trail to regain balance, your boot sinks in snow up to your thigh and now one leg is considerably shorter than the other. Now there’s a dance worthy of a New York stage, don’t you think?
That’s it. The firewood season has begun, continuing the cycle. I’m now cutting wood to keep me warm next winter while I cut wood for the following winter. There is no such thing as closure.
Author's note: be sure to stay for the ending in which my friend Joe May recalls his family's history in the ice business of the Great Lakes,
I love the noon hour on National Public Radio. First you get a quick review of national news, then local news, announcements and some other local stuff. The second half hour is usually filled out with two or three short pieces on various subjects like science, history, literature, or a myriad of other subjects. Garrison Keillor used to read a poem during that half hour.
Today a historian went into a talk about the development of cold storage from the Pilgrims observing Native Americans cutting blocks of ice from ponds to preserve their food to the 20s and 30s when an ice-block industry sprang up in the United States. In those days the main storage for perishables in the home was an ice box. They were shaped generally like refrigerators today with one difference. Where today the upper section is the freezer portion, that compartment then held a block of ice. You had to go to an ice house every so often to buy a new block, or I believe there were delivery services as well.
Some ice houses were huge. This one was in Denver.
Those trips to the ice house have been etched into my mind. When we did that, I couldn’t have been more than 5 years old but I remember those trips vividly. We had a pre-war Chevrolet four-door, black, with running boards and fenders. We had to drive quite a way or so I recall; distances seem to change with age. How I remember this, I have no idea, but we drove most of the way on the Humboldt Parkway from Kenmore south into Buffalo in New York State.
The ice house as I recall was a huge square building maybe two stories high but only had one floor. Inside blocks of ice in piles rose to the ceiling in some parts, other parts were being filled or emptied, I guess depending on how long the ice had been there. Workers using tongs moved the blocks around as needed, for instance, bringing one to our car. Hunting season made the trips more exciting. In addition to all the ice, deer carcasses dangled from the ceiling, apparently draining and being preserved until they could be butchered. I wonder now if there might have been deer blood in that precious ice we bought.
With the purchase made, the workers strapped the block of ice to the Chevy’s running board and off we went. Now, Humboldt Parkway had an interesting construction. To begin with there was a wide median that held large trees. More fun for me was where the side streets entered, they had crowns in the center and those extended out into the parkway at intersections. They made for serious bumps which were wonderful things to a 4-year-old boy who almost flew out of his seat when the car lurched over them. Of course, my father hated those bumps. I suspect he may have lost a block of ice to one at some time or other.
Raggedy Andy
Another recollection from that time was something I lost on one of those trips. I can admit this now: at 78 I have no one I need to impress with my manhood anymore. I had a doll. It was a Raggedy Andy. I suppose there was a Raggedy Ann around too, but I only wanted Andy. He went everywhere with me until one day after we arrived home from the ice house, Andy had disappeared. We searched everywhere; my father even drove a little way back. But we never saw Andy again. I don’t recall how I suffered the loss or how long that lasted, but in time I forgot about it. At that age new things come along almost daily. There was one aspect of that time that lingered a whole lot longer than the memory of the missing Andy. I don’t think my parents stopped calling refrigerators “the ice box” until well into the 1950s.
Joe May's family has a history in the ice business
Icehouse: Mid 1800's my great grandfather immigrated from Sweden/Norway to Chicago. He found work with a company that sent him north to western Wisconsin near Green Bay. He homesteaded a wooded peninsula on the water and set up a sawmill, a great log icehouse, a deep-water dock to accommodate the company sailing ships that plied Lake Michigan and supplied Chicago with timber, horse hay, etc.
Gram, she was gone before I was born.
In summer they sawed lumber for export to Chicago and in winter sawed (by hand) big blocks of ice from the bay, skidded it up to the icehouse, and layered it in sawdust saved from the summer sawing. In spring, after ice-out, the ships would come in, load the hold with ice and more sawdust, and the deck with a cargo of lumber. A half dozen live-in hired men made it a beehive of industry with a bunkhouse with an enormous dining room table (old growth oak).
He married a local belle, built her a magnificent three story house of old growth hardwoods and painted it snow white. It stands yet on "Gustafson's Point" near Green Bay. Grampa Gustafson died the year after I was born but I clearly remember a childhood playing in the old icehouse, on the rickety dock, and in the dilapidated warehouse with my red-headed cousins.
He might say to Watson, “Hmm. Watson, there seems to be some foul play afoot.” About three days ago this blog posted a photo of a male Pine Grosbeak all fluffed up against the cold. Below him on the ground a female poked about in the seeds Chickadees had spilled off the feeder. That was the last day the male was observed. The female came by the next day but then she, too, disapeared and neither has come around since. Several suspicions have surfaced. They could have been taken by a predator. There were holes in the snowbank near the spilled seed where an ermine could have hidden while stalking them but there no signs of any struggle in the area. Another suspicion could be they succumbed to the cold. The temperature had dropped to zero several times in the previous few days. A predatory bird might have gotten them, though I haven’t seen any of the usual predators around so far this year. Also, they could have found a more enticing feeder somewhere in the neighborhood, although no one’s been in any of the nearby cabins recently.
Then after a few days a new mystery developed; whether the two relate to each other remains to be seen. Traditionally Chickadees make up the largest population of visitors to this feeder. In some years they have been challenged in numbers by redpolls but other than that and in particular, maybe one red-breasted nuthatch would show up among them.
This year something changed. To begin with, more nuthatches than ever before came by to feed. As many as three at a time have been spotted. Still, when I went out in the morning the Chickadees have been flitting back and forth to the feeder in dominating numbers, joined this year by at least three nuthatches flying in just as often.
With that as background, I walked out yesterday morning amazed to see there wasn’t a Chickadee in sight. Strange to begin with, but then I noticed the three tiny nuthatches on the feeder. Twice more that day nuthatches had the place to themselves, poking at the seeds. That condition continued through most of the day until late afternoon when more Chickadees arrived.
Now, I had to wonder where the Chickadees had gone all day? Had a predator that I didn’t see gone after them and chased them into the trees? Had they found another feeder with the Grosbeaks. Had the nuthatches chased them off? Despite their size they can be pretty aggressive in defending their spots on the feeder. Did the Chickadees regroup and mount a counterattack later in the day?
Curious, Watson, very curious.
Perhaps we need a good dose of that famous London fog to complete the scene and complicate the mystery even more.
Two days later the Chickadees and nuthatches were back in regular numbers, but still no sign of the grosbeaks.
One another note: One of the reasons I like living this way
Sunday afternoon I had worked my way through about two thirds of a long mental list of chores. I came indoors for a moment, a sip of juice and dry gloves, fully intending to get right back at it. But, I
had left the radio on and an American Roots announcer on PBS was interviewing and reliving Judy Collins’ life with her. It only took a bit of one song and I lost it, plopped down in the chair, unzipped my coveralls and settled in to listen. What chores? They went from her childhood in Seattle to her life in Greenwich Village and her development as a singer. All along her songs were interspersed into their conversation. Someday Soon, Both sides now, and so many more. Toward the end they even went into the evolution of Suite, Judy Blue Eyes, the Crosby, Stills and Nash song Steven Stills wrote after he and Collins ended their romance. She recalled how they both cried when he played it for her; but she told him she loved the song but didn’t want to get back together, still, making sure to say the two are still friends. For what it’s worth I don’t regret a minute of the half hour or so I sat there and listened. I still managed to finish the list of chores too.
As I was doing that a thought came to mind. I am not sure if it’s coincidence or irony, but there was a Sweet Judy Blue Eyes in my life too. (And, yes, I meant to spell it that way.) Irony of the situation is, later on I learned she had married a rodeo cowboy.
At times people have kidded me about policing up all the chips and splinters and wedges that litter the yard after a session of splitting firewood. Well, here it is five weeks already and I still haven’t had to split one single stick of kindling for the fire.
Life is like that first step outdoors in the morning
In one of the most famous movie lines of all time Forrest Gump’s mother told him, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” I am beginning to think that also applies to the first step outdoors in the morning. The day before yesterday, January 1, 2021, to be exact, I saw the first Pine Marten I’ve ever seen over almost 50 years in Alaska. There’s more today; to begin with there was no temperature. Zero, nil. I heard a flutter off to my right and turned in time to see a female Pine Grosbeak clinging to the feeder for dear life, wings flapping as she tried to maintain her hold. Soon enough she flew off into a nearby tree.
I quickly blamed myself for her failed effort. I had seen a male the day before and knowing they have a tough time on the narrow perches the feeder affords them, I fully intended to throw a handful of seeds onto the nearby snow so they could feed especially in this cold.
After quickly taking care of my own business, I filled a cup with seeds and dumped it over the edge of the deck into the snow. Not too long after that I saw both of them picking through those seeds. I watched for a few minutes, but the cold was getting the better of me so I went inside and left them to it.
A few minutes later I had to go back out for a couple of sticks of firewood. I chanced to look up and there framed by branches, sat the male in a nearby tree, his feathers all puffed up against the cold. My presence didn’t seem to bother him so I went for the camera and this picture is the result. One of the best I’ve ever made of a Pine Grosbeak. It was like “thanks for the breakfast, I’ll pose for you now.” You just never know what you’re going to get. (And no, I will not use “gonna,” not now, not ever.)
As an afterthought; with this kind of a start, maybe this 2021 is going to be all right.
As I stepped through the doorway this morning, motion in my peripheral vision alerted me in time to watch a bushy tail disappear off the south end of the deck. I ran over in time to see a fairly large animal, perhaps the size of a larger cat, hopping through the snow toward shelter of a small stand of fairly sizeable birch trees. I kept watching and in time recognized just the silhouette of its head and ears. I turned and ran for my camera.
This is the first, blurry, shot.
Locating the animal in the viewfinder immediately told me this wasn’t going to amount to much and then two big eyes reflected back through the through the lens. Snap. It seemed to take forever for the camera’s system to recover from the first flash, but eventually it did. This time I gave it a few seconds with a lightly depressed shutter to let the camera make its own adjustments for focus, aperture and shutter speed and then I got one more shot. I have to tell you that is the luckiest photo I ever took in my life. When I first downloaded and saw it, all I could really see were two smaller eyes shining at me in the dark. But when I lightened the picture, the whole animal showed up. And, that’s the big picture at the top here. The smaller one is the first one I snapped, totally hurried and out of focus, but the eyesn shined through and allowed me to take my time for the second shot.
When I looked again it had left the perch. Later I saw it run into the stand of spruce a little downhill from the cabin and from there run off to the southwest. Later I saw tracks in the snow along the whole north side of the cabin and then disappearing over the hill but later fund tracks where it had circled the whole house. Wondering now if I need to lock. the door.
This is a gift. Many people spend a lifetime up here without seeing one in the wild. I've heard it's possible to habituate them to come for food and be a regular visitor.
Yes, we had one lured to the gray jays' feeding station by the remains of an ancient ice cream cake. That one had a sweet tooth, and returned often all winter for toast and jam or stale cookies.
Dave & our partner John had to trap two that broke into the old (1917s-30s) Johnson/Hajdukovitch cabin on Central Creek while they were in the cabin, hissing when they were confronted. They were after the food and were not going to be deterred by a couple of humans and kept up the onslaught until the traps were set. When I went out on those claims in 1982, I had to dig out a whole corner full of porcupine and bear poop so we could make it good enough to spend a couple nights in. It's still out there as of 2016.
Wayne and Scarlett Hall live across the river and a few miles downstream from Eagle. When I visited there last a few years ago they had one that came in after lights out at night. He/she came in through a flap in the door, made the rounds, prospected for scraps and left silently. A traveling partner who was sleeping on the couch woke to find (Modoc" perched on his stomach watching his chest rise and fall.. once in a lifetime experience.
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