Improvement

Fire in the stove this morning—windows wide open this afternoon. A few passing clouds in an otherwise clear sky. (Rain needed.) This afternoon, as I was working on something out on the south side of the house, by the sandbox, Pax started growling. I looked up but saw nothing—at first. But then, in the shadows by the woodshed I saw a young deer apparently heading our way.  I quickly grabbed Pax, and together we walked toward the ignorant animal, which eventually sauntered off along the Pinebox beach. Uncertain, I let Pax go, but he behaved admirably, just checking out where the deer came from, and not chasing where it went.

Lots of odd jobs today, both inside and out. Peas are finally coming up in the garden. (Rain needed.)

Frosty Nights, Chilly Days

Rosette of giant mullein, a hairy biennial, widely used for herbal remedies. Likes sun and disturbed soils.

My favorite farmer at the Gore Bay farmer's market had a number of beautiful tomato plants (started from seed) for sale, but I resisted buying them, saying I would be back next Friday, and buy then. Being a farmer more than a businessman, he agreed—too much frost still lingering in the forecast. 

I did succumb to one filet of smoked whitefish from Purvis, and a tub of their whitefish spread, and let me tell you,  that was not a bad decision.

I comprehend the idea in the piece by Barry Lopez, below, but I'm not sure of the conclusion. I often think that carrying a camera with me at all times makes me pay more attention....

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Learning to See   from About This Life, by Barry Lopez

    Late one afternoon, working our way back to the Oceanographer [research ship] through a snow squall, the three of us came upon a polar bear. We decided to follow him for a few minutes and I got out my cameras. The bear, swimming through loose pack ice, was clearly annoyed by our presence, though in our view we were maintaining a reasonable distance. He very soon climbed out on an ice floe, crossed it, and dropped into open water on the far side. We had to go the long way around in the workboat, but we caught up. He hissed at us and otherwise conveyed his irritation, but we continued idling along beside him.

Eventually we backed off. The bear disappeared in gauze curtains of blowing snow. We returned to the Oceanographer, to a warm meal and dry clothes.Once the boat was secure and our scientific samples squared away in the lab, I went to my cabin. I dropped my pack on the floor, stripped off my heavy clothes, showered, and lay down in my bunk. I tried to recall every detail of the encounter with the bear. What had he been doing when we first saw him? Did he change direction then? How had he proceeded? Exactly how did he climb out of the water onto the ice floe? What were the mechanics of it? When he shook off seawater, how was it different from a dog shucking water? When he hissed, what color was the inside of his mouth?

I don't know how long I lay there, a half hour perhaps, but when I was through, when I'd answered these questions and was satisfied that I'd recalled the sequence of events precisely and in sufficient detail, I got up, dressed, and went to dinner. Remembering what happened in an encounter was crucial to my work as a writer, and attending to my cameras during our time with the bear had altered and shrunk my memory of it. While the polar bear was doing something, I was checking f-stops and attempting to frame and focus from a moving boat.

I regarded the meeting as a warning to me as a writer. Having successfully recovered details from each minute, I believed, of that encounter, having disciplined myself to do that, I sensed I wouldn't pick up a camera ever again.

It was not solely contact with this lone bear a hundred miles off the northwest coast of Alaska, of course, that ended my active involvement with photography. The change had been coming for a while. The power of the polar bear's presence, his emergence from the snow squall and his subsequent disappearance, had created an atmosphere in which I could grasp more easily a complex misgiving that had been building in me. I view any encounter with a wild animal in its own territory as a gift, an opportunity to sense the real animal, not the zoo creature, the TV creature, the advertising creature. But this gift had been more overwhelming. In some way the bear had grabbed me by the shirtfront and said, Think about this. Think about what these cameras in your hands are doing.

Years later, I'm still thinking about it. Some of what culminated for me that day is easy to understand. As a writer, I had begun to feel I was missing critical details in situations such one because I was distracted. 

Twenty-one Mergansers and Countless Trillium

Twenty-one mergansers moving by, south to north, hunting as a pack, and apparently finding success. This being the breeding period, I don’t know how they sort out their relationships, or who does what when it come time to rearing the young. If the birds are nesting now, I don’t know where or how.

Earlier in the day—Lakeshore Road (east side of Lake Kagawong), then Billings 8th Concession Road, then Mud Creek Road to what might be the most illustrative and concentrated flowering of trillium, anywhere in the world. It’s a maple forest, half-way leaved-out, with the trillium loving the soil and flowering profusely before the canopy closes in and the woods go dark.

It's a separate, tranquil place, with nothing but flowers and birdsong. 

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There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass and white and red morning-glories, and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird,
And the Third-month lambs and the sow’s pink-faint litter, and the mare’s foal and the cow’s calf,
And the noisy brood of the barnyard or by the mire of the pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there, and the beautiful liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads, all become part of him.

There Was A Child Went Forth
—Walt Whitman

Picture Perfect

Bright and cool. Morning waterfront work (for example replanting spruces from their volunteer locations now under water on the beach, and doing some dock work using the Susie Pea as a barge.) (When the boat got loose one time Sue lunged after it and ended up sitting in a foot of ice cold water.) Great way to chill out.

Afternoon saw activities of varying value—I got in a few hours of single-handed Windrider practice (in gusty conditions) while Sue varnished 30 boards. And Pax got in a good run to Sandy Beach.

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Interesting article in the NY Times today:  In Alberta, Oil, Cowboys…and Liberalism? Alberta, home of the tar sands, has been an oil baron and right-wing stronghold for decades. But this month the left-leaning New Democrats swept out the besmeared old guard, “arguing that Alberta’s oil belonged to the people, not to foreign corporations.”

This remarkably logical idea motivates most of Scandinavia, where North Sea oil and gas money goes into things like investing for the future, infrastructure, education, and health care. (Norway doesn’t use fossil fuel itself, relying on renewables.)

While it’s true Texas has lots of windmills, it is hard to imagine Ted Cruz championing an Alberta style realignment. And then there are the states of Michigan and Wisconsin. In Michigan the state legislature is working on a bill to exempt oil pipeline companies from having to report safety information or to respond to freedom of information requests made by the public. And in Wisconsin, the state legislature has passed bills that prohibit villages and townships from establishing ordinances protecting their citizens from frack-sand mining health hazards. One might wonder who these elected representatives represent.

But, maybe, perhaps, if Alberta can do it so can Michigan and Wisconsin. Texas seems unlikely.

Cold Front

A cold front roared through here last night shortly after dinner, and the temperature plummeted. Downright cold today, mostly overcast, but clearing just before dinner, with a powerful west wind. Big white stallions galloping west to east out in the channel.

It is interesting here in the foam home to notice how drastic changes in temperature are always ignored. Yesterday, coming inside felt like stepping into an air-conditioned room. Today, coming inside feels like stepping from the North Pole into San Diego. 

(But, just to be on he safe side, considering the wind and temp outside, we have just now put a few licks in the stove, which yesterday I thought had seen the end of its service this season.)

Today, in the wildlife department: 
Pax treed a big raccoon over by Pine Box;
I was buzzed by a hummingbird;
I saw a pair of big northern water snakes up in the grass by the the mouth of the Kagawong River slither from relative warmth into the cold bay water;
We saw of pair of loons working upwind along the shore;
And then we saw a paradox come straight at us, although that seemed like quite a contradiction.

Sitting in the Zen spot before dinner we watched Aeolus whip a can of blue-green spray paint up and back along the near shore, sending fans of ripples this way, and that.

Sunny and Hot

Warm and windy, with a rip-snorting southerly.

After the usual morning of walk, coffee, NYTimes, and breakfast, it was on to battens again. But in the afternoon we took the Windrider for a romp. Lots of sun, wind, and spray, and no rigging failures. Tonight, firing up the grill for the first time. Ah, summer!
 

In spite of the perfect weather the village has cleared out, and we pretty much have the Serendipity to ourselves. And that is good. Two nights of Topazinni fireworks are all one needs here in the land of dark and quiet. We prefer looking at stars and listening to loons.

Boat and Batten

Beautiful morning with the promise of wind. So after a morning of battening we took the Windrider to the marina where Wolf and Patrick helped step the mast. The boat floats and all systems are go. 

Pat and Wolf were working on repurposing the back half of the marina building into Pat’s new sailboat, kayak, bicycle rental store, and Windrider dealership. So there is a chance the Windrider fleet will grow.

And now, with the boat in the water, there will be a chance to go sailing whenever the work load lets up.

On the Water

The Susie Pea roaming he Bay.

The Purvis fish tug fishing the Bay.

A bunch of boulders about four feet down on the bottom of the Bay

Clearing early, then sunny with a few puffs of cumulus. High of 19. We put up battens in the morning, but by afternoon we had to get outside. It being the Victoria Day long weekend we took a brief trip to the village to see what was happening, which turned out to be not much, although the Falls might have been hopping, for all we know. We walked with Pax along Fraser Beach, which is now so narrow that two people might find it difficult to walk side-by-side. Back at the cottage we launched the kayaks—or at least one of them—the plastic boat, which was outside all winter, was well occupied by a colony of ants. So, pending removal, we turned to the Susie P instead. I was thinking of titling this blog: "The Ants In Her Pants."

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The Benjamin Islands were made by a volcano, I’ve always maintained.  The circular structure, when you include Fox Island and Croaker Island, looks a lot like a caldera. 

In talking about this with Murray, he remembered a reference in the Great Lakes Cruising Club Guide, and later he was able to dig out the passage from which the following info is extracted.

According to the Guide, the Benjamins were created by vulcanism and not a meteor impact, as some folks from Sudbury (which is a meteor creation) have proposed. But it is not a caldera either. Rather, it’s a pluton. A pluton is a dome of molten igneous rock that has bubbled up from a pool of magma far below. The Benjamins bubbled up about 1.5 million years ago and have been eroded down ever since, from a dome to what we have today.

Above is the result of an aeromagnetic survey. The magnetic contours match the physical topography closely, and form the shape of a dome.

Interestingly, Harbor Island, on the south side of Clapperton, is another pluton, although overlaid with limestone.

Not Atypical

First order of business is putting match to kindling in the woodstove. A chilly, gray morning—and we had no fire all yesterday—the sun making up for briskness. So now some heat feels good.

As a split of ash catches fire I lock the stove door, and then the three of us are off on our regular morning walk, Pax on lead just because early in the morning there are too many fascinating smells, and it's hard, after a long restful night, to keep enthusiasm in check.

We walk the Lane between vernal pools, past the big red oak, through the maple grove (now leafing out and growing darker), and around the bend to just before Murray and Elaine’s where the newly cleared hydro right-of-way intersects Serendipity. Here Sue doubles back while Pax and I head into the forest, aiming for the shoreline. No more leash, and Pax splits off, following his nose and being a natural dog. I walk the trail that wanders along the shoreline ridge, catching glimpses of the water and trying to assess the weather. Looks like rain. A long step over Tyson’s creek, which is still running strong, then along the water’s edge, barely making it around the old upswept cedars without getting my feet wet.

Both coming and going lots of bird sounds; not the the boisterousness of a southern Wisconsin morning, but birds of many of different kinds, not all of which (to my chagrin) do I recognize. Nearby cranes startle us with their stentorian honk, and woodpeckers rattle away at various points around the compass.

Back at the cottage, I’ve got the coffee going when Pax bangs in the back door, looking for his morning snack, but his feet are muddy and need a rinse. After toweling off all four appendages I put a quarter of a Burt Farm smoky and a dab of liverwurst in his bowl, alongside a handful of kibble (which he eats only when famished). The Keurig fills my cup, hot and black as Eddie Izzard says, and I head to the computer while Sue does a before-breakfast outside chore, as she usually does—today raking up a windrow of old reed stems that have washed ashore. After snack, Pax goes back outside to help.

A while later, post breakfast, when the rain begins, we decide to go to Gore Bay, for hardware (a slightly dripping gate valve at the head of the intake line needing replacement) and some larder supplies. Pax and I walk in light rain along the waterfront while Sue visits the small and soggy farmers’ market (first of the year) and comes away with two Purvis whitefish fillets and a blueberry pie.

Back home it’s lunch and naps. After that we dig out the compressor, chop saw, tall ladder, and nail gun; set it all up, and begin measuring,  and cutting and nailing trim. We try to avoid getting carried away and stop with ample time for clean-up and a dog-walk along the shore, in the foggy drizzle. 

For dinner it’s whitefish and blueberry pie—local fare. Factoring in the Burt farm, the summer’s farmers’ markets, and our garden, we are somewhat integrated into the Island food chain. We need to catch some bass and run over a couple of the wild turkeys often obstructing Maple Drive. But, it’s unlikely I’m going to shoot a deer.

Paint and Stain

Beautiful, cool, sunny day—perfect for painting. So all 75 battens got a coat of primer and then half of them a second color coat. Sue also stained 30 new trim boards. We got cleaned up just in time to make it to dinner at the Roosteraunt (with Thomsons and Gaisers). It wasn't all that busy there but still we closed the place down, somehow singing Dona Nobis Pacem in harmony, rather loudly, just before we got kicked out.