• Grackle
• Sandhill Crane
• Bald Eagle
• Canada Goose
• Chimney Swift
• Common Night Hawk
• Common Loon
• Robin
• Piliated Woodpecker
• Blue Heron
• American Goldfinch
• Cedar Waxwingt

And who knows what I was hearing, except for the barred owl. Once you’ve heard a barred owl, heck once you’ve heard a person making the sound of a barred owl, you pretty much know it when you hear it.

Unfortunately when it came time for the second cup a thunderstorm moved in to the area and I had to retire back inside.

This was a short overnight trip to the lake for me. I had a deal in the morning and couldn’t break away until about 1:00. However the kids, and by kids I mean all three of them, had been up there since Friday afternoon, sans parents. A little watershed in family development, they’d never gone up to the house, opened the place up, and managed to feed and water themselves before.

The boys went to the Blake Lake Association Meeting in the morning, a meeting that I’ve avoided the last couple years. It’s a little too dramatic for me, I have enough people to argue with in my home, I don’t need to go out into the world and watch other people argue. Oh, and um not get paid for it. Do that for a living if you will. The arguments at a typical lake association meeting area about what to do about water quality, aquatic weeds namely curly leaf pond weed an intrusive plant which would choke the lake given the chance, association funding and a whatever else is on folks minds. When it comes to water management I’m usually on the wrong side of the majority so I just stare at the spot where my rubber STFU SANK bracelet would be if I had one and let it go.

This year the one topic was water quality, and my son, 2 whole weeks out of geology and engineering school took particular notice. He used a word to describe the meeting that frankly, I found confusing; “interesting”. Apparently there was a dude from the Wisconsin DNR there who talked about a rather serious study that’s being undertaken on our small lake to learn more about the water quality and what might be done about it. Nate had a lot of thoughts about it. He was particularly interested to learn that in some parts of the lake there is 5 meters of silt built up. My favorite part of the meeting would have been when someone asked “what’s a meter?” I like those kinds of questions.

Apparently the Wisconsin DNR is working with the University of Minnesota to do the study which will include core samples to understand what the quality of water was before “contact”. Their goal is to return it to WWII levels. Not sure where that metric came from but sounds good. They’re also doing a survey of every stream in the watershed from here to Big Round lake, about a mile or two up the Straight River to see what sorts of farm runoff are flowing in to the lake.

Clearly this is a big deal. I’ll be interested to see what comes of it.

Nate thinks that because we have so much silt in the lake, as we said five meters worth, which I think is like a foot or something? Anyway, there is a tremendous amount of trapped phosphorus and nitrogen in the lakebed and that all the weed control and run off management in the world won’t do much to prevent the late summer algae blooms. I suggested a different view and he shut me down, which I found interesting. You send these kids to college and they come home smarter than you are. Amazing.

If anyone is still reading.. the hot topic this year was the water level in the lake. An issue I faithfully reported about in the space last week. We were way down, a situation I attributed to damn dam problems. (see what I did there? Clever and innovative use of language if I don’t say so myself.) I was 100% correct in that BTW, it was the dam. The ice damaged it during the winter, knocked some of the stones over the top.

Kid learned an interesting tidbit, apparently there was a time when the lake was quite a bit higher, like about 4 feet higher. Sometime before World War II there was an actual concrete dam at the end of the lake. Apparently the logging company that owned the land in the area used the lake to float logs. I’m not sure where they floated them too, the river that comes out of our lake is little shallow and narrow to be able to really move the kind wood that would merit a dam, but what do I know.

The kid also learned that a great deal of the issues on the lake can be attributed to weekenders or “lakers” as we’re called. We ignore no wake zones, rip around the lake on our jet skis and leave garbage everywhere. Not to get defensive, but I think I’m pretty good about the whole no wake zone thing, matter of fact I bitch more than anyone about it because my boat has been trashed over years from slamming into the dock, that and I have no jet skis… blah blah blah who cares if this old fat ass follows the rules?

OK you don’t care. No problem nor does anyone else I’m sure. After the meeting the boys headed over the to dam and joined the work crew putting it back together. That meant getting into the water and moving rocks. Hopefully this earned them some good will points for pitching in. I’m glad sorry I wasn’t there to help out.

Other than that, was a nice weekend. Warm for a change, lots of time to sit out on the deck and watch and listen to nature. And the occasional lawn mower and jet ski.

Summer may have finally arrived.

I digress. Indian Summer. Then I think about April 2013 in Minnesota. After three nice days in March we got an extra month of winter around here. Snow, and lots of it, cold temperatures, nothing thawed like it was supposed too… are there is there a name for that extra winter? Something about a people who gives promises of good times to come and then swipes them away? What COULD we call that? Hmmm.

What have we been through here in Minnesota? Local weather guy Paul Douglas pointed out that between Sunday morning and Tuesday afternoon there places in this state that experienced a 100 degree change in temperatures.

Paul Douglas is full of crap. There’s no way that it was more than 70 degrees. Childs play for the land of lakes where weather is a theatre controlled by the same unerring laws of natures that govern the movement of the planets in the orbits and rotation of our Earth around its axis, which is what really creates the unending progression of seasons which delight us so here in Minnesota, and fill our conversations with incessant whining while at the same time giving us pride and collective strength as we brag to friends and family less subject to Mother Nature’s inclemency’s that to live here takes guts and fortitude not found in more southerly climes.

To which I say, in the tenderest manner, bull<space>shit. My son, the Alabama guy, spit his McDonalds diet coke all over the front window of my car when he heard on the radio, on Sunday afternoon, a day when it didn’t get out of the 40′s, that by Tuesday we would be dealing with “extreme” heat, maybe even pushing…. 90 degrees.

We may be proud of the fact that there are times here when stepping outside in the wrong clothing could be fatal in a matter of minutes and that we survive it, but give us a little heat and we melt like fucking popsicle. Shee it.

I remember the one and only time I took by precious bride to visit my folks in Stockton California. It was August. Mid August, oven season in the Great Central Valley. We had started our journey (and this is the only appropriate use of the word friends. Your weight loss, professional development, childrearing years etc. are not Journeys, stop using that word for that stuff, it’s just gawd damned annoying.) in San Francisco, it was about 60 degrees. As we made our way over the Altamont Pass and descended into the valley, where on a clear day in winter you can easily see across the valley from the Altamont to the Sierra Nevada, a distance of about 100 miles, there was nothing but shimmering heat and haze. We pulled into Stockton the comfort of our car AC cranking away and passed the bank when Mrs S made the following comment, “It’s 1:15? I thought it was like 3:00.”

When we stopped and opened the door to the car, she realized her mistake. It was 3:00 and it was every bit of 115. Brutal. But not like I didn’t go out and do things back in the day, after all it’s a dry heat eh? We must not have invented dehydration before about 1980 because I can’t ever remember anyone ever worrying about it, or about us kids paying out side in the heat. Hell they MADE us play in the heat, and told us not to drink water to avoid cramping up.

Strange times we live in, why I hear nowadays parents’ chain smoking in cars with the widows closed is bad for the children in some way. That was a game even Granndma got into. Smoking that is.

So where in Minnesota we’ve passed the season where a can of beer in your gloved hand starts freezing in about 5 minutes and finally, FINALLY seems to have reached a point where the snow, at least sticking snow, is behind us for 4 or 5 months. Not saying we won’t have another frost yet, but snow is probably gone. Today I smelled my first cut lawn, neighbors are starting to get out there with their mowers and hacking away. The raking is in fill swing. Street sweepers came along today to harvest as much of the winters sand and gravel as they could, streets are clean, flowers are budding, things are looking up.

Ooo Morels will be here soon, now THAT is good news.

And then you realize the days get shorter in 4 short weeks. Happy Summer everyone.

I’ve written rather extensively about same-sex marriage in this space, personally I believe it’s the next great hurdle for civil rights in this country. But to go from defeating a restriction on peoples rights to full on legalization in 6 months… not that I didn’t expect it.

This action by the state legislatures and Governor is a reflection of a rather dramatic shift in public opinion here in Minnesota over the last two years. Not surprising personally I had to go through my own version of change to get to the place where I am now; viewing marriage equality as a civil rights issue, justice issue and the “right” thing to do. Twenty years ago I think I was pretty much in the mainstream regarding Gay rights, homosexuals and marriage. Generally supportive of Gays, I was in the live and let live camp. You could translate this into “do what you want behind closed doors”, that’s an easy position to have when you’re already enjoying the benefits of society.

I guess I’m still a little caught up in old paradigms, it’s like this isn’t quite real yet, I had to be brought along slowly maybe? There’s a nagging little voice in the back of mind that says we should have taken this slower, brought people along as you will. Then I realized that I sure wouldn’t want to wait for the right vote, or the right to sit where I want on a bus or in a restaurant, or to marry whom I choose, ie someone of a different race than I. (See Loving vs. Virginia)

I’ve changed. Somewhere along the line I developed friendships with gay people, I came to understand more about justice and equality. I acknowledged my own prejudices and had a little epiphany; I was wrong, wrong to judge.

There’s a lot of banter today about why and how we came to this point in Minnesota. The prevailing wisdom, which I agree with, I that the conservatives, by putting the measure on the ballot two years ago forced the issue and rallied the folks on the side of marriage equality to stop talking and start taking action.  Which they did, effectively.  The forced the issue. Erik Hare, one of the really outstanding bloggers in Minnesota wrote an excellent piece describing how this came to be in Minnesota and how this might go down as one of the biggest political blunders in our States history, then again you might say the Lord works in mysterious ways.

Barataria The Good Fight Wins by Erik Hare

You might say my own epiphany was a result of a right wing argument against same sex marriage. I think the one that really did it was when the other side made the argument that legalizing same sex marriage would infringe on their rights. For me, that one argument exposed the inconsistency in my own belief systems and completely changed my mind. There were no longer any arguments against it my mind that made sense.

And so its here, morality won- couples in long term relationships can now enter into a legal contract to preserve and protect their relationship. Justice won- all people in Minnesota have equal protection under the law.

Congratulations to my Gay and Lesbian friends and family, I hope you find marriage as fulfilling and as I do and that you are as lucky in love as I have been, because now you’re all legal and shit.

So, here’s some of teh oddities I found in cabin cupboards. Who can tell me what this stuff is?

I was skeptical, but I kept that to myself, no need to confirm Mrs S’s opinions about my negativity. She recently made the following remarkable statement about me and projects; “you always say no”. 

To me she said this. Hah.. Sometimes she says “no” to but rather than say any thing.. sometimes it’s the pitches you lay off that define you as a ball player. That’s all I’m say’n.

The Fates were against this project from the beginning, and they went out of their way to tell me so, and her so, but she’s was determined and I was determined to do what ever it was that she was determined to do so we peservered in our march to folly. In the end we accomplished nothing, well we do have a nicely power washed deck, patio furniture and cheese slicer. 

The days events started promptly at 8:00. Watching the news I learned that we would be enjoying a cold by sunny day. 

We can do this, even at 52 degrees. Mrs S suggested that we go to the hardware store, rent the machine, bring it back and then get the kiddos up for breakfast. Since the hardware store and the breakfast place are both in Amery, about 15 miles each way.. I kinda felt like we should roust their lazy asses, make them come with us to Amery NOW, get the maching, have breakfast, and then comeback. Saving a 30 mile round trip that we would be making at least twice anyway. 

So we did. At the hardware store we learned that the machine they had was 2500 PSI. About 1/2 what she wanted. The fellow explained to her, as I had… although not because I knew, but because someone else had told me, that at 5000 PSI we could blow a hole through our cement wall. “we’ll be careful” was her reply. “For the first time ever” was my under breath reply which apparently I said a tish louder than I thought, based on the death stare. 

We also learned that that particular hardware store, as only open until noon and was not open on Sunday,

This actually meant that  we would have to get our work done before 11:00 to get it back in time which meant that we would not have time to get pancakes at Ida Mae’s Cafe which caused to be to do something I rarely do.. put my foot down. “Project or not, I am having pancakes, who is with me?” Always interesting when you make you children choose parental allegiances, even more so when they’re adults. Red and Daughter were in on the pancakes, giving me the majority I needed not to have to worry about getting left behind in Amery. 

Besides I noted, there is the other hardware store. “They don’t have this stuff” she exclaimed in a way that was reminiscent of “NO”. “My precious turtle dove” i exclaimed, ‘Lets go try ’cause we’re here.” We did, and guess what, they did. And guess what again, they’re open to 5:00 AND they’re open on Sunday. In some ways I was right. 

Let me remind you that it was cold on Saturday, about 40 degrees. It was also windy, like whitecap windy out on the lake. This was going suck and the fellow at the hardware store told us so. “You really want to do this today?” Personally the day has yet to come where I would “want” to do this, but since we’re “going” to do this, today is as good as any other. “Mothers Day present”. Ok…

He walked us to show us how to use the thing, “you know, you may have trouble starting this machine, they don’t run well below about 60 degrees. 

We loaded the thing into the Durango and off Ida Mae’s Cafe we went. 

I was a little dismayed about the water level in the lake. We’re about a foot down by my calculations. Odd since we’ve had plenty of precipitation.  I have a feel the little dam at the end the lake might have washed out. Tomorrow I’ll head up there and see what’s going on. 

This is Mothers Day weekend, Mrs S asked that we spend the weekend working on the summer project, lining the outside of the house with stone. Small project. The down side of being up here with her is that there really isn’t any where to hide when my number comes up for project work. It’s ok, it’s Mothers Day, I can suck it up. 

For a while. 

Hoiiday time in Minnesota. Fishing opener. The return to the lakes of boats and bait, hooks and minnows, leeches, cigars, gas, beer, and if tradition prevails, open water. Typically around here open water is a given. Not this year. This year there’s a good chance that many of the big walleye lakes will still be covered in ice. And the further north you go, the thicker it’s going to be. Last I heard there was more than a foot ofice on some of those lakes. 

Sunday afternoon I stopped by the cabin to check out the conditions there and take my tree picture for Spring. We still had ice on the lake, not enough to walk on but too much for a boat. Wisconsin had their opener last weekend not sure too many people got out, at least on our lake. 

There was a time when I’d get pretty excited about the opener. This year I’m resigned to helping my wife power wash the cabin. I’m not much in the mood for fishing this year, yet anyway. Winter hangover maybe? I’m sure as the season goes on I’ll get more motivated but at the moment.. bleu.

We were trying to get to campus by a certain time to attend a little reception for the Geology department grads. We were about an hour late. Mrs S was interested in meeting his professors and thanking them for all their help over the years. I kinda felt like she was confusing college with the third grade. Which BTW was a rather unwelcome comment when I mentioned it to her. No sense of humor.

Reception was nice, two profs, Nate, half a cake and bottle of Hawaiian Punch. That’s when I learned that Nate is the only Geology graduate this year. A few more geoengineers. Sad since geology is technically the first degree taught at Tech. It was started as the school of Michigan School of Mines. The Department keeps the name “mines” in the name, probably for nostalgic sake, not much mining going on up on the UP these days.

Oddly enough the kid was wearing an interesting horizontal striped black and white shirt. Looked like something Marcel Marceau would wear. Hmm, reminded me of the first time he was talking about going to the Colorado School of Mimes. You can take the boy of Mime school, but you can the Mime out of the boy… He wasn’t amused by that either. Oh for two for me. But his brothers comment “when did Nate join the Spetznaz” was better.

Evening in Houghton was typical.. Whole lotta nada. You’d think there would be more to do there, but there isn’t. Most interesting thing going, watching the Coast Guard Ship Alder breaking ice in the Portage Lake. Ice breaking is interesting stuff for a boat buff. Apparently she can go through 14” of ice at 3 knots continuous speed. My boat can go through 5mm of ice at 2 knots, as long as you don’t have to turn at all. I know this from experience.

Grad day was neat. Kinda. Interesting observations from the peanut gallery, and we were in the peanut gallery, last seats, top of section, furthest from the stage as you could be and still be inside the arena.

• It was my first graduation ever held in an Ice Arena. So um.. would it have killed the grounds crew at Tech to take down the glass and the puck nets? Jus say’n.
• No one gave us the heads up that we needed to be at the arena hour early to get a decent seat. That, would have been a handy piece of data to have. Which is why we had the seats we did.
• Good news, Michigan Tech was kind enough to open the concessions during the ceremony so you could get a cup of coffee and a cookie if you wanted. Which I did. There was a bit of time to kill.
• It takes as long to hood 25 PhD candidates as it does to read the names of 800 undergrads. Seemed that way anyway. They earned it.. and the concessions were open so um.. you ge the idea.
• One of the benefits of getting a PhD in Europe, you get a really cool academic gown to wear.
• Nice touch to have the pep band come in at the end. Especially since after watching the band having a blast at the WCHA hockey tournament 7 years ago, that was the first exposure I had to Tech. that’s when I teared up.

By the end of the graduation, 2 1/5 hours later I was exhausted. I found myself thinking a lot about my own graduation and what I’ve done in the 30 odd years since. Again, bleh.

Rest of the afternoon was spent moving the kid out of his house.

Holy crap.

I’ve blocked a few things out of my conscious; marriage, childbirth, and apparently my entire college living experience. I’d forgotten just how bad college slums living could be. The kids place however, worse than anything I remember. Except for the view mind you. 

One thing kids have today that I didn’t; Fabreeze. Gauging by the 18 empty bottles of the stuff in the trash and Fabreeze huffing I did in the house, it was nasty.

Mrs S and Grandma, and Eric and I were cleaning for about 10 minutes or so, and then… Eric found a sweet airsoft gun and about 10,000 rounds under the sofa, Nate said it had been there since they moved in. Not any more.

Of course once we found that thing Eric and I checked out of the “working” portion of the afternoon’s activities and spent the rest of the afternoon playing cops and shooting each other in the ass. Very entertaining way to spend a few hours while Mrs S and Grandma cleaned out the house.

Made dinner a little less fun that it could have been.

Saturday night after graduation in Houghton, even deader than Friday night. Place was a ghost town. I suggested commemorative tattoos for the family, then remembered my “no tat’s” policy, so that left “doing nothing” for the rest of the evening.

All in all it was a little melancholy, my last weekend in Houghton, last time to the U.P., and last weekend for college kid.

Change. Nuth’n good ever comes from it. IMHO.

The snow that falleth in May, doth smite my hope in the promise of spring.

In otherwords I continue to grow weary of this fucking weather.

Here’s a picture of lake, taken this morning by the nice folks at Sherrard’s Resort who I’m sure would like to be open and running a resort the first weekend in May, fishing opener in Wisconsin and all, as opposed to whatever it is they are doing at the moment up there. Sure ain’t boating or fishing.

See that white stuff out there? That’s ice. We’re still frozen.  We got 12 inches of snow at Blake Lake last night. Fairbault, just south of us, 18 inches. Previous record for the entire month of May… 3 inches.

Looking at the picture I can’t help but feel a little down. I’d like to be out there on the boat about now.

Hmm

Cold is a small price to pay to live in paradise.

Keeps down on the riff raff.

I don’t have to worry about mowing the lawn, or doing any yard work.

No mosquito’s. I don’t have to worry about malaria or dengue.

I haven’t re-strung my fishing reels yet, have more time to do that.

I get to take my first annual May cross country skiing trip.

The local ski resort can reopen, for the 3rd time.

I don’t have to overload my refrigerator, nature is providing a free one.

I get one last snow cocktail- root beer schnapps and snow.

Summer sledding party.

Don’t need to buy sunscreen yet.

The more I think the more I can enjoy this weather.

Yay me.