News From Down The Lane

Today was a perfect winter day, in fact the best winter day we can remember having in quite a few years.  There is a beautiful, deep accumulation of powdery snow, the skies were a cloudless bright blue from sunrise to sunset, and the temperature hovered in the middle teens.  Simply perfect.

I walked down the lane to the County Highway, cold snow squeaking under my boots with each step.  It was so still in the woods that I could hear my own heart beating.  The only other noise was the resolutely rapid tat tat tat tat tat of a pileated woodpecker working on a red pine, looking for lunch.

The snow has been quite heavy this year here in the Lake Superior snow belt.  The man who plows our drive had trouble pushing the snow with his straight plow and had friend with a v-plow come over to break open a path.  The snow piles at the end of the drive seem to be ten feet high, and winter is not half over.

Chet is our plow guy; we inherited him when we bought this place some twenty-odd years ago. He plowed the drive for the previous owner, and the owner before that who first built the place.  We don't know how old Chet is - we think somewhere in his early 80s - but when we ask we get a laughing answer from him with a joke.  It's usually something like "How old am I?  Old enough that I have a autographed photo of Jesus!"  Or maybe "Old enough that the Jesuits baptized me here when they stopped for lunch in 1622."  The answer is always followed by a long laugh that ends up in a smoker's cough.

We also inherited a plumber, an electrician, and a septic tank guy.  The electrician retired and moved to Florida a few years ago.  The plumber's son now runs the business, and the septic tank guy is still with us.  They are all hard workers and as honest as can be.  We learned long ago to always pay cash up front for all work, be polite, and never, ever cop a big city attitude.  They trust us; we trust them.  They know where the keys are hidden, and when there is work to be done and we are not here, there is no concern about them letting themselves in.  Cash, a firm handshake, and looking the other guy in the eye when a promise is made still work up here.

I bumped into old Don while I was walking.  He's the kind of man who has always been old; he just looks older every year.  He doesn't look well.  Last summer we were taken aback by his ashen color; it's worse now.  He looks like he's circling the drain. 

Don has always been big, always had a big, sloppy cigar in his mouth.  He doesn't light the cigar anymore, but still chews on it.  Don was walking his mutt, although "walking" isn't quite accurate.  The dog was walking on the end or a leash; Don was in his car with the window down holding on to the other end of the leash and slowly driving down the lane.  He said he's fine, how's the weather, how are you feeling, damn taxes, and how's your wife?

Everyone asks about my wife, especially the old guys.  She's very memorable, especially because of an  incident a few months after we bought the place.  She was reading a book and sunning herself in a boat parked at our small dock.  She fell asleep.  Some of the older neighborhood guys walked over to say hello, and when they startled her she sat up and began a conversation with them.  About a minute later she realized that her top, loosened for tanning, hadn't sat up when she did. Oops!  Laughter all around.  The old guys seem to forget my name sometimes, but they never fail to remember hers.

Here's  happy photo from in town.

 

 

The local volunteer firemen built an ice castle near the main street, along a busy snowmobile trail.  There are some 3,000 blocks of ice in the castle.  The blocks were cut out of a local lake and trucked to the site where they were hand assembled into this castle.  Doggone hard work.  There are lights in the castle, and at night it has a lovely blue-green color.

 

The castle is part of  huge annual event this week: The World Championship Snowmobile Derby.  The Derby is the Indianapolis 500 of snowmobile racing and the village is packed full of racers, visitors, manufacturers, reporters and thousands upon thousands of spectators.

 

But that's a story for another day.

 

Best wishes from deep inside the snow belt!