News From Down The Lane

It has been a busy week here in the north woods.

The big news is that winter suddenly ended last Sunday, and Spring began three weeks early.  Sunday began with our lake iced over.  The temperature climbed to sixty degrees, and a brisk wind blew the ice over to the north shore, where waves worked all afternoon to melt it.  By the end of the day all of the ice was gone, like a Penn and Teller magic trick.

The water is very clear this time of the year, before the warmth of the sun causes plant growth and algae bloom.

We lost one of our neighbors this winter.  Don was the long-retired former town constable, and had been in declining health for several years.  He passed at age 85.  We knew Don for 25 years, and in all that time we never heard anyone say one unkind thing about him, nor heard him say anything unpleasant.  He was a good man.

His age made him the third oldest guy in the neighborhood.  There are two neighbors who are in their middle nineties, and there spouses, who still live here year around.  One had a small stroke and then five stents this winter, but he's up and around, moving his own firewood, doing a bit of raking in his yard.  The other has the beginning of memory loss, but still drives, fishes, and so forth.  Something about living in the woods and having chores to do keeps people active well into their older years.

The woods needed some management this spring, so the timbering crews came in.

The harvest this year is limited to birch and red pine.  The birch will be turned into wood for cabinets, doors, and trim, while the red pine will be turned into pulp for paper and cardboard products.  The branches and scrap will be turned into paraffin-soaked fire starters for use in fireplaces and campfires.  Trees are a cash crop up here, and woodlands are harvested about every twenty years.

The crews had an unwelcome delay when the township placed weight limit restrictions on town roads.  Violate the load weight limits, and face a very stiff fine.  So everything stayed where it is for a few days until the earth under the roads fully thaws, and heavy loads won't cause road damage.

This may be our last Spring in the northwoods.  We met with a real estate agent last week, and will sign a listing contract this week placing our cabin for sale on the market.  We have been thinking about this now for two years, and have decided to go ahead with it.  It will be difficult to part with our cabin, but the time for that haa arrived.  We'd rather spend winter months in a warm climate, so that's what we'll do after the sale of the cabin has closed, whenever that may happen.

It's always interesting how the arc of life is different than the plans one makes.  We planned to live out our last years in the cabin, hoping to age as well as our neighbors.  The arc won't match that plan.  Winters in Florida, Texas, or California are now far more appealing than months of relentless subzero temperatures, and seemingly interminable snowfalls.  I'll miss the summers in the woods, though, I know that.

Time changes nearly everything.