11/30/08 TRACKS IN THE SNOW

Sunday, 8:45 AM. 28 degrees, wind N, light. The sky is overcast and the barometer predicts snow. We got about 1” of snow last night in town, which I scraped off the drive and walks this morning. I think there was more to the west and north, as there was a mini-blizzard as I drove back yesterday. There were a few deer tracks at the Larsen’s sugar bush, lots of coyote tracks and a very fresh track which at first I thought not big enough to be a bear and maybe was a wolf track but on closer inspection I am sure it was a small bear. I thought it would be denned up by now, but there have been a lot of bears seen this week. We didn’t go to church this morning as Joan still has a bad cough that won’t go away. I will probably go out and poke around in the woods later this afternoon, but I have pretty well come to the conclusion that this is just not my year. The ferry is going across to La Pointe just now; it doesn't leave any tracks.

11/29/08 A RATHER SULLEN DAY

Saturday, 8:00 AM. 24 degrees, wind SW, calm. The sky is completely overcast except for a glimmer of sunshine on the extreme SE and S horizon. The barometer predicts partly cloudy conditions but frankly the day looks rather sullen.
There are a lot of slippery spots on the roads from the last snow, and walking the dog was not much fun. The rest of the morning will be spent going to the recycle center and other necessary chores, and out to a different hunting spot for the last few hours of the day. I am giving up on my main stands, there are no deer moving in that whole large area. Yesterday afternoon I saw only two tracks, which showed clearly in 4 inches of snow. Both were trampled by coyote tracks. Can the coyotes be running the deer down into the heavy cover in swamps and ravines? Most hunters in the area (I can’t speak for more distant spots) have been seeing few deer, and all are rather disgusted and perplexed. It will be interesting to see how the DNR analyzes the hunt, and how that will match with what the locals think. I can see a dispute brewing. One very long time resident and hunter said he saw a few does but no bucks out in the County Forest land west of Bayfield, although he had a sow bear with three cubs come to his stand. Another acquaintance had a large bear come to his stand, evidently enjoying all the deer apples.

11/28/08 POST HOLIDAY DEPRESSION? GET A DOG AND A BIRD FEEDER

Friday, 8:30 AM, 31degrees, wind W, calm. The sky is overcast with storm clouds, the barometer predicts precipitation and we got about two inches of snow yesterday. It now looks and feels like winter.
I shoveled snow this morning, wet and crystalline. I have a lot of post-Thanksgiving chores to do today, including taking the heavy handicapped ramp back to the parish house, and filling the depleted wood box. It is very slippery under foot and driving. After lunch I will head to the deer woods once again. Misery truly loves company, and everyone is complaining about the mysterious disappearance of our quarry. Few deer have been taken, except by “the usual suspects,” to use that old line from The Maltese Falcon. For anyone suffering from post-holiday depression, I have two non-medical remedies to offer; a good dog and a bird feeder. Animals are truly happy creatures unless in the throws of some immediate crisis. We should watch them and learn.

11/27/08 HAPPY THANKSGIVING, BUT DON'T TURN ON THE TV

Thursday, 8:15 AM. 25 degrees, wind W, calm. Skies are partly cloudy, and the barometer predicts precipitation.
Happy Thanksgiving! The deer are off the hook for today. Our family is scattered across the country (Ohio, Texas, Colorado) so we will spend the holiday with some of our church family, a welcome substitute. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, a secular Holy Day, if that is not an oxymoron. No presents to buy, no cards to send, no services to attend, just good food, and good fellowship. In many respects it is our oldest national holiday, whether one considers its origin to be in 1621 with the traditional harvest feast between Indians and Pilgrims (a good beginning, to which I believe we have finally returned, if we can only elude the grasp of the politically correct). In 1777, Sam Adams of Massachusetts declared a Thanksgiving holiday to celebrate the victory at Saratoga. There were numerous other dates and proclamations, and finally the third Thursday of November was proclaimed by President Roosevelt in 1941 during the depths of World War II as a national day of Thanksgiving. It seems that Thanksgiving is usually celebrated during the depths of one crisis or outrage or another, and the TV is best kept off for the day unless watching football.
Later: it was a fine traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner, eight of us together who otherwise would have probably been alone. It has been a somewhat snowy day and the fire was kept burning brightly. Lucky ate the giblets, all of us are happily sated and back to our own devices, and wonder of wonders, the dishes are mostly done. Having had our Thanksgiving, we can take on the world again tomorrow.

11/26/08 NO DEER, LOTS OF WOODPECKERS, GREAT SUNSET

Wednesday, 7:30 AM. 22 degrees, wind W, calm. The skies are clear, it is a fine morning.
I went into the woods for an hour before dark yesterday, still nothing moving, but the sunset was awesome, and not to be missed. No camera and probably no artist could capture the immense sunset, all pink and orange, from the SW horizon to the NE.
Few deer are being taken, or seen in our area, from what I can gather. Friends and neighbors who usually get a deer are coming up empty. I have seen only one deer hanging in town although there must be others. Minnesota’s season, now over, was down 20 percent. There certainly have been deer around, they just seem to have disappeared. I am going to change my tactics and go out mid-morning, then come home and continue cleaning the house.What there are a lot of is downy and hair woodpeckers, this male downy so concentrated on sunflower seeds I got within three feet of him.

11/25/08 TIME TO CLEAN HOUSE

Tuesday, 8:00 AM. 24 degrees, wind NW, calm at present. The sky is mostly clear with clouds forming over the lake beyond Madeline Island, mostly I think steam rising off the cooling lake. Very shortly we will be seeing “lake smoke,” clouds of condensation rising off the water even near shore.
There is a little fresh snow this morning. It was good to sleep in, and most of today will be devoted to helping Joan clean the house for Thanksgiving, we are having guests for dinner. I will go out hunting late this afternoon, maybe I can see signs of deer movement on some fresh snow. The birds are sleeping late also (or were up early and went back to bed) as there is no current activity at the feeders.
Sitting in the woods gives one a lot of time to think, which is a mixed blessing. For instance, I have been thinking that I should be CEO of one of the Big Three auto makers. After all, I have undoubtedly bought and driven more of their products than any of them and know their many failings and few virtues quite well. The ’79 Ford Fairmont that disintegrated piece by piece as it was driven down the road (the self-same car that continually got stuck in park, and the response of the manufacturer was to send owners a sticker for the dash that said, "caution, car may become stuck in park); the ’57 Chevy and the ’69 Chevy and the ’75 Pontiac all with failed camshafts; The mini-Cadillac Cimmaron that was an overpriced pile of junk; the ’97 Chrysler van that consumed three transmission; I could go on and on. Not that they were all bad, but certainly most not very good. Cars remembered fondly were a '39 Buick Century and a '51 Hudson, also a couple of Studebakers, the latter two makers long deceased. Also, I have actually produced things with my own hands, so I know something about the work ethic. Finally, I have the distinct advantage of not being educated at Harvard, Yale, Chicago or Stanford, the alma matters of the cabal of unoriginal thinkers that has run the country into the ground for generations. Come to think of it, most of us have the same advantages and all could do as well, certainly no worse than they, so why don’t we just all draw straws?

11/24/08 THE MIND'S EYE AND BIRCH SEEDS

Monday, 6:00 AM. 23 degrees, wind W, calm. There is a sliver of moon and some stars. The barometer is down.
End of the day: it was another frustrating day in the deer woods. Sat as long as I could this morning, watched a weather front come in (see photo) and it snowed off and on all day. In the afternoon I abandoned my tree stand for a new part of the woods where I found reasonably fresh deer sign but still saw no deer. This is beginning to sound like some Papa Hemmingway saga, perhaps “The Old Man and the Woods.” Anyway, it gives one time to think and observe. A thought: the mind has to process and categorize what the eye gives it, and if the mind does not recognize what the eye gives it, it will adjust it to something it can identify or rationalize. Viz.: two crossed branches do not process, and so become two alert deer ears; a charred stump does not look like a stump so it becomes a black bear. And on and on. That’s one reason I always carry binoculars in the woods, not so much to see what things are, but what they are not. “The mind’s eye” is very literally an organ of sight. I remember, at least 50 years ago (that’s becoming something of a routine comment) walking a hedgerow in a farm field in southern Wisconsin with a deer hunting buddy, and we both commented on the branch laying flat on the ground that we had nearly stumbled over looking very much like deer antlers. As we turned around to look back toward the “branch” it suddenly got up and ran away, attached to a very large buck. Two startled young hunters never got off a shot. Our brains processed what our eyes saw as branch, rather than antlers, because they were flat on the ground.
Observation: the fecundity of nature is truly amazing. The photo is of tiny star-shaped white birch seeds, now dispersed throughout the woods at least one to the square inch. Multiply that by inches per square foot and square feet per acre and acres per mile and one soon gets into the numerical realm of a bank bailout. The amazing thing is that the birch trees are not asking for any taxpayer help. But, don’t give them any ideas.

11/23/08 LEGACIES OF THE RUT AND SAD MEMORIES

Sunday, 5:15 AM. 30 degrees, wind SW, calm on the porch but windy in the pines. The barometer is down and it feels like a storm brewing.
My plan is to walk the woods road at first light. It is a dark morning. Maybe the deer will move.
Later: I came in for lunch, then went to my alternate spot. Nothing. It’s all about the intersection of time and space lines on a Cartesian graph. In other words, being in the right place at the right time. Well, there's always tomorrow.
Deer season always brings back memories of a monumentally tragic time, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas. A buddy and I were coming back to Milwaukee from checking out our deer stands in the Mapleton Marsh in Waukesha County, Wisconsin in the early afternoon of that day, and turning on the car radio we were surprised to hear nothing but classical music. Turning the dial, we eventually found that the President had been assassinated. Disbelief turned to shock; this was something that was out of the Nineteenth Century, not the Twentieth. People did not know how to respond to this event, emotionally or logically. I was never a Kennedy fan, but this was an attack on America, as certainly as though we had been bombed by the Russians. To make matters even worse and throw the entire event into the realm of conspiracy theory, the assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was himself murdered by a low level mobster, Jack Ruby, two days later. Amazingly, my buddy and I were taking a lunch break from hunting at the Mapleton tavern and saw the latter event live on TV . In any case, 45 years ago seems like yesterday.

The photos are of a buck rub and a buck scrape, legacies of the rut.

11/22/08 PRETTY, COLD, NO DEER

Saturday, 5:30 AM. 10 degrees, wind NW, calm. The sky looks pretty clear, with about a quarter waning moon and some stars so it will be somewhat light before dawn, allowing me to walk down to the tree stand early.
I intend to stay out all day unless I get to too cold and come in for lunch.
5:30 PM: no luck today! Saw nothing except a rabbit, a red squirrel and a crow. It was cold all morning, never getting into the twenties until mid afternoon. It was otherwise a beautiful day with the sun glistening on the frosted branches and grasses. I believe the rut is indeed over, and I don’t know what will move the deer. But hope springs eternal, and I will go out again tomorrow morning, maybe not quite so early, and hunt my way down to my stands.
The photos are of my big oak tree stand with a brush blind around it, of the sun disappearing into the woods late in the day from my tree stand, and the end of the cold, lonesome day. A half-hour in front of the fire with a stiff drink and I am still thawing out.

11/21/08 COLD WEATHER, BRIGHT RED BERRIES

Friday, 8:30 AM. 14 degrees, wind S, calm. Skies are overcast, but the barometer predicts partly sunny weather.
It looks like it will be a frigid opening for the regular gun deer season tomorrow. Much more like the deer seasons I remember from half a century ago, and that is O.K. There were no tree stands or bait stations back then, and most of us walked and moved around more while hunting. Really cold and windy conditions may see more of us reverting to past methods.
The shrubs with the bright red berries are a native Wisconsin holly, Ilex verticillata, which is found in wet locations, often along with red-twigged dogwood and alder. Its leaves are deciduous, so it does not serve the same landscape purpose as evergreen hollies, and the flowers are rather inconspicuous, but the bright red berries are a beautiful addition to the winter landscape, and these plant is available commercially. Some cultivars require a male pollinator plant.

11/20/08 PICKLES AND WILD SWANS

Thursday, 7:30 AM. 17 degrees, wind NW, light. The sky is overcast and the barometer predicts sunshine. The moon was bright early, but it has set and the clouds have moved in.
It was a cold, clear November evening in 1953 when I went down to the basement to see what my father was up to. He was standing at the open door to the cellar under the stairs, which held row upon row of jars of homemade preserves; pickles, pears, apples, peaches, grape juice, tomatoes, pickled eggs…a hundred pond sack of potatoes stood in one corner. “Whatcha doin’, Dad?” I asked. “Surveying my wealth,” he answered. “When your mother has filled the shelves and the coal is in the bin, I am a king in my castle.” And so they were, my parents, a king and a queen in their castle, having survived the farm depression of the Twenties, the Great Depression of the Thirties and the War, cruel blows each, a generation of trouble and toil, with determination and good will. They were American Royalty, beholden to no one and nothing but their own dreams. Role models for us in today’s times.
I have to go to Ashland today and expect to see wild swans on the Bay.

11/19/08 A CONFAB OF CROWS

Wednesday, 8:15 AM. 30 degrees, wind W, calm at the moment. The sky is overcast with sullen clouds and the barometer predicts precipitation.
This morning’s walk was quiet, as evidenced by the crows on the wire in the photo…one can seldom get so close to crows, but they just sat there, looking like the three witches of Macbeth; and I wonder what mischief those two were plotting?
I met Eric loading up his ATV on his pickup to go to tend his deer stand out in the boondocks west of town. He hunts way back in, accessible only by ATV (one might conceivably walk in, but would never get a dead deer out). I don’t have that many wheels, so need to hunt more accessible terrain.
The chamber had its annual meeting and dinner last night, very well attended and the food, catered by the Washburn IGA, was delicious. A number of deserving awards were given for community service. I am amazed at the number of new small businesses which have been established in the last few years, mainly by young folks determined to lead a more satisfying and independent existence. The spirit of entrepreneurship is far from dead!
I’m hauling firewood and stacking it in the shed today, hopefully before it snows.

11/18/08 SOME SUN AT LAST

Tuesday, 8:30 AM. 19 degrees, wind WNW, calm. The sun rose gloriously, but has since clouded over again. The sky is still mostly cloudy, although the barometer predicts sun. I checked my deer stands out in back of the orchard country yesterday late and there has been deer activity around them, apples and pears disappearing quickly. Lucky scared up a deer which went bounding off, so he won’t go along out there again, don’t want to spook them. I have several other stands to check on today out west of the Rez. Maybe we can find a grouse in the process.
The grass pictured is fountain grass, a very decorative non-native ornamental. In my opinion it should only be used with care and where it can be controlled, as it can escape into the wild. A good substitute for it is the native big bluestem grass, Andropogon gerardii, not quite as showy in flower and seed but beautiful in color of foliage, turning deep auburn in fall and winter.
I had a large slice of left over strawberry-rhubarb birthday pie for breakfast so am a happy camper. It would have been a shame to leave it get stale.

11/17/08 A LITTLE LONGER IN THE TOOTH

Monday, 8:00 AM. 23 degrees, wind W, calm at present but blustery earlier, and dime-sized snowflakes are drifting down. This is a repeat of yesterday morning except that the barometer predicts sunshine, which would be welcome.
After reading by the fire all yesterday afternoon, I got restless and Joan and I and Lucky drove out to see if there was any activity at one of my bait stations where a deer has been showing up just about dusk. Nothing. But driving back to Red Cliff on Hwy K a large, gray canine ran in front of the car, one fierce yellow eye glinting in the headlights. Too big to be a coyote, and definitely not a dog, with tail held high…a wolf! Not too surprising though, as this is not more than a mile from a pasture where several cows have been taken by wolves this past year.
Anyway, since today is my birthday, I thought it a good omen, one old lone wolf hailing another; this one at least getting pretty long in the tooth. The mountain ash berries are beautiful against the dark green of the jack pine. No candles on the birthday cake, though…we would have to have the volunteer firemen standing by.

11/16/08 COLD HANDS, WARM HEARTH

Sunday, 8:00 AM. 26 degrees, wind W, calm. The sky is overcast with snow clouds, and it is snowing lightly. The barometer predicts more snow, of which there is a thin covering on the roads, encouraging me to don my Yak Tracks to keep from slipping.
I have been hauling firewood and the dry oak burns like coal. Does anyone else remember heating homes with coal? My mother always said, “it’s a nice steady heat,” as the temperature hit 90 degrees in the house and I went gasping to the kitchen door for air. The good thing about coal is that one could fill the basement coal bin in the summer when there was money, and be secure and warm without a heating bill all winter. My mother liked the house hot, as they almost froze to death during frigid Wisconsin winters when she was a child. She used to say, “I wouldn’t mind going to Hell, at least I’d be warm.” Then she would tell stories about it being so cold in the house that water would freeze in the bucket and would have to be thawed out on the wood stove to make coffee, or about getting dressed for school while under the bed covers, to keep warm. I can still see my grandfather sitting in front of the pot-bellied parlor stove, feeding it previously pruned apple tree branches one by one, along with an occasional lump of soft coal. And we complain when we have to lower the thermostat to 60 degrees to save on the gas bill.

11/15/08 WHO, ME?

8:00 AM, 33 degrees, wind WSW, calm. The sky is overcast but the barometer predicts sun.
We have had a lot of both downy and hairy woodpeckers at the feeders, the downy is about half the size of the hairy but otherwise they are so similar I sometimes have a hard time telling one from the other, unless they just happen to be together.
I have given up trying to keep the chipmunks out of the feeder, and soon they will have more seed in their burrows than I have in the garbage can on the porch. I draw the line at squirrels because they knock the feeders down.
Lots of errands to do today, including hauling more firewood, which I am using up at an alarming rate.

11/14/08 A TALE FROM "JURASSIC PARK"

Friday, 7:45 AM. Wind SW, calm. The channel is wrinkled. The sky is overcast but the barometer predicts sunny skies. The rain gage holds almost an inch of rain. It will be good to see the sun again.
A while back I wrote about the tamaracks, larches and bald cypress, deciduous conifers (that drop their needle-like leaves in the fall), and thus are not “evergreens.” The tree pictured grows in Fountain Garden Park, and is yet another anomaly; a conifer (bearing cones) which is deciduous, but has broad flat leaves like non-coniferous trees (it does not have needles).
Tradition has it that it was discovered growing in a Chinese Buddhist monastery in the late 18th Century and it has been introduced all over the Northern Hemisphere since then. It is evidently extinct in the wild and has changed little if any since the Jurassic era. Ginko biloba, the maidenhair tree (so called because the leaves resemble those of the maidenhair fern) is the only living species in this isolated genus. It is a tough ornamental tree, beautiful and well adapted to city conditions and much used as a street tree. Only the male trees are usually grown, as the female “cones” have a very putrid odor when ripe. But, in the orient the seeds of the fleshy female cones are used for food.
The Ginko, saved as a sacred natural oddity for who knows how many years, has managed to survive for over 60 million years (while the dinosaurs did not) and now roams the earth once more…a true Jurassic Park tale!

10/13/08 PRETTY INVASIVE

Thursday, 8:00 AM. 37 degrees, wind S, light with gusts. The channel looks rough. The sky is overcast and it has been raining, and is still drizzling. The barometer predicts more rain.
A few degrees colder over the past few days and we would have plenty of snow. Ironwood MI, 40 miles straight east across Chequamegon Bay, already has over a foot. It would be good to see the sun, likewise the full moon at night.
The whistling swans, along with a lot of geese and ducks, left the bay down by Ashland, I guess flying out on the last front. I assume more will come in, perhaps riding this front.
This is the time when plants with persistent fruits are very obvious. The one pictured is a European spindle tree, Euonymus europeaus, in Fountain Garden Park just below our house. The photo was taken last week on a sunny day. Its red and pink fruits are spectacular, and I am often asked about it. I don’t recommend planting it though, because it tends to be quite invasive, as are many heavy-fruiting plants. Pretty, though.

11/12/08 RAIN AND WILD SWANS

8:00 AM, 37 degrees, wind SW, light. The channel is wrinkled, the sky is overcast and it is raining, the barometer predicting more of the same. What snow there was is mostly gone.
On a trip to Ashland yesterday we saw our first wild (whistling) swans of the season swimming off the outlet of Fish Creek and the large marsh just west of Ashland on Hwy 2. There were 14, six of which were juveniles, with gray plumage and flesh colored bills and feet rather than the white plumage and black bills and feet of the adults. It looks like it was a good nesting season. The adults are majestic in appearance while swimming, and comical when they “tip-up,” plunging their long necks down into the water to feed, their white rear ends bobbing in the water like giant fishing corks. I am sure they were not trumpeter swans, very rare and even larger, as there would have been a bevy of birders gawking at them through binoculars. Neither were they the European or mute swans, the adults of which have distinctive yellow bills, and they do not hold their necks as straight. We will look for wild swans on the little bays along the shore, as they should now show up in many other places as well. I can’t offer photos of these majestic birds as I don’t have the proper equipment and am not much of a photographer in any case.

11/11/08 A BRISK MORNING

Tuesday, 7:30 AM. 20 degrees, wind NW, calm. The channel has just enough movement to shimmer gold and silver in the rising sun. The sky is clear and the barometer predicts partly cloudy weather.
It was a brisk walk this morning. The sky was clear last night so it was obvious it would get cold. We went shopping in Washburn late yesterday afternoon, took the dog along, and stopped for a walk on the beach at dusk. The sand had a crunch to it already, and the lake surface was so still it looked frozen. My elevated deer stand needs some attention and I need to build a bit of a brush blind around my favorite ground stand as well, and will do that when it warms up a bit.

11/10/08 THANKS, COMPUTER GUY!

Monday, 8:30 AM. 27 degrees, wind NW, mostly calm. The channel is dimpled, the sky overcast with storm clouds in the east, clearing in the west. The barometer predicts sunny skies.
The computer is fixed at long last, by Chris Plansky, a free lance guru who does most of his work for regional school districts. He pondered the problems for a bit, then typed a bunch of commands in somewhere and installed a CD called Disk Wizard, or Witch Wizard, or something, and viola, up and running. It’s all a mystery to me.

11/09/08 IT MUST BE WINTER

Sunday, 8:00 AM. 25 degrees, wind SW, light with gusts. The channel is crawling, the sky mostly cloudy, with storm clouds on the eastern horizon.
We got some snow over the last 24 hours which finally stuck to grass, roads and roofs, a taste of things to come. If it looks like winter, feels like winter and there is snow, it's winter, no matter what the calendar says. Hopefully the computer will get fixed today.

11/08/08 A WINTERY TRIP

Saturday, 7:30 AM, 37 Degrees, wind NW, gusty and raining. The barometer is up, predicting partly cloudy weather.
We encountered rain and snow on the trip and were glad to get home last night, and have to pick Lucky up from Blue Ribbon in Ashland this morning. The meeting yesterday was O.K., with a large emphasis on Emerald Ash Borer, now found in four Wisconsin counties and I am sure will soon hit Milwaukee, where it will be a disaster. The DNR is a huge agency, and does all things properly in theory, but in practice much is left to be desired. The State of Wisconsin does not seem able to marshal the necessary resources to actually quarantine and stop the spread of this pest, and perhaps it is indeed impossible to do so. But, heaven help us if this would be the State’s response to a deadly human disease outbreak.
There is a lot of activity at the bird feeder, everybody taking the approach of winter very seriously now.

11/06/08 A TRIP TO MADISON

Thursday, 8:00 AM. 56 degrees, wind SW, calm. The channel is calm. The barometer predicts rain.
It is a quiet morning, except for the sound of dredging equipment down at the Black Hawk Marina. Leaving for Madison for a quarterly Urban Forestry Council meeting.

11/05/08 THE ELECTION IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE ELECTION

Wednesday, 8:00 AM. Wind SW, calm. 59 degrees, the sky is mostly overcast and the channel is wrinkled. The barometer predicts rain, which we received .4" of last night.
The election is over, and let's hope the next campaign doesn't start today, as we should all take our yard signs down and give ourselves a breather.
The election proved once again as F. Scott Fitzgerald saw almost one hundred years ago, that we are a nation of Gatsbys, great and small, seeking constantly to transform ourselves and our society into the stuff of our dreams, and that is what true freedom is. May God bless America, where each day dawns anew, and the dream never dies.

11/04/08 THIS WEATHER GETS MY VOTE!

Tuesday, Election Day, 8:00 AM. 50 degrees, wind SSW, calm. The channel is glassy. the sky is clear but the barometer predicts rain.
The warm air from the southwest has overwhelmed the lake air, and there is only some haze, rather than the heavy fog of yesterday morning. I thought we had our Indian Summer, but today promises to be a "10". It may break records. The sun washes the still colorful hillsides, and it would be a fine day to be on the lake, but the boats are mostly put up for the winter, which is bound to arrive any day.
Today entails voting and then a trip to Ashland, with perhaps the top down on the way back. If it isn't too hot, there may be time to take the dog and look for grouse and see what the deer are up to. The computer is still down and this is being done on a Chamber computer.

11/03/08 FOG,FUNERALS AND FROST

Monday, 8:00 AM. 43 degrees, wind SW, dead calm. There is a thick fog, and the barometer predicts rain.
The blanket of fog is heavy, the visibility only a few hundred feet. I can hear traffic on Hwy. 13 but cannot see it. The fog horn on the City Dock is bellowing intermittently, and the ferry sounds its horn entering and leaving both ports.
The sun is a silver disc, trying, unsuccessfully at present, to shine through the murky atmosphere.
The Lutheran church bell just tolled, must be a funeral. If so, it is a fitting morning. It seems early for a funeral service, but the Lutherans are mostly early rising Scandinavians, evidently loath to break lifelong habits, even in death.
The old pear tree in Fountain Garden Park has provided me with a whole bushel of rock-hard pears, which I assume the deer will love once we get a really hard frost to soften then up. No luck with the computer as yet, maybe I should put it out on the deck and wait for a hard frost.

11/02/08 THE LIGHT IS ON AGAIN!

Sunday, 8:00 AM, central standard time. 44 degrees, wind SW, light but increasing. The channel is wrinkled, skies overcast, with some rain drops and the barometer predicts rain.
It is great to walk in the light again instead of the dark. Computer still locked up. I am using a Chamber computer.

11/01/08 HOLLOWEEN OVER, COMPUTER DOWN

Saturday,8:00 AM, 40 degrees, wind W, calm. The channel is glassy, the sky is clear and the barometer predicts the same. It looks like today will be a slightly cooler version of the last several days, absolutely beautiful.
Computer problems keep me from a more detailed message.