Day 26 (sort of).

Things are not good. Annyong is at the vet, and don't worry, I think he'll be okay. But jesus. I'm back at the cabin from Bemidji, but I'll go back tomorrow. Okay, long day.

It blizzarded here until late, and the dog and I went for a walk when it stopped, up the road.

Annyong ran off at one point, and I assumed he was chasing a squirrel until I heard a scuffle and him whining. I went to find him, and he walked out of the woods, wagging his tail but covered in porcupine quills. He was a mess, and I was able to get him back to the cabin, where I realized he really needed to see a vet, so I wrapped him in a blanket so he wouldn't scratch at things and put him in the van and drove to Bemidji. It was an hour in the van with him whimpering and me constantly reaching over to pet him and try to keep him from moving around.

He's still there now. The vet, a very nice man, said that he's relatively sure they can save one eye, but the other is apparently a total loss, which I think I knew even before he got in the car. He was a mess. But no organs were punctured, and most of the blood was from his face, so I think he'll be fine, even if he's a little blind. I'll drive back tomorrow and report. I hope he'll be okay. God, I hope he is. I guess I'll find out tomrrow.

Day 25.

It's nasty out there, snowing and with a fierce wind from the north. There's not a whole lot of snow on the ground, if only because it can't gain any purchase; the wind whips it away and all that's left are tiny little drifts. It's howling over the top of the chimney and really giving all the trees a good shake.

The snow started last night just shortly after dark, and the wind has picked up since then. I woke up about 3 or 4 in the morning and stumbled outside to pee, barefoot and shirtless, and on my way out, I reflexively went to thumb the knob on the door that locks it. I managed to stop myself in time, but had I not, I'd be huddled in the shed right now in my boxers, shivering, draped in the lawnmower bag, and trying to figure out a way to break into the cabin.

But for the wind, this isn't that horrifying. Visibility is still pretty high, and although it's supposed to continue for the next day or so, it's nothing some winter wear can't weather. Weather.com says the wind is only 18 mph, but there's no way that's true.

I cut a nice pile of wood yesterday, and I'm glad I did. In addition to making sure I didn't freeze, the work was intensely satisfying, and I came in to have lunch, covered head to toe in sawdust, my hands buzzing from the saw, and felt like Mister Honest Labor. Fresh-cut wood smells just wonderful, and I've now got a good-sized pile of birch that, for whatever reasons, seems to burn more slowly than the stuff I've been using.

I reconstructed my lost chapter yesterday, and it's much, much better for it, as I knew it would be. I finished up my awesome chicken over the course of the today, and today I start on the pile of pork roast I pulled from the freezer. What to do with it? Probably just sear it off and eat it with some beans or something, since I've certainly got a load of those. Ooh. Black-eyed peas.

Day 24.

I am in a rotten mood, and I attribute this to three things:

1) The low-battery indicator bleep of my phone, which started around 6 in the morning and continued, every 30 seconds or so, until I woke up. My phone now has the battery-life of approximately 13 minutes, and the fine people of Motorola designed this indicator bleep to be the most annoying sound ever created or heard by man.

2) The insistent licking of the dog, who ignored my suggestion that he go outside before I went to bed and bugged me from sunrise on. Having done so he's now curled up on the bed, having gone back to sleep. That little shit. It's a good thing he's so adorable, or I would've made his legs into ham a long time ago.

3) The dream I had in which everyone I know—indeed, perhaps everyone who has ever lived—came up to visit me here, packed in like sardines and constantly bickering. "I want to sit near the fire!" "No, I want to sit near the fire!" "We're all out of cereal! Who are all the cereal?" "Don't look at me! It was him!" Thus begin my returning-to-society anxiety dreams.

Anyway. I am now listening to my surefire, knock-my-ass-out-of-a-bad-mood soundtrack. It never, ever fails, and I'm already feeling better. Would you like to know what it is? Yes? Promise not to laugh? Okay. It's John Deby's score from the Back to the Future trilogy. My favorite track is number eight, "Doc Returns."

Anyway. I made pie last night, which was lovely, since I don't consider myself much of a baker. Graham cracker crust, whiskey caramel-tossed apples. Mmmm. It really made me wish I had some ice cream, but I settled for a glass of milk.

I heard wolves again last night, but these were farther off. I was also going to take pictures of birds I thought were snow geese this morning, since my father took the curmudgeon's side in the Great You Didn't See a Snow Goose Argument of '09. It turned out that these were not, in fact, snow geese, they were swans. But, this doesn't mean that all birds I saw weren't snow geese, only that these specific birds were not. My greatest goal is to get a picture of snow geese and put this whole thing to rest.

Okay. I have to drink some coffee and wake up suitably enough to operate a chainsaw.

Day 23.

Today was pretty quiet and I don't have a lot to report. It was sunny and in the 40s for most of the day, and was quite nice out. We've lost a lot of snow again in the past we days. I broke up and grilled my remaining chicken, chopped some deadfall, and now I'm watching The Great Escape, which is still one of the finest films ever made, and it is unlikely that anyone will ever be as cool as Steve McQueen.

My chicken is awesome. I did a little dry rub and made a Carolina mustard sauce for it, then enjoyed it with no utensils and a pile of paper towels. The plan was to birch-smoke it, but the smoke birch produces is just too acrid, even if it's been soaking for a while, so I just grilled at low temperature. I enjoy breaking down chickens, I realized today, almost as much as I like chopping wood, and for good reason: they're fundamentally the same activity, partitioning big things into useful little things with something sharp. And there's often blood involved in both. I could be the world's first butcher/lumberjack author.

I need to bust the chainsaw tomorrow, since one of the two remaining portions of the woodpile consists entirely of birch too big for the fireplace. Whee to that.

Day 22: a recap.

One thing that sucked about today:

Due to a hilarious misunderstanding between me and my power strip, I lost an entire chapter.

Many things that did not suck:

—The chapter wasn't all that good anyway. It'll be better for the rewrite.

—On my way out the door today, with my boots on and everything, I got a little ditty stuck in my head and, on a whim, picked up my guitar to figure it out, and then sat down and wrote and recorded the best song I've ever written.

—I drove down to Longville, past the Federal Dam, and back around, and on my way back saw wolves. WOLVES. Saw. Wolves. The dog was sleeping in the passenger seat and I woke him up by shouting, "No shit! Wolves!"

—I drove up Cass Co. Route 7, up the east side of the lake, past all the hoity-toity resorts and the Winnibigosish Dam (where, apparently, most of the walleye fry in the country are produced. Chances are good, if you're eating walleye from the Pueblo Reservoir, it came, somewhere down the line, from right there). I'd forgotten how gorgeous it is: all huge red pines and little birch gulleys. In the setting sun, it was glorious.

—I went to the Gosh Dam for a bite to eat, having picked up a copy of the Star-Tribune in Longville, and sat down to read it, and there was a story about a guy I know, a classical pianist who is coming back to play with the Twin Cities Orchestra. The article was glowing.

—The Star-Tribune actually has well-written, intelligent pieces on classical music, almost as if they'd actually employed someone to write them who isn't making shit up. (This item dedicated to a few papers who will remain nameless.)

—The Gosh Dam has mighty good wings.

—I pulled into the driveway and cursed myself for not thinking to turn on the outside lights before I left, but on my way from the van to the cabin saw one of the most amazing night skies I've ever seen. I walked out to the dock and just looked and looked as the dog shivered next to me and licked my hand, urging me to open up the cabin and start a fire.

—Wolves!

Day 22.

I’m sort of running out of food. This isn’t a bad thing, since I’m also running out of time up here, but in my blind rush to prepare balanced, hearty and nutritious food, I overlooked the other 600 pounds of meat in the freezer. So it’s meat, meat, meat from here on out, which should make for a gripping colonoscopy.

It’s gorgeous and sunny, although only about ten degrees out, and I have to get out of the cabin today. Yesterday’s ambitious plan to interact with people fizzled out when I wrote about four pages, did some puttering, and then took an afternoon nap that stretched into the evening. Since it takes so long to do anything here and I woke up about 7 PM, the idea of preparing and then giving myself a bath, shaving and changing clothes was too much to handle, so I just made dinner and moped around all night. There was a gorgeous sunset last night, one of those turns-the-whole-world pink affairs, and I’m pleased to report, courtesy of a bout of insomnia early this morning, the sunrise was fantastic, as well.

Last night, I went to empty my slop-bucket, which was chock-full of vegetable ends and stuff from making stock, and twisted my ankle in the snow and fell, scattering food everywhere about 15 feet from the cabin. I cleaned up as much as I could in the dark, but I imagined that the rest of it could be smelled from miles away and that it would result in a scrum of scavengers, buzzards and bears and wolves and probably wolverines and yeti squabbling, like the animal Thunderdome, over a few boiled chicken bones.

This didn’t happen, of course—all that happened is that I had to yell at the dog from nosing around in that area, but it was a good reminder that up here, in the Endless Struggle for Food, I have it and nothing else does.

I’m going to go on a drive today, see some of the other 9,999 lakes (although, misnomer alert for non-Minnesotans: it’s more like 30,000 lakes here), and then I’m going to come back and barbecue a chicken, temperature outside be damned.

Day 21.

The sun is out, sorta, and it's a little colder today. I need to do some stuff around the cabin, and I'd like to take a long walk through the woods at some point. There's a football-field-sized chunk of ice that broke off from the channel and drifted very slowly onto the lake, and the cold temperatures have re-frozen some of the river. But for that, and for the snow the past few days, it's been busy out there, and Annyong is having a blast chasing angry little red squirrels around.

Went to the Winnie Store yesterday, where I was hit on by a very cute Chippewa girl driving a BMW with tribal plates. This was a new experience for me, but I simply finished filling my water jugs and moseyed on out, because I am a well-trained husband. I've also apparently befriended the kid who works there, a sixteen-or-so-year-old who was seemingly trying to impress me with how cool he is. "I think I need a smoke break," he told me, lackadaisically.

As I was carrying my beer and water jugs back in from the van to the cabin, I had a conversation with the dog, as I generally do, about how he was not helping me at all. "You're a lazy bastard," I told him, and he took this to be a game, darting around me and running, at full clip, rings around the cabin, until it devolved into me chasing him through the yard, shouting at the top of my lungs, "LAAAAZY BAAASTARD! LAAAAZY BAAAAASTARD," him barking joyously at me until both of us were exhausted and covered in snow. This would, I imagine, have been an interesting tableau to anybody who might have come across it, but of course, no one did.

I'm going to track down and chop some more deadfall today, since the woodpile is really starting to look meager. I'm halfway through the book, and those 60,000 words have been well worth it. I'll get back down to writing this evening, but I'd like to be around people tonight, too. Maybe I'll grab a bite to eat and a beer somewhere.

Day 20.

Snow continues here, but it's the lazy, pretty variety, and it's quite nice. I need to get out of the cabin. I haven't left since Saturday, and I'm getting a little stir-crazy, despite my late-night online drinking with friends from home. (Point of interest: bourbon chased with milk? Not altogether bad. Give it a shot.) I might take a run into Cass Lake to get water and a few things and interact with people for a little while. The snow on the ground isn't enough to preclude me going anywhere.

It has become a big bald eagle party up here. I'm not sure how many I'm seeing, since I'm only seeing them one or two at a time, but it's become totally routine to see one in the branches on the bank, or soaring overhead, or even setting down in the yard.

A fun story: A few evenings ago, after I'd closed the blinds, I was writing and was suddenly shocked by a weird noise coming from the yard. It sounded like all the word like there was someone out there, playing the trumpet. This was the evening after I met the curmudgeon, so my initial thought was, He's crazy. He's an insane trumpet-player and he's come for me. I whipped open the blinds and saw a swan, pecking at some slop-water I'd thrown over the bank. It looked toward the cabin and honked.

I also need to get rid of some trash and some recycling. I wonder if the Winnie store will let me dump some stuff there, if I buy some of their overpriced beer, perhaps. We'll see.

Day 19.

It's snowing out, little flakes that aren't accumulating on the ground, since it's still above freezing. The snow's a nice break from dismal gray.

I've discovered that the only thing that burns worse than aspen is wet aspen. It's like nature designed the tree specifically to suck at providing heat. I've chopped up some birch deadfall I found in the woods, and that's much nicer.

Yesterday, I finished up the chapter I'd started the night before and found myself unable to write anything new. So I just combed back through everything, doing a little rewriting and feeling bored and spent and a little lonely. The nonstop rain didn't help much, since I couldn't even go outside.

The dog was hating the rain; he was constantly bugging my to let him out, and I'd do so, and he'd venture out nervously and then dart right back inside, his tail between his legs. And five minutes later he'd be nosing my hand again to go out. After dark, I had to pee myself, and put on a jacket to do that. The dog watched me from the door as I peed in the driving rain. He's such a desert wuss.

No sign of the curmudgeon. He hasn't been around and when I took a short walk yesterday afternoon down the bank, during a break in the rain, I didn't see any lights or smoke at any of the other cabins. He seems to have been an apparition. Or maybe he travelled from the future to warn me about the dangers of being grumpy. Maybe he's me!

I've got stock on the stove right now, which I'm now thinking was just a tremendous waste of water, although those lamb bones do smell good. I'm also thinking that I'd love to barbecue some chicken—or better yet, smoke it—but I'll have to wait for a dry day to do it.

Day 18.

It's still rainy and dismal, the world divided neatly into shades of gray and green, and the temperature has been slowly dropping since this morning. It's still in the 40s, though, and it's wet and icky out, a good environment in which to write and drink coffee.

The bald eagles up here have become much more visible. Scarcely an hour goes by when I don't see them. Yesterday they were at work all day, collecting branches to build their nests with, and I'm sure there'll be eaglets soon.

I looked up from writing today and was surprised to see a man in the yard. I went out to talk to him, after calling off the dog. I have no idea who he is, but he apparently has a cabin up here, and we chatted for a few minutes about the coming spring. He's a tremendous curmudgeon. I told him that the bird life has increased by leaps and bounds, that I'd seen snow geese and herons and swans and ducks. "You didn't see snow geese," he told me irritably. And right now, as I type this, there's a snow goose winging her way over the river.

I went for a nice walk yesterday to chop up and haul back some deadfall, since the woodpile is shrinking rapidly. There's something incredibly wholesome about breaking a trail through the woods, an axe on your shoulder, a dog at your side—in a way that, say, walking down the city block with an axe can't really touch.

It's supposed to get cold out again in a few days, and I'm looking forward to a shift in the weather, in whatever direction. I think I'll start on a batch of stock tonight, since I've been hoarding bones since I arrived here, and I'll turn that stock into some sort of delicious soup. But for now, I have to go and eat green beans.

There's another one, a snow goose. Didn't see a snow goose, my ass.

Day 17.

It rained last night, and now the snow has been reduced to sort of a sloppy film on the world. The patch of open water has exploded outward and, when I went out this morning to get wood, I was startled by the amount of bird chatter going on. It's gray and chilly, although well above freezing, and there's not a soul on the lake.

I got a whole lot of nothing done yesterday. I went out to chop up the last of my whole aspen logs and in the process pulled something in my shoulder, and I couldn't seem to make words on the page, so I essentially sat around and ached, did some dishes and ate leftovers and watched DVDs while feeling sorry for myself. I gave myself another bath to the sound of the rain droning on the metal roof, then turned in early and slept for 10 hours. Despite the dreariness, I have "We All Shine On" stuck in my head. At this point, I think the ghost of Lennon is mocking me.

I'm going to start letting my fire go out during the day, since I'm concerned that I'll run out of wood and then get caught in a spring blizzard. So I'll build it up in the morning, let it burn for a few hours to dispel the cold that set in during the night, let it die, then build it again when it gets dark. Like an incredible dumbass, I left my boots on the deck last night, to guard my mother's carpets from mud, but now they're soaked through. I actually poured water out of them, which I then boiled and used to do dishes this morning, just like the pioneers did. They're drying in front of the fire, and they better hurry up, because I'm sort of dying to take a walk. More rain is supposed to roll in later, so I'd like to get some air before it does, then jump back into the book.

Day 16.

I'm officially halfway through with my stay. As I write this, two bald eagles are perched on the edge of the ice by the river channel, watching the open water. They're the two tiny dots you can see in the photo above. It's a clever way to fish. Go America.

Jeff left for North Dakota after a couple days of hangin', drinkin' grillin', philosophical chattin' and other assorted dudery, him having listened to me yammer on about various subjects because I hadn't spoken to anyone in so long. Our first night, we did up some ribeyes, then went for a walk on the lake in the dark. It was quite mild out, and fog was rolling in. We walked probably a quarter-mile out or so, then looked around, seeing only the lights of the cabin, what looked like a permanent ice-house and the glow of lights past the horizon. With the mist, it was really quite eerie. Then we went back to the cabin and drank Canadian whiskey until late.

Yesterday, we took a little day trip to Itasca and the Mississippi headwaters and then through Bemidji, where we got a bite to eat at the same bar I'd been to before. On the way back, we saw what might be the most awesome thing ever: a roadkilled deer being eaten by a bald eagle. I crept up in the van and managed to grab a few pictures as the eagle flapped away. We later saw a roadkilled wolf, as well, which was sort of sad.

Jeff had brought out some North Dakota lamb, which we grilled with peppers and apples. This was unbelievably awesome, and a recipe I should remember.

The lake is really opening up. The open water in the river channel is widening by the hour, and the ice is retreating onto the lake. It's really quite neat to watch, and there's definitely been more wildlife activity as things warm up. We're supposed to get some rain today and tomorrow, which will make short work of the snow.

Day 14.

It's snowing out again, which may or may not turn into rain. It's quite pretty mild out, so I guess we'll wait and see. The excitement!

I went into Cass Lake yesterday to pick up some stuff, and ended up having what turned into a half-hour conversation with Barb, the nice old lady who offered free samples at Teal's SuperValu. The thing about Teal's is that the employees there, in my experience, outnumber the shoppers by at least 3 to 1. So Barb and I chatted about Colorado for a while, and then I edged away and picked up some meat for more jerky, some more vegetables and other essentials (Old Dutch Dill Pickle chips).

There's a few tribal buildings in Cass, affliated with the Leech Lake reservation, and yesterday there were about a dozen people gathered there, protesting something. I didn't really understand what the specific target of the protest was, although there were several signs about "NO ELDRIDGE," but the gist was pretty clear: get the fuck off our land.

I'd never seen any sort of political activity by the Chippewa up here, so I found this pretty interesting. They should try to recruit my dad, the Republican with a tribal card that, he was pleased as punch to find, allows him to dump for free on the rez in addition to earning him free healthcare. Those lucky Indians!

I made a big batch of chili yesterday and prepped more beef for jerky, which I'll be popping into the oven to dry here shortly. I've got some cleaning and chore-type stuff to get done before Jeff gets here, but I'm not really begrudging myself the time away from the book, since I wrote until 4 in the morning. If I have time, I'll get some pictures up.

Day 13.

The bears are awake, and at least I know what the dog was barking at now. What you’re looking at there are bear tracks. Huuuuuge bear tracks that I discovered just this morning, while on a walk by the bank, directly east of the dock. I looked down below and saw some tracks and thought, Hmmmm. I don’t think I ever went walking there, and went to investigate. The stride on this thing is massive—there’s about five feet between each print, and you can see from comparison with my sunglasses how big each print is.

The prints come from the river to the west of the dock and curve inward toward shore, where they show that the bear climbed up the bank. I went atop the banks to see where they went from there, but as there’s nothing but bare ground up above there, I lost them. At least there’s no sign that it was sniffing around the cabin, and I’m quite glad I’m not keeping garbage or any sort of food outside.

The bears up here are black bears, smaller and altogether more skittish than, say, grizzlies. But if they’re waking up, that means that they’re incredibly hungry, having not eaten for four months, and the females will have cubs. Now—as opposed to later in the summer, when they’re fat and happy and gorging themselves on blackberries and tourist trash—is not a good time to run into one.

Anyway. I did nothing but write yesterday, churning out another chapter and sequestering myself inside except to pee and fetch wood. I’m sort of living and breathing this thing now, to the point where I’m becoming annoying to everyone I’ve spoken to. That’s okay, since the bandwidth left on my wireless card is running out and I’ll have to severely curb my internet use for the next week or so.

My friend Jeff is coming up tomorrow from where he lives in North Dakota, so it’s due time I leave the cabin again to get some water and provisions. It’s turned cold again, not the blistering negatives of last week but still hovering, at night and in the early morning, around 15 degrees. But it’s climbing to the thirties now, and tomorrow is supposed to bring more warmth and, apparently, rain.

Day twelve.

You know what's unsettling? When your dog wakes you from a sound sleep by barking and barking, staring toward the window with his hackles raised, growling, for upwards of half an hour. Needless to say, I didn't get back to sleep for quite a while and I'm thusly a little foggy-brained this morning in a way that coffee can't seem to penetrate.

I don't have a whole lot to report. I wrote a lot yesterday, and I'm thoroughly pleased with myself as a result. At this point, I've established my characters to a point where there's really no question as to what they're going to do; as long as I keep my fingers on the keyboard, and my attention away from stupid-ass Facebook, the story is going to write itself. It's a pretty excellent feeling.

It's a little cooler today, but still fairly warm out. During the night, a massive patch of open water appeared on the river channel, where a week ago I felt that disconcerting creaking. This isn't water over ice, either—this is completely open water that extends from out of my view to the east past the sand bar and onto the lake proper.

I need to either get or make water today; the huge pile of dishes from Nick's visit, to say nothing of the hangover dehydration that followed, wiped out my water supply and I've only got about a gallon and a half left. There's not a whole lot of clean snow anywhere anymore, so this may require a trip to the Indian store to buy something so he'll let me fill my containers.

The dog has a new adorable thing: he begs for snow. When I'm out walking, I'll often grab a handful of snow to suck on, and he's come to be as interested in this as he would be in, say, a chunk of bacon. I'll offer him some, and he'll take a polite little bite, then continue watching my hand. It's pretty cute.

Onto writing!

A mess of pictures.

I just ate dinner (dirty rice with andouille, and it was delicious, thank you), so while I'm digesting I figured I'd put some pictures up from today. I took a long and wonderful walk in the sun, off the road and into a clutch of pine and fir. It's really amazing how quickly the seasons are changing, whether it's for good or not.









This last one requires some explanation. This was in an area full of young pines about 100 yards from the road, where it was clear deer had spent a lot of time. There was spoor everywhere, tracks, and stripped bark. I imagine that this is an ideal place for deer to bed down, since the trees are still so young that their branches are only a foot or two from the ground, providing good cover.

In any case, I was checking some of these nesting sort of areas and came on this one, where the ground was a bit more trampled. There was also a bit of blood on the periphery, and a kind of goo on the ground. Long story short, I think I just happened upon a place where a deer had recently given birth. Now, I don't want to get too hippie-dippy on you, because it's really not the way I roll, but there, in the quiet underneath the tree there, it really felt sort of sacred, a place I wasn't really intended to see but a special one nonetheless. It put me in a right good mood. Too bad my pictures of it suck.

Day eleven.

The melt continues. There's bare ground everywhere and signs that this might be true spring: increased bird activity, more mammals out and about and, most telling, insects. There must have been a big hatch yesterday, because the front window was, come sunset, battered by moths. And with moths comes a lot of other animal life, things waking and migrating in to eat them.

Speaking of which, I had a bit of a scare last night. It was around 10-ish and I was avoiding writing by chatting online, and I excused myself to pee. I flipped on the outside lights and opened the door and heard a huge crash on the other side of the wood pile, near the outhouse and the neighbor's shed. I grabbed the dog, who was growling like mad, and darted back inside. I'm not proud to report that I headed right for the rifle underneath the bed, and then, making sure the dog couldn't squeeze by me, peeked my head back outside to listen to the animal crashing through the woods. It was something big, and it was moving slowly away from the cabin and down toward the road and to the bog behind it. Whatever it was, I'd apparently startled it off, and I put the rifle away, peed and gathered some more firewood, then settled in for the night. Theories abounded during my discussions later on. It was a bear! It was a moose! It was Sasquatch or chupacabra or Elvis! It was a deer.

This morning, I went out to look for tracks, and they were right there by the outhouse: a big furrow through the snow and then narrow little hoof-marks. It was a deer—and not even a particularly big one—but it must have been lame, for how slow it was moving. Normally, you startle a deer and they're gone in a flash. This took a good minute to get out of earshot. I'm sure this is the first of many wildlife encounters as the world comes to life around me, and I'm happy to report that I didn't panic, shoot myself or the dog or the deer, or get eaten. These northwoods white-tails are killers.

Did some good writing yesterday, including several instances where I thought I'd written myself into a corner and then, through narrative brilliance, navigated my way out of it. This is unreasonably rewarding. I took a long, somewhat tiring walk with the dog after doing chores, down to the landing and then up the other way, along the shore and up the river heading east. Slogging through the snow in the woods, as warm as it's been, is taxing; you're basically wading through knee-deep slush the whole way. I came back and enjoyed a late lunch of my jerky, then settled into the rocking chair for a nap, Annyong curled up on my lap, because I am 112 years old.

I want to write and write today. I'm on a good streak and I don't want to lose momentum. On the other hand, it is so. Nice. Out. Maybe a walk, then writing.

Special drunken bulletin!

My sister plays, for the entire interwebs to hear and with apparent glee, the drunken messages that Nick and I left for her the other night:



Milwaukee's Best is a hell of a drug.

This is funnier if you know that, as a child, my sister suffered regularly from pinworms—just to, you know, spread the embarrassment around.

Day ten.

It's melting up here, and fast. I've had to become used to the new sounds that arrived with the warm: the drip drip drip of snowmelt, the occasional loud thud of a sheet of snow sliding off the metal roof and the more active twittering of the birds. There's bare ground up here now and a layer of slush and standing water atop the ice on the lake that is growing by the hour. It's nearly reached the docks now.

I'm certainly in for a few more freezes and a few more snowfalls, but it even smells like spring up here now, that sort of soggy fecund smell I remember from growing up in Minnesota. It's not unwelcome, even if the widespread mud means that I have to wipe the dog off every time he goes outside.

I made the trip into Bemidji yesterday, more for the sake of getting out of the cabin for a while than any pressing errand I had to run. Once there, I parked near the Paul Bunyan square, got out of the van and immediately was called a Nazi by a passing carload of college kids. The shaved head might have had something to do with it, although I was carrying a pink Nalgene and wearing sneakers—not exactly the Hitler Youth uniform. I was bursting to pee, so I ran to a Subway to use their bathroom and, while there, asked the clerk about a place to get a beer and a bite to eat. "Where do the kids drink?" I asked, feeling like the oldest old in Oldsville, and she pointed me to a place called 209, which, but for the hockey posters on the wall, could've passed for Bemidji's sole hipster bar. (There was, at least, a pierced and tattooed bartender who brought me my club sandwich.) I sat alone, reading the Journals of Captain Cook, while the place, packed with Bemidji State kids, sang along to "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" on the jukebox. Three times in a row. There'd been CHA hockey playoffs in town, so I gathered, and one table hosted a huge trophy. It felt nice to be around other people, even if I wasn't talking to any of them and instead read about natives, "Coper coloured and with long Black haire," that Cook and his men encountered before wiping them out with syphilis. Metaphors abound.

On my way to and from Bemidji, I passed through Cass Lake, the closet town of any size, and saw with some surprise that their one-screen movie theatre, a big metal-sided barn, was playing Slumdog Millionaire. This seemed totally incongruous until I realized that Cass, a pretty poor town and predominantly Chippewa, probably has a lot in common with the slums of Mumbai. So thanks, Danny Boyle, for bridging the gap between Indians-with-dots to Indians-with-feathers.

There was also the clunker on Cass Lake itself, a beat-up car with its engine block and tires removed, on which people place bets as to the date it'll finally go through the ice. For those of you who have read Neal Gaiman's American Gods, you'll remember this as a crucial plot point, and I wanted to go find the guy who was selling tickets to see if he was as grizzled and charming as the character Gaiman wrote.

So? My jerky? Bad-ass. Just flat-out delicious, spicy and flavorful and beautifully textured. I wish I'd made more of it, since three pounds of meat cook down to about a pound of jerky. But there's always the three weeks I have left up here, and I'm sure I'll be making more. On today's agenda: writing and writing and writing, then writing some more. The warmth means that I don't have to pay quite as close attention to the fire (I have, in fact, let it go out during the day the past few days), which means less carrying, less stacking and, sadly, less chopping. But there are always those periods of writers block that can only be broken by means of swinging an axe, thankfully.






(Oh, and, in random occurrences, I parked in front of a tattoo parlor to go into 209 in Bemidji, and as I got out of the van, a guy was leaving the tattoo place, locking up the doors. He looked at the van, saw the THE GREAT REDNECK HOPE on the back and told me, matter-of-factly, "You know there's a band called that." I sort of spluttered, "Yeah, I know, it was my band, that I was, like in," and he just soberly nodded and walked off. Weird.)