Thirty at the Forty-Seventh

Baby got back (last night).

2009-04-09T09:43:00.000-07:00

Well, after 21 or so hours on the road, the northwoods giving way to deciduous trees giving way to prairie giving way to flat scrubland giving way to the Front Range, I'm home. I'm still a little sleepy from my drive yesterday, and Annyong is not quite sure what to do, but it's good to be back.

I needed this, and I feel reenergized in a way I haven't in a long time. This was a good thing, a necessary thing, and although I will keep looking over my shoulder every two minutes to check on a fire that isn't there, my shower last night was the best thing ever. "You mean I didn't have to earn this by a 30-minute drive or six hours of melting snow?"

Here's a post I thought I'd put up, which concerns my last night there. Warning, it's pretty hippy-fied:

Wolves were howling again last night, and because it was my last night, and the moon was big—and yeah, because after cleaning all day I was feeling mawkish and maudlin, I went outside upon hearing them, and I actually howled back. I felt ridiculous, absolutely stupid for doing so—until they answered. This began a five-minute dialogue between me, the wolf to the northwest and the other one due north, and my god, that was, perhaps hands-down, the most amazing and transformative thing that has ever happened to me. My wolf impersonation sucked, first out of embarrassment and then out of amazement, and I'm sure this is why the howling, which had gone on for 20 or so minutes before I went outside, stopped. "Who's this jackass?" they were thinking, no doubt. "Why is he giggling between howls?"

Thanks for reading, all of you who did. And thanks for your support.

One big last pictures post.

2009-04-06T16:06:00.000-07:00

I've been cleaning all day and following the cabin-closing guidelines laid on the piece of paper tacked to the inside of the cupboard door labeled CABIN CHECK-OUT, but I just took a long and rather maudlin walk wherein I snapped about 200 pictures that would be of interest of exactly no one but me. (For example, I took a bunch of bittersweet photos of the thermometer outside, thinking, Oh, thermometer. How many times a day did I look at you? while shaking my head sadly.)

So here's some more:

Aaaand, Day 30.

2009-04-05T08:41:00.000-07:00

It's a bit chilly here today, if only by virtue of a stiff wind coming in off the lake. The sky is clear, though, and, as this is my last planned day here (although probably not my last, all told, but I'll get to that), I'm going to take a very long walk. There are small groups of birds I haven't seen before around today, but they haven't gotten close enough for me to make a positive identification. They're a mottled brown, very big, with sort of a striated brown-and-white underside. I want to posit a guess that they're hawks of some kind (maybe chicken hawks?) but I have no idea.

I don't want to leave. Sure, I do want to, because I miss my wife and my house and Colorado and my friends, but I just love it up here: the expanse, the stillness, the fact that I actually need to use my eyes and ears and hands here. It's so trite, the whole "getting back to the land" thing, but this is something I needed to do. The Smiths are up again this weekend, which has made for some needed company, but I'm again looking forward to having the whole lake to myself when they leave today, to go for a night walk and have the only lights I see be the ones at the cabin.

Two chapters in two days, and I'm writing the climax of the book now. One of them needs serious reworking, but if I've learned something about writing up here, it's that the work is never, ever going to suffer from rewrite. And ha. Just writing this blog post, I figured out how I'm going to do it. The book is almost done; I've got my climax, my denouement, and then the no-doubt long process of revising the whole damn thing, to say nothing of selling it.

I did here what I came to do, and although I don't really want to rid myself of my solitude and the Zen-Master-with-Schmidt's-novelist thing I've got doing for me, it's time to go home. It occurred to me that being up here did the exact opposite of what everyone was warning me about; instead of becoming a crazy shut-in, I think I'm a lot saner than I was before. And instead of this shredding my relationships, I think it's actually strengthened them. I'm a lot nicer than I used to be, I think, if only by necessity (you never know if someone you're addressing might be a bear in disguise). So I'll pack up and go either tomorrow or the day after, and devote a full day to cleaning this place to a point where my mother won't flay me alive upon seeing it.

I've still got about six pounds of meat to eat. Today, if the wind dies down, I'll fire up the grill and make burgers with the rest of my ground beef and my bacon, and maybe, just maybe, I can put together one last batch of jerky to bring home with me—although I'll need to hide it somewhere in my luggage to stop myself from eating it all on the way home.

I'll post again before I go, and again when I get home, but this is it: Day 30.

Day 28.

2009-04-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

I completely neglected to post anything yesterday, and I wish I could say that it was because I was just so busy with the book that it was impossible to tear myself away. But that wasn't the case; although I started a new chapter and polished up another one, I spent the majority of my day staring at a blank page, then going for a walk, then staring at a page, then making more coffee, then staring at a page. I didn't even take any pictures outside. Meh.

What I did do, however, was start on some deep-cleaning of the cabin in anticipation of leaving in a few days, since my mother would have a heart attack if she walked in right now: "A stick! A stick on my brand-new carpet!" And then she'd get out the belt.

I was snowed in yesterday, but I called over to McArdle's, and it looks like he plowed me out this morning. So, on my agenda: Replenishing myself with stuff I'll need for the next two or three days, then coming down and writing and writing and writing and writing.

It's warm today, past 40 already, and I'm hoping the road doesn't give me trouble on my way in or out. We'll see.

Day 26.

2009-04-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

Re: this:

April Fools.

I assume you figured that out, but this did not stop me from cruelly giggling, even when my wife told me I was dead to her, like I'd personally gouged out my dog's eyes. A cruel prank? Yes. As brilliant Google's CADIE? Not even close.

Annyong is, as you can see, just fine, two-eyed and wholly unpunctured, and it's just gorgeous here today. It snowed most of the day yesterday and started again at night, and I woke up this morning with a whole world painted in white, like a Japanese print or one of the winter SundayCalvin and Hobbes panels. Just beautiful.

This means that I'm again snowed in, unless I can get somebody to plow the road or until it melts. This is just fine with me, since I've got plenty of wood, I'm making water today with the fresh snow, and I've got a Crock-Pot full of awesome green chile stew.

I finished up a problematic chapter last night, and I started on another that I'm steadily adding to today. The problem is that it's so pretty out, and so mild and still and quiet, that I want to be outside. Annyong the Two-Eyed Dog is also having fun outside, running at full speed and making furrows as he ducks his head into the fluffy snow, grabbing big mouthfuls of it and rolling around. Time to make some water.

Day 26 (sort of).

2009-03-31T20:55:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-03-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-29T17:25:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-03-28T21:20:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-28T08:40:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-03-27T10:39:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-03-26T12:00:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-03-25T10:31:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-22T11:20:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-19T09:39:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-17T19:04:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-03-17T08:41:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-03-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-03-16T07:31:00.001-07:00

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.)

Day nine.

2009-03-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

All of the ice-houses are gone.

I woke up this morning to a completely empty lake, which was a little startling since this weekend, with the nice weather, had so far been incredibly bustling up here. I figure the emptiness might have something to do with the big dark line that now spans the lake and which, with my naked eyes and binoculars, looks like an enormous crack with open water beneath it. I'll walk down to investigate and grab some photos later on.

I did a whole lot of nothing yesterday, just some chores and rewrites after taking a long nap and moving the van up from the landing to where it sits now, halfway up the drive. The roads turned from ice and snow to mud in the length of a day, which gave me equal trouble. I really need to get some sandbags.

I started on some jerky last night, cutting a flank steak into thin little strips and throwing them into a marinade of my own invention. Today I'll throw them in the oven on very, very low heat and let them dry over the course of the day. I'm also interested in making pemmican, since I did watch Dances with Wolves yesterday and then spend about an hour on the web, reading about Lakota, and, specifically, the postposition yelo, which sort of piqued my interest for things Indian.

I'm reading a book left up here by Nick for my dad, called They Used to Call Us Game Wardens, by a retired (and now dead) conservation officer named Bill Callies, who tells truly entertaining stories about catching people poaching or overfishing. This book is sold exclusively at Fleet Farms—a sort of farm-based Walmart, for those of you not of Minnesotan, Iowan, or Dakotan stock—throughout the midwest. Like I said, it's a fun read, but all I can say is, Bill: "You're" is a conjunction of "you are" and "your" is possessive, and "hi-power," in the context of a rifle, is not the correct word. In any case, the book makes me at least somewhat confident in my book's chances for publication.

I burned my stupid hand again last night, which makes it a little painful to type, but it's healing quickly and I should be back at 100 percent tomorrow. For today, though, I'm going to attempt the trip into Bemidji. As long as I can get out, I should be good to get back in, since sandbags are certainly on my list.

Day eight.

2009-03-14T10:20:00.001-07:00

What you're looking at there is drunken math, the product of Nick's visit and nearly a case of beer. Come 3:30 or so in the morning, we had the fantastic idea to call my sister in Australia, since Nick and his wife Peggy had just been to see them there. The math involved trying to figure out what time it was there, a simple task that we, in our loud sloshedness, could not seem to quite accomplish without writing it down.

"They're 17 hours ahead," Nick told me. "So okay, let's add to 12 to what time it is now," I said, scribbling. "That's 15:30! "That's not a time!" But it was, and is, and I ended up leaving several messages to the effect that I was my sister's doctor and that I had important information about her having a tapeworm that was bound to take over the world. She called back and I could hear her vigorous eye rolls over the phone. "I'm getting into a cab now. Bye," she said. Or something. My memory's a bit hazy. Allow this entry to function as my apology.

I had a bustling day, cleaning and getting the cabin ready. I took a trip to the Winnie Store to grab a few essentials (canned mushrooms, Milwaukee's Best) and got the van good and stuck on my way back in. After an hour of digging, rocking and squealing tires, I decided to let the snow melt around the van and went back to the cabin to haul in wood and do dishes. An hour or so later, while I vacuumed, there was a knock on the door. It just so happened that my van, blocking the entire road, had resulted in getting an entire caravan of other vehicles mired. Luckily, the Smiths, who have a cabin a few down and are now up ice-fishing, were pretty good natured about the whole thing and towed me out of the snow. The van is currently parked down at the landing, since there was no way I was getting up the driveway.

Nick had shown up in the middle of this excitement, bearing ribeyes and rum and beer, and we ended up having quite a great night, grilling and drinking and talking until about 5 in the morning. We Retkas are a good people, we are, and Nick's Talmudic knowledge of the ins and outs of fishing and the DNR laws helped fill in a lot of blanks. His dog Riley and Annyong were thick as thieves as we chatted about all things great and small (tattoos, his recent trip to Australia, our families, why you hook a minnow through the head sometimes and through the back others), and Annyong, bless his heart, actually came to be the dominant one, pushing this 100-pound lab around like he was a shih tzu. The northwoods have toughened both of us up, apparently.

It's still gorgeous today, almost 50 degrees out, and the snow is actively melting everywhere you look. My plan: to eat leftover steak and potatoes with mushroom gravy and watch Dances With Wolves to fend my hangover off. Then, if I can navigate the road without getting stuck again, maybe a trip to Bemidji.

A guest post from my cousin Nick.

2009-03-14T01:28:00.000-07:00

Hello friends - Well - I am happy to report the Aaron is alive and well. The dogs are having a marvelous time as you can see, and I can safely repot to Sally that the cabin is still standing, and you have nothing to worry about. Aaron and I have been trying to reach our long lost relatives in OZ all night, but some bloke there is too much of a POHMY to return phone calls.

Day seven.

2009-03-13T08:17:00.003-07:00

I am pleased to report that I spent the majority of yesterday out of doors, doing the aforementioned chopping and then taking a lovely little walk. Then followed the making of eggs, the making of bacon and a nice afternoon nap to make up for my shivery lack of sleep the night before. I woke up around 7 PM and launched back into the book, getting a lot of quality writing done before going to bed.

This morning, I woke up and, as has been my wont, put on boots and went outside to pee. It was sunny and pleasant and as I peed, wearing only jeans and a shirt, I was perfectly warm and comfortable. I wondered what the temperature was, if it had perhaps crested into the 60s or something, so I tromped over to look at the thermometer. It was 10 degrees. I am tough as nails.

Today, I do some writing and get ready for my visitor. This means making more water, doing a pile of dishes and sweeping out the fireplace, since the mound of ash in there has crept steadily upwards. I'm going to make a trip to the Winnie Store, a gas station and sundries palace in Bena that we normally refer to as "the Indian store" because of their tribal off-license, to get some groceries and beer. Today's preparations also, I'm happy to report, mean more chopping. The plan is to bust out the grill and do up some steaks, a prospect that I would've found galling two days ago but now, since it's supposed to get near the 40s today, sounds downright pleasant.

An ode to firewood.

2009-03-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

I really, really like chopping wood.

It's astoundingly therapeutic, a raw physical chore that is cathartic in its simplicity. Here you are, a person with a tool, imposing your will on nature. You lift, your muscles work, and you're left with something useful. The axe sings through the air, there's a wonderful ka-chunk! and the log is cleanly sundered, opened to its white insides as the axe buries itself in the stump.

This is, quite obviously—and those of you with delicate sensibilities may choose not to read on—vaguely sexual, only more so because of the running dialog I have with the wood I'm chopping. "Oh, so that's how you're going to be," I say when the axe gets stuck in the wood, grunting to remove it. And then I place it back on the stump and grimly promise it, "You're giving it up to me." Then, when I neatly split it: "You like that? I bet you like that." I am a firewood rapist.

As you can see, I like chopping wood so much that all I think about while chopping wood is how much I like chopping wood. It's the subject of my upcoming book: Choppin': The Aaron Retka Story. It's sad that in today's hectic world, with its Pac-Man video games and laser-disc players and electronic mail, there's little career opportunity for a man that loves to chop. Let's move on.

It's warming up out there and is really quite a nice day. I got the drive plowed by a very nice man from Becker's Resort, who shrugged off payment. "Just come by next time you're up here," he said.

While building the fire, I reached into the metal bucket that once, 20 years ago, held fundraiser popcorn (butter, cheese and caramel, if I'm not mistaken, each in their own little compartment) but now holds paper for starting fires, and came across the Variety section of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. From Sunday, July 5, 1987.

In it, there's a big food piece on blueberries, plenty of advice columns (did you know that Mister Rogers had a column?) and this little blurb by a guy named Al Sicherman, which I repeat verbatim:

There's no end, apparently, to the endless variety of new snack products. Take, for example, "New York Style Pita Chips." Or don't; I won't be offended. The toasted chips of pita bread come in the four flavors shown here (onion, garlic, whole wheat and plain). What, you might ask, makes a pita chip "New York style"? Are there colorful vendors of hot pita chips wandering the streets of Manhattan? Are there bowls of free pita chips on the bar in neighborhood joints in Brooklyn?

I'm not sure why, 22 years ago, Al Sicherman was so offended by the idea of pita chips, but he does go on. He's the Rich Tosches of food-related indignation! There's also the headline "Picnic is a great time to try new foods" and a bridge column. I was hoping for TV listings so that I could see their synopsis of the next upcoming episode of Falcon Crest, but no luck there, unfortunately.

Day six.

2009-03-12T09:50:00.002-07:00

It was quite a cold one last night, and the cabin is still pretty chilly. The thermometer read -15 when I paid a visit to the outhouse around 11 PM, and, while it's gotten warmer since, again breasting the zero mark, it's still incredibly cold. I had kind of a fitful sleep because of that, and was forced to turn on the baseboard heater during the night to stop myself (and the dog) from shivering uncontrollably.

The good news is that last night was probably the coldest night I'll have to suffer through. The forecasts for next week have temperatures edging into the high 40s, and consistently so. It appears spring is springing on Winnie, but you wouldn't know that by how goddamn freezing it is. The lake is also bustling today; it looks like the road on the ice has been plowed and there are a good number of ice-fisherman out there, which seems odd, since it's the middle of the week and because it's got to be just brutally cold out there. My guess is that they're drunk.

It was kind of a spooky night, too, completely clear and with a big cold moon that lent a bright and otherworldly glow to the woods and the fresh snow. My trip to the outhouse was a little bit nerve-wracking, and I found myself craning my neck looking for wolves. Or, you know, ghost-wolves.

I dropped a heavy Maglite on my bare foot this morning as I fiddled with the blinds, and, in the span of two seconds had explored a long involved psychodrama in my head. This is how it ends, I thought. The Maglite shatters my foot and I try to stumble out to the van to go to the hospital, but I fall into the snow. In my daze of pain, I will have forgotten my cell phone in the cabin, so it's all I can do but lie there and shout for help. But no one hears, and for some reason I can't crawl back to the cabin (in my fantasy, my arms don't work, either), and I just lie there, getting colder and colder until night falls. And then the ghost-wolves come.

But of course, I'm fine. All that happened is that I yelled, "Ow! Fuuuuuuck!" and picked the flashlight up from the floor and then went and got a cup of coffee.

My cousin Nick is coming up tomorrow for the night, so I have to make sure the road is plowed for him. I should also straighten up the cabin and, perhaps, practice talking in the mirror, since he's the first human being I've seen in a week, like a primer for an Earthbound alien or a Mormon:

"Hel-lo. How are you to-day? I am fine. Say, how much did you pay for that? How 'bout them Vi-kings?" It will be an uphill battle.

Beaucoup d'photos!

2009-03-11T15:00:00.001-07:00

Because I'm doing some puttering and housekeeping (making water—an exciting process involving buckets, snow, a stove, a funnel and pouring), here are a few more photos.

Today is also my and Bettina's tenth anniversary. A decade! A decade! And I'll be celebrating it by nothing having even a little bit of sex. Boo. To the photos:

The pretty herby chicken and lentil soup I'll be enjoying later:

By request, for my sister:

And for Jana and Dustin:

Aaaaaand:

Day five point five.

2009-03-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

I don't care who you are, -27 is cold. I worked up a nice sweat while a-choppin', then went for a stroll down the bank and onto the lake, where the wind is just fierce. Some pictures:

That black speck buried to his shoulders is the dog.

I've now got a wood bin of much slower-burning oak, and convenient little burrows through the snow to all the outside destinations I'll need, so I should be set for the day. I was trying to get a picture of the crow who has been following me around outside, probably waiting for me to die so it can peck at my carcass. It took a few swoops at the dog, who, between having to walk through chest-deep snow and some crazy-ass bird attacking him, didn't know quite what to do. Time to start putting some soup together.

Day five.

2009-03-11T09:24:00.001-07:00

Well, it cold as hell out. Check it:

The forecast was saying that it would snow throughout the day today and into tomorrow, but it's quite clear out, and the sun is shining. The snow from yesterday has been blown into all sorts of pretty shapes, and there are dunelike drifts everywhere you look. I'll take some pictures and share 'em with you. I'm quite literally snowed in until I can get the road plowed, but I'm a little disappointed that it was only a one-day blizzard; I was prepared to have to hold onto a rope tied to the woodpile to get wood and go slowly insane from the sound of the wind. No luck there.

Yesterday I combed back through everything I'd written and did a whole lot of revising, then shared with a few folks to get some comments. I think I've got quite a strong beginning to the book, and I know where it needs to go. It's just a matter of writing it down.

Leftovers, leftovers, leftovers yesterday. As much as bacon-y wild rice is delicious, I'm a little sick of it. So today I'm going to strip the chicken carcass and make some soup. I'm also missing green chile, which I'm not used to doing without for so long. (Thankfully, I'd anticipated this and brought some up with me. Go, foresight!) I also nabbed some Have-A Chips from Mountain Mama, which are the most addictive tortilla chips on the planet. I'm pretty sure the secret ingredient is peyote.

Now, off to shovel the walks to the outhouse, the woodpile, the shed and the garage and to start chopping up some of the bigger logs in the woodpile, and also take a little walk and snap some pictures of the pretty.

Blizzardlicious!

2009-03-10T17:58:00.001-07:00

We're in the midst of quite a storm here, which, according to the forecasts, is supposed to continue until Thursday. They've closed I-29 in North Dakota and I-94 in ND and Minnesota, and it's blizzard-y in a way I haven't seen in a long time. Things have calmed down for a moment now, but they're supposed to pick up later. Here're a few pictures I took through the day:

Day four.

2009-03-10T10:04:00.001-07:00

It's getting quite nasty out there. The wind is coming in strong from the north, bringing with it, so the forecast says, a whole lot of snow. I can reasonably expect about another foot of snow within the next day, and I'll likely be snowed in, a phrase that is quite different here than in Colorado, where "snowed in" means more that there were two or three inches of snow and they cancelled all the schools because the city can't afford to send snowplows out. "Snowed in" is a bit more literal here. But I've got plenty of firewood, plenty of food, water enough and, since I hung my wireless card from the light fixture, sudden and nonstop broadband. I'm set.

I don't have a whole lot to report, other than I wrote my butt off yesterday, getting on a roll and spending until about 4 AM immersed in my little novel's world. I ate leftovers all day yesterday, since I have to get through that mountain of rice sometime, and watched a bit of Wonderfalls in the afternoon. I've developed a nice little routine here: wake up, build the fire and bring in wood, post the blog, make a little something to eat, work for a while, take a little walk, come back, work a little more, watch a little DVD, take a nap, wake up, and work until late. It's been pretty successful as far as routines go, so I'm happy to stick with it.

I've also started collecting snow for water, which sort of fun: I go out with my big five-gallon bucket in which I used to make wine, fill it with snow, let the snow melt into the tablespoon or so of water I get from five gallons of snow, then do it again, and again, and again.

It's really coming down now, and the temperatures are supposed to plummet, getting deep into the negatives by tonight. Wish me happy blizzard.

(Oh, and this is one of my bluejays. His name is They Might Be Giants. He's the fattest one.)

Fancy pictures post!

2009-03-09T20:11:00.001-07:00

Since I currently have good internet, here're a more pictures:

Some strange tracks by the dock. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what these belonged to.

The "only-go-out-with-the-following-things-when-the-ice-is-this-thick" sign. Of course, they don't tell you how thick the ice is, so it's pretty useless.

Steel-cut goodness.

Another pretty sunrise picture.

Carrots, butter and fire.

The big walleye on Mille Lacs. I feel obligated to take a picture of this every time I'm going through.

Day three.

2009-03-09T09:27:00.000-07:00

The promised snow has arrived, and it’s quite pretty: big lazy flakes falling slowly around the cabin. I can’t see even across the river from here, let alone the rest of the lake. There’s a small group of bluejays huddled around where I’ve been tossing my slop water, no doubt picking through the tiny bits of oatmeal scrubbed from the pan.

I had difficulty getting a fire going this morning, just enough trouble in coaxing the wood into flames that I, in my sleepy haze, thought, Did the rules of fire change while I was sleeping? That didn’t seem very fair, so I cheated and used kerosene, and now the fire is roaring. I’ll show you, Universe.

I had a little adventure yesterday. I decided to go across the river to try to find any signs—tracks, droppings, a kill site, whatever—of the wolves I’d heard the night before. So the dog and I tromped off, following a set of snowmobile tracks. We were trotting along just fine until we reached the actual river channel, and the snowmobile tracks veered off out onto the lake. We continued for about another 50 yards or so until I heard a deep and disconcerting creaking beneath my feet and I became aware that I could actually feel water flowing underneath me. It was not a happy revelation. I shouted for the dog, who was wandering a few yards ahead of me, and immediately turned tail and headed back for shore.

It’s clear that the ice is still quite thick out on the lake, where pickup trucks and SUVs are still driving, but the river channel would tend to thaw earlier, what with the current. And if I go through there, I’m simply dead; the current would sweep me under the ice and I’d probably suffocate before I could freeze to death. Not a pleasant thought, and I’ll be avoiding that part of the ice from now on.

I made quite a nice dinner last night: an herb-crusted roast chicken and brown and wild rice with bacon and vegetables. I ended up making a massive batch of the rice, since when I was peppering it, the lid of the pepper came off and I ended up dumping nearly the entire thing into the pot. So I made another batch of the rice, and it was still too peppery. Today I’ll make yet another, and I’ll probably put more bacon in it, since that’s how I roll. Isn't this fascinating?

I gave myself a sponge bath last night in front of the fire, and yes, thank you, I did indeed feel like Kelly McGillis in that scene from Witness, only doughier and less Amish. I’ve also adapted quite well to the temperature here; something in my internal thermometer must have shifted, because I found myself quite comfortable barefoot and shirtless, peeing off the deck last night, and I wasn’t nearly as chilly this morning when I woke up. Is it possible that I’m turning into a tough, northwoods-y man? Probably not.

Day two.

2009-03-08T07:46:00.000-07:00

It's a lot colder out today, and the sun has yet to make an appearance. Snow should roll in this evening.

So, my stew? Excellent. The 14 hours it spent in the Crock Pot did it good, fairly melting the beef and doing that weird alchemy that takes place when you just let things cook on low temperature for a long time. It was just the sort of hearty, wholesome stick-to-your-ribs fare I should be eating up here. Then, for dessert, I had some blindingly expensive dried fruit from Dean & Deluca, just to hammer home what a citified twit I am. For breakfast, I'm currently making some Irish steel-cut oatmeal on the stove, on the recommendation of everybody who's ever eaten Irish steel-cut oatmeal and then raved about how superior it is to regular oatmeal.

Yesterday, I took a long walk in the morning, down to the landing where people haul their ice-houses out onto the lake, then back up the road and into the woods for a bit. For the first time, I saw a bird up here, a bluejay who was very unhappy to see me, judging from her chattering. Then I came back, ate some lunch and wrote for a few hours, then took another short walk, then ate dinner, then settled down to watch a few episodes of Firefly, which turned into a rather long nap.

I woke up around 8 PM and started writing again, and did so until around 1 AM, with the help of a tumbler of scotch. Around midnight, I heard wolves. They were pretty far off—my guess is on the other side of the river—but Annyong didn't quite know what to do. He barked a few times, then listened in, staring out toward the river. He gave a little half-ass howl of his own. After a minute, it sounded like one of them was getting further away, and then it stopped altogether. It was altogether a little haunting, and a good reminder that I should get all my wood in before dark.

I've found that I'm going through one large bin of wood a day, "one bin" being the metal thing right next to the fireplace. I've got plenty on the woodpile, but the pine and birch there burns a little too quickly for my liking. It means that the fire will be out when I wake up in the morning and often makes for a pretty chilly few minutes while I build a new one.

Annyong's doing pretty well in the cold; he'll wear the little quilted vest that I got him, and he's adopted a funny little walk to prevent his feet from going through the crust atop the snow. Despite this, his front feet will punch through sometimes, and often when he's running at full clip, dumping him head over heels. It's pretty adorable.

Today's passage:

"I am Dayrin Boldsilver, ranger of Rashah," she returned, angered at his defiance at her inquiries. She tilted her sword and pushed the blade into the ground, then leaned upon the pommel.

"Greetings, Dayrin Boldsilver," the man said a moment later, a smooth, quipping edge to his voice. "By what businesses do you come to my forest?"

Dayrin shifted her weight slightly and clenched her jaw, her hands tightening around the hilt of her sword. "I come to your forest—" she slowly slid the point of her blade from the ground "—to strike your mocking head from your shoulders!"

With a guttural snarl Dayrin swiftly yanked her sword from the ground, bringing it around in a roundhouse slash. The man, not in the least surprised, ducked deftly and kicked out at the raging woman's already injured ankle.

What will happen next? Will the man pull out a flail and dance around Dayrin, promptly beating her ass and chastening the cocky ranger? Will they then become fast friends? Stay tuned to find out!

On the docket for today: walking, writing and cooking. Just like yesterday. Ooh. Just tasted my oatmeal. It is incredible.

Day one.

2009-03-07T06:10:00.001-08:00

I am here, and the fire is crackling merrily as I drink tea and watch the sun rise over the lake. A lone pickup truck is inching from shore to the closest ice-house I can see, which is about half a mile out.

The trip out was a breeze: no snow, clear roads, minimal traffic, and little to no van trouble. The van doesn’t like, and never has liked, the trip through Denver, for some reason, and I had to stop on I-76 to check the temperature, which was getting into the red. But, from there out, I had no trouble whatsoever; I listened to roughly six hundred thousand episodes of This American Life across Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota. Around 2 AM, I arrived at my parents’ house in suburban Minneapolis, which was tomb-cold, since they’re currently wintering in Texas, and crawled directly into bed.

I woke up ridiculously early yesterday, like today, and gathered all the stuff I’d need from my parents’ house: a few warm jackets, some meat from their freezer, a bottle of scotch and some books. It was unusually warm in the Twin Cities yesterday, and, when I stopped for gas, I noticed a carful of women in hijab—a sign that the massive Somali immigration to Minnesota has reached even Lakeville. I wonder if their kids go to the same high school I did.

The trip from there to here was likewise easy, and I switched from This American Life to Radio Lab. Near Garrison, I was listening to an episode about discovery, about whether our understanding of the universe means they we’ve imposed an arbitrary system of order on things or whether, as their guest postulated, that in defining the rules of nature we’ve actually cracked the vaster system. While I was listening to this, I rounded a bend and saw Lake Mille Lacs, this endless tract of ice onto which people had plowed a complex, winding snowmobile course.

The roads were clear past Garrison and all the way to Bena, whose sordidness was underscored by, no shit, half a dozen dogs lying in the road, blocking my way. I had to honk and prowl right up to them before they trotted off.

Even the road to the cabin had been plowed, as Craig from McArdle’s had promised, and I had no trouble getting in, getting the electricity on or getting a fire started. I turned on the electric heaters, closed the doors to the bedrooms to conserve heat and unpacked everything. My parents recently did some renovation up here, so the dank carpet and crumbling fixtures I remembered are gone, replaced with hardwood, and new carpets a marble countertop, a new sink and brand-new cupboards. It’s nice, although apparently in fixing things up they excised what my sister and I referred to as “that cabin smell,” which was must and the ghosts of hundreds of fishing and hunting trips past. I kind of miss it.

I heated some water for a sink-pan and, after taking a little walk, chopped up some vegetables and browned some beef for stew, which I just tossed into the Crock Pot to cook overnight for my lunch and dinner today. I’m a little concerned about fresh water, since there hasn’t been snowfall up in here in a while and there’s a dearth of clean snow—and, between the dog and me, we’ve gone through about four gallons already. But we’re supposed to get snow this weekend and, if worse comes to worse, I get clean-ish snow from the lake, where debris from the trees hasn’t reached it yet.

The cabin is nice and warm, even with the electric heaters turned off. I’ve already made three trips to the woodpile, since the majority of the wood up here is really quick-burning pine. I’ll make a trip into the woods after the weekend to look for some deadfall to chop, but there’s plenty of wood so far.

Last night, I sat in front of the fire with a glass of bourbon and re-read something I’d found at my parents’ house: the fantasy novel I’d started when I was in eighth grade, which is constructed of passages like this:

For the second time that day, the message fell from shaken hands, where it wisped slowly to the ground. Grason gathered his robes from his bony, yet supple, ankles. He bolted out of the room and began to look for signs of his master.
Grason hurried past the countless rows of shelves, some containing books and tablets, the majority housing neatly bound, thick volumes bearing silver etchings along their midnight-blue spines. The page paced morosely upon his leather sandals, barely touching the cool granite floor. He approached his lord, stood tentatively several feet away, nervously eyeing Astricus, hunched at the desk with one of the many silver-inscribed tomes.
“Why does any form of life feel it has to destroy its own kind, Grason?”

Deep. I go on to discuss racism, the many kinds of swords and use words like “slaken” and “oblimininate.” A junior-higher with a thesaurus is a dangerous thing.

Annyong and I took a walk last night after sunset, about a quarter-mile out onto the lake, where I saw what looked like four sets of wolf tracks. I’d seen some near the cabin, too, and apparently the timber wolf reintroduction to this part of the state is doing fairly well. I imagine that if wolves can chase something out onto the lake, it’s an easier kill than in the woods. I’m sort of hoping to see them, but it also means I’ll need to keep a closer eye on the dog.

It’s about 10 degrees out right now, and I’ll take a little walk before breakfast, then get down to writing. I’ve got internet, which is good, and it’s also the perfect amount—just one to two bars, which means I can check my email and blog but not spend all day looking at lolcats. But it also means I'll have more difficulty uploading pictures. I'll sure you'll survive.

Another cup of tea, then a walk.

And, now, tomorrow.

2009-03-05T00:14:00.000-08:00

I've got a no-doubt fitful night of sleep ahead of me before I leave tomorrow, so this is a good opportunity to thank everybody for helping me out with the trip in the many ways they, by which I mean you, have. So, thanks to:

Everybody who birthday-gifted me clothing, provisions or equipment or the means to get them. Biddle: love the Gerber, and it's already proved indispensable. Ian: I tried to stay out of your way while you rewired the van. Brandy and Mike: you showed me the way of Costco bacon. Megan and Jon: I'll be eating much more elitist-ish, what with the Dean & Deluca fig jam. Jeff: greatest driving-to-wilderness mix CD ever. Craig and Don: you're to blame for my relentless documentation to-be. Sally and Tom, for indulging me. And, because I don't say it enough, Bettina: you are The. Best. Thing. Ever. Seriously.

In other news, weather is clear from here to there, and will be till the weekend. The abnormally warm temperatures in Plainsland may be the bellwether of global climate change, but they also mean a blizzardless drive. I'll take it. Thanks, Al Gore!

Now, off to finish packing and try to sleep. See you on the other side.

Thursday Thursday Thursday!

2009-03-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

So, come (duh) Thursday, I am off.

I am be-licensed. The van is fixed. Groceries are bought. Dog vest is obtained (and adorable!). I've even started packing, and this is coming from a guy who, around midnight the night before I'd leave for an eight-week tour, would say, "Oh, I guess I should probably think about packing. I should probably do laundry, too," and then would get down to the business of drinking more before the van left in the morning. I've got more loose ends to tie up tomorrow, and then pub quiz to do, but come Thursday, I am the hell out of Colorado and en route to Winnie. Weather, you know, permitting.

Funny thing about that: I called up to McArdle's today to ask if they could plow the forest road and the driveway up to the cabin—a service they'll apparently provide—and the owner Craig surprised me by saying, "The road's completely clear. We haven't had a whole lot of snow at all." This, when the Twin Cities got about eight inches of snow last week. It might be less wintry than I'd thought.

Anyway, it's happening. And soon.

The new plan.

2009-02-25T22:37:00.000-08:00

After a few weeks of waiting, followed by phone calls to the Department of Revenue, followed by a long hot day at the DMV, I seem to be again on the path to going. I'm re-taking my driver's test tomorrow (after having re-taken the written exam—I scored 100%, thankyouverymuch) and, upon passing it, I'll again be able to drive, which means I'm able to drive right the hell out of Colorado and do this thing. Finally.

The past few weeks have been interminable, and I haven't done a whole lot of anything while waiting. I did start the first Saros novel, which promises to actually be pretty good, but I've still got many loose ends to tie up before leaving, as a lot of those loose ends require me driving around. I've basically been treading water, and I'm looking forward to getting on the road.

I've never been to Winnie in the spring—much like I've never been there in the winter—and the interesting twist of my trip getting delayed is that going up a month later, while less poetic, probably means I'll be more alone up there; while true spring doesn't come until the end of April, the lake starts to melt before then, and ice-houses are required to be removed in the middle of March, so I'm told. This means that there's nobody fishing from the end of ice-fishing until the opening of walleye season in May, and that there's subsequently no tourist traffic. It's something I hadn't considered, and will likely make for an even more complete isolation.

I'm also looking forward to seeing spring arrive there. Colorado doesn't have spring—or at least a spring like Minnesota does—and it will be cool to see such a dramatic transition. It also means less clean snow for water, although the slightly warmer temperatures are probably a good thing.

In any case, the new plan is to leave Colorado on March 5 or 6, which will put me at the cabin on the 6th, 7th or 8th, depending on road conditions. Here's hoping there are no further snags.

Oh, waiting.

2009-02-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

So, the trip has been postponed. This is because of widespread tardation, budget cuts, irresponsibility and bad luck.

Namely, I let my driver's license lapse. And Colorado, being a state wherein most people don't like paying taxes, instituted a policy in which those who let their driver's licenses lapse and wish to drive again must do so by mail instead of in person. This new process, which a very nice sign at the DMV informed me took effect on January 20, 2009, takes 20 business days. My time spent on the phone with the very accommodating DMV employee informed me that even driving to the Colorado Department of Revenue headquarters and handing my form, which requires a rubber-stamping, by hand to the person who would rubber stamp it, would not expedite the process. "We can't allow your application to get ahead of the others," she explained. "Of course," I said. "That only makes sense."

So blarg and blech, I'm stuck in Colorado for another indeterminate amount of time, and I'm unhappy about it. Spring on Winnie holds a lot less poetry than deep winter, after all. But part of this whole experiment is taking things as they come, so I'm calmly waiting and no longer angrily drinking, and looking forward to my departure, whenever that may be. As somebody told me last Friday, at my big 30th birthday bash, "Dude, there's plenty of winter in Minnesota." True.

The whole story.

2009-01-28T23:29:00.000-08:00

So, I talked to some friends tonight who saw the link to this blog and were like, "Whaaaaa? You're leaving us and the Springs and Newspeak and your wife and you're never coming back and oh my god what the hell?" All I can say is chill. Here's what's going on:

I had a rough fall and winter, as most of you did. Money was—and still is—tight, I was forced to scrap the most visible end of my livelihood, my city was crumbling around me and it suddenly occurred to me that all of the work I'd put into giving our town a truly alternative media voice was going to come to an ignominious end. This was not a particularly encouraging revelation, as you can imagine.

So I decided to take some time away and try to hammer out a book while I was at it. The cabin on Winnibigoshish holds great memories for me, and it's deserted in the winter, so it was a natural selection for this little experiment.

My ultimate goal is to devote a month to creativity, to allow myself the time to write while devoid of distraction. Yes, it's an escape of sorts, but going to the cabin—which, it's just occurred to me, I should probably give a better name than "the cabin"—is more about constructing an environment where what I put in has a direct and proportional relationship with what comes out. If I don't collect snow to boil for drinking water, I die of thirst. If I fail to chop wood, I freeze to death. Every action, my theory goes, should have a reaction. It's Newtonian, a manufactured simplification of the way I live. And that, given the year I've had, sounds ideal. But it doesn't mean I'm fleeing from my responsibilities or my marriage or my community.

This sabbatical also doesn't translate to Newspeak going anywhere. I'll have internet access—although to what extent, I don't know yet—and I'll be blogging and overseeing the site while at the cabin, as much as I can. I'm still doing Newspeak. I will still be doing Newspeak when I get back. I'll hopefully still be doing Newspeak years from now. It's not something I'm about to abandon, because what it stands for and who it belongs to mean too much to me. So put that thought right out of your heads.

The story, in a nutshell, is this: I'm going to the middle of nowhere for a month to write and be alone. It will be cold and foreign and inhospitable and profoundly different. I will be occasionally miserable and often lonely, but I will take long walks through the snow and string together sentences and take pictures to share with all of you. And something good will, I hope, be the result.

Just for kicks, here's a picture of the cabin taken in summer:

And one looking out toward the lake:

It's truly beautiful there. Imagine it sans any green and with a 10-foot-thick sheet of ice over that enormous lake, and that's where I'll be.

Wish-list.

2009-01-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

So. I have about two and half weeks until I leave for Minnesota, and this excursion falls right after my 30th birthday. In order to go, I'm going to need to collect quite a bit of gear, both for survival up in the northwoods and for the trip in my ramshackle old tour van. Living in Colorado has robbed me of my stock of appropriate winter apparel, and the consistently below-zero temperatures are going to kill me dead. Here's some stuff I need, which you can then buy and give to me because you don't want to see me die. Plus, I like, only turn 30 once, dude. Pony up, and consider this my Mid-Life Crisis Registry:

GENERAL STUFF:

Long underwear.

Good boots (Sorels, size 10 1/2 or 11).

Warm socks.

Warm gloves.

Good stocking-hat (black!).

Snow pants (wheee!).

Outdoorsy-guy pants (think, like, Cartharts. That's what manly guys wear, right)?

New sunglasses (manly aviators!)

Dog sweater & boots (like me, Annyong is a little hothouse flower).

Sand bags.

Road salt.

Candles.

Road flares.

Sub-zero sleeping bag.

FOOD

Five 5-gallon jugs of water.

Potatoes. A lot of potatoes.

Canned foods (vegetables, soups, chili/chile, beans, etc.)

Meat. A lot of meat. The manlier the better.

Dried foods (beans, lentils, grains, etc.)

Dog food.

STUFF THAT WILL KEEP ME FROM GOING CRAZY UP THERE

Books.

Replacement battery charger for my camera (it's a Kodak EasyShare Z7590).

DSL plug-in to get internet through my cell phone.

Cell phone signal booster.

So that's what I need. And, uh, if you wanted, I wouldn't say no to the Sopranos, BSG, The Wire or any other DVDs. Them Minnesota nights are long and lonely. Likewise, bottles of whiskey will not be turned away.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I'll be close to Bena, Minnesota, a hamlet of about 100 people, predominantly Chippewa that, like a lot of American Indian communities, is quite impoverished and has suffered terribly in recent years from a meth epidemic. Here're a few maps of the location:

There's the tab of Bena, which is about 5 miles from the cabin, in relation to the rest of the state. Bena doesn't have a grocery store, so I'll likely be going to Cass Lake, about a 30-minute drive in the winter, for that. Cass Lake also has a hospital, but it's a Chippewa Nations one. I assume they'll set a bone or repair a bear-mauling if I need them to, though.

A shot of the region. You can see Lake Winnibigoshish (where I'll be) in relation to Bena, Cass Lake (to the west) and Leech Lake (the spidery-looking one to the south). The town of Walker is on Leech Lake. There's a casino and another Chippewa hospital there.

Detail of southeastern Winnibigoshish. The Mississippi flows in at the eastern edge, which is where I'll be. Most of this area is Chippewa National Forest.

The cabin's location, indicated by (duh) the arrow. You can see docks if you look closely. The cabin is part of a strip of summer homes built on the lake in the '50s, when the Forest Service, in a fit of stupidity, let people develop there. The land is still owned by the Forest Service, but the cabins are private property, used as vacation home since the Forest Service prohibits year-round occupancy. The developed area just to the west of the cabin is a resort that close to nobody uses in the winter, except for the rare ice-fishermen. They'll be the ones I'll call if I need the roads plowed.

The lake will be thoroughly frozen, although accounts vary whether the Mississippi keeps a channel open year-round. I should be able to walk or drive across the lake if I need to, although pretty much everything I need will be on the south side of Winnibigoshish. The city of Bemidji, a sort of redneck college/tourist town that has that famous Paul Bunyan statue and museum, is about an hour away. So there's that.