Skiing Across Double GG

"Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."

John Ruskin




Snow conditions continue to improve, with 2-3 inches over the past two days. This is turning out to be the best winter for my variety of back-40, bushwhacking skiing in years. When I set out this afternoon, my goal was to ski over to the Willow River on the north side of county road GG. I made tracks across the pond on the snowmobile trail and started blazing my own trail, once I reached the north end of the pond. It was good to see some other fresh ski tracks that didn't belong to me. They belong to the neighbor lady and one of her daughters who we saw out skiing this morning with the dog. It was sunny then but not this afternoon.

Leaving the snowmobile trail where it crosses Paperjack Creek, I headed east up the frozen creek where it splits through the woods. This is the area where I've seen a pileated woodpecker over the years. No pileated woodpeckers this time, but I did flush out four pheasants from the edge of the woods. They must have been hunkered down under a fallen tree, because they didn't fly out all at once and had to fly up through the trees.



When I reached the east side of the tree line where the marsh is, I headed north along the tree line following a deer path. I flushed out another group of pheasants and a bit further I flushed out a couple more. This time, I saw a couple pheasants running ahead through the woods. I don't recalled scaring up so many pheasants in the past years, but this Fall I saw an abundance of pheasants while out riding my bike. Many trees blew down in the big wind last August. Most were snapped off half way up the tree. From the north side of New Richmond for 20 or miles to the southeast of New Richmond, hundreds of trees were blew down. Many barns were destroyed or damaged and one house was basically blown apart.



County road GG can be crossed two ways. One way is through the round culvert that allows the marsh to drain into the Willow river and the other way is to just cross the road. It's years since I cross the road using the culvert. The last time I crossed through it - it is a crouched, challenging position that a 5' 10", 220 pound guy has to get into to fit through the concrete tube. When I thought about it, I realised that, if I got stuck in there, they probably wouldn't find me until I was a skeleton. Sometimes you have to create you own danger. As a nod to wisdom and old age, I walked across the road.

After crossing GG, I followed a farm rode that runs between the trees and a cornfield. Up ahead, I spotted a flock of turkeys working their way up the road. By the time I saw them, they were alert to my presence and they were starting to head into the trees. I took a side trail into the trees and worked my way around to where the turkeys were starting come out on the path. They turkeys spotted me and headed back the other way.



It had been at least five winters since I'd been over to this area and was surprised by the trail network cut through the trees. Then I remembered that a logging project had been going on the last time I was over here. Working my way through the paths I saw deer stands in the trees and found a bottle of buck scent hanging from a tree. It was obvious that this was a deer hunting zone. As I skied along a path along the Willow, I scared up a couple of deer. I couple see trees that had been rubbed by deer and I was on the lookout for antlers that had been dropped.

I found a suitable tree stump to have my carton of OJ and bar and contemplate the quite of the woods. After a good rest, it was starting to get dark so I headed back home. A couple of downy woodpecker where tapping on nearby trees. Once you quit thrashing through the woods and take time to listen to the quietness of the woods, there is much activity about the place.

I took the express route across the cornfield and was surprised to find myself working my way through some two foot drifts. After getting back to the snowmobile trail, I took that and cut across the housing development and got to ski down the big hill before climbing the hill home.

I always find it quite exhilarating to ski the big hill on cross country skis. You just push off, flex your knees and go down in a straight shush. Just like the old days skiing down Coon's Hill in Hudson. Starting out, we learned about guts before we learned how to turn.

Christmas On The Frozen Pond

"Every mile is two in winter."
George Herbert
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The weather radar showed a band of snow moving our way throughout the Christmas morning. A few flakes began to fall in the afternoon around 1:30. I was debating on whether I would finally get me cross-county skis out on the pond or if I would just put the hiking boots on and trudge around the pond. By the time the wife and I had got the Christmas dinner turkey tucked safely into the often, it was too late for the skis. So I put on the hiking boots on and headed for the pond.

By the time I got going, the snow was coming down in big fluffy flakes. There would be shoveling to do later. Whether tonight or tomorrow depends on when the snow runs its course. For now, it was time for some fresh air and exercise on Christmas Day.

I first hiked on the pond in the winter of 1988. Back then, it was harder to get to it. Cows in the neighbor's field meant fences to climb over. The cows are gone and most of the fence has been removed to let snowmobiles -- what's left of them -- through. Over those 20 years, I've encountered a variety of conditions on the pond around the Christmas holidays. There's been hip-deep snow that allowed me to use my snowshoes. There's been bare ice. There's been a good base of snow that made for a perfect base for cross-county skiing. It's been near +50 degrees and near -20 wind 30 mile per hour wind. Regardless of the conditions, there is always solitude.

Having hiked around the pond a few weeks ago, I already knew the early heavy snow falls on the thin ice have made for some slushy spots that trap water between the ice and the snow. If you happened to be skiing and hit one of these spots, the slush immediately fuses to the bottom of your skis and suddenly things suck. It's times like this that you realise back-country cross-country skiing is not the same outdoor activity practiced on the trails at the local state parks. Spandex and ski wax are replaced by sticker burrs and a Vise-grip to cut away the old barbwire fences. It ain't a glamour sport.

Working my way around the southwest side of the pond, there were quite a few larger trees that had been blown over during the straight line wind storm in mid-August. I was surprise to see that many of the downed trees were larger oaks. On further investigation, these oaks where rotted out in the center and hollow. They would make nice nesting sites for the local owl population.

As I rounded a point of land jutting out on the south side, I came upon what I've always called "Bill's Bay." I names it after Ol' Bill who used to live in the farm overlooking the bay. Bill passed away in 1991 and the pine trees have grown up high enough to block the view of the old house. However, the old red barn can be seen from the pond.

A decade or so ago, this was a good spot to see owls. A family of great horned owls nested in a prominent tree along the shore. I had also seen an occasional barn owl that lurked in the old red barn. Life was good for the owls while Bill was still around. After a few years of being vacant, a new family with children moved into the house and the activity level around the lake shore picked up. After few years later, a housing development sprouted up on the north side of the pond. The owls still inhabit the area, because we can hear them at night and occasionally see them working the field at dusk.


Since my digital camera allows me to take pictures and delete them with a simple click, I have the chance to pretend I'm a skilled nature photographer. I figure you have to get snow on your knees and down you neck to get an interesting shot. I climbed under one of the trees that was snapped off in August and took an upward shot. It ended up looking like a tangle of birch branches and probably won't make it on any upcoming calendar pictures.

As I rounded the far end of the pond, I came on a large patch of cattails. In the snow, they looked rather picturesque. A took a few pictures behind the cattails looking to the east. What you don't see are the houses that now overlook the lake on the west side. Ten years ago, those houses where a cornfield. I would regularly a coyote that had a den on in the hill on the edge of the cornfield. It's still a nice spot to catch some solitude on a winter afternoon and I'm sure the people in the houses enjoy the view of the wildlife that frequent the pond and the surrounding fields during the different seasons.



I guess that's progress. It's a different kind of solitude today. A decade ago I could sit on a stump drinking my can of orange juice and eating a granola bar and not contemplate the houses with the windows that no doubt have people looking out of them contemplating the guy on the stump with the can of orange juice. But then again, ten years ago, snowmobiles blasted by on a regular basis and now the housing developments and global warming have decreased the number of snowmobiles and rerouted the tail.

I have proof that the city has encroached on the solitude of the pond. One of the early settlers in the housing development told me why they put streetlights along the development road. At first there weren't included in the plans, but then the settlers complained about how dark it was at night and the developers put the lights in.

With those thoughts in mind, I rounded the bend and headed up the hill to the house with a big appetite for a turkey dinner on Christmas Day.

from "Origins" by Meridel Le Sueur

It's interesting how life circles around. I recent checked out a DVD at the Stillwater library about Meridel Le Sueur. Born in Murray, Iowa in 1900, she died in Hudson, Wisconsin in 1996. In early 1990s at the same Stillwater library, I checked out a book titled "The Autobiography of Mother Jones." Le Sueur wrote the introduction to the book. I thought it was interesting that this woman who lived in Hudson had been involved with bringing out this book on Mother Jones. I had read the magazine "Mother Jones," but didn't really know anything about her. So I read the book.

Time flies and a decade or more has passed. Le Sueur passed away in 1996 and I hadn't really spent any time learning about her or reading her works. The DVD is titled "My People Are My Home" and inspired me to check out some of her writings at the local library. The following came from a compilation titled "Ripening: Selected Works, 1927-1980."

I included some photos that I thought fit. Being Christmas Eve, I was thinking of the life I live today verses the life my parents and grandparents experience in the Great Depression and earlier back to the early 1900s.



"Walking on giant paths, and being small and frightened, the north countryman created giant myths, sang to cover fear and nostalgia for old lands and bends of rivers he would never see again.



The mechanics, lumberjacks, the lakemen, rivermen, woodcutters, plowmen, the hunkies, hanyocks, whistle-punks; the writers of constitutions, the singers in the evening along unknown rivers; the stone masons, the quarrymen, the high slingers of words, the printers and speakers in the courthouses, the lawmakers, the carpenters, joiners, journeymen -- all kept on building. Every seven years they picked up the loans, mortgages, the grasshopper-ridden fields, the lost acres, the flat bank accounts, and went on, started over, turned a new leaf, worked harder, looked over new horizons.



The heritage they give us is the belief we have in them. It is the story of their survival, the sum of adjustments, the struggle, the folk accumulation called sense and the faith we have in the collective experience. It was real and fast, and we enclose it. Many unknown people lived and were destroyed by it. What looks to us grotesque or sentimental is the humor of the embryo, the bizarreness of the unformed, and the understanding of it is a prerequisite to our survival. It was real, and created our day. Perhaps it encloses us.



It is the deep from which we emerge.



Like a lion the people leave marks of their passing, reveal that moment of strength when the radicle plunged into the soil, in the fierce struggle on a strong day, and a nation held."



See more historical photos at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

NY Times obituary on Meridel Le Sueur.

More memories of Meridel Le Sueur.

Nature Center Trail

"The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think."

John Burroughs
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With a clear, blue sky, no wind and the temperature around 10 above, the afternoon was ripe for hitting the trail. Today's trail was the New Richmond Nature Center trail on the west side of town that runs along the Willow River south of old Highway 64.




I've been down this short set of trails in the spring, summer and fall, but not in the winter. Although empty today, others had made tracks of the trails. I could tell dogs had been taken for a walk. After a quarter mile hike along the Willow River, you are greeted with "No Trespassing" signs. Since I was following in the deer tracks and the deer had obviously trespassed, I kept following the tracks.

With the ice solid and a ready tree to steady myself, I slide across a frozen finger of water that marks the end of the trail during the warm weather months. After crossing the ice, the banks of the east side of the river get steep and challenging. Along a few treacherous stretches of trail, I used small saplings as support, in case I hit a patch of snow-covered ice and went sliding into the river below. What's a hike without a little danger?

When the terrain became to steep to continue violating the trespassing laws, I dusted the snow off a fallen tree, sat down and took a few pictures. I'm just starting to get the hang of my digital camera and took a few shots of the scene above. I like this picture the best.

While I sat on the log, geese few south around the river and a hawk flew up the river. I couldn't tell what type of hawk it was, but I don't think it was a red tail.

As I made my way back up the trail, I noticed the view of the picture above. There was a fallen tree in the right spot to sit and take a few pictures. After taking some pictures, I just sat and listened.

Water gurgled. Lone birds chirped from different directions. A tree popped loudly. Ice shifted. Sunlight glittering on the water through the trees. A large wasp nest dangling from a tree branch. Taking in the random sounds of nature, I'm always reminded of the musical composition Peter and the Wolf.

It felt good to breath in the fresh air and feel the cold on my cheeks.

As the sun began to sink towards the horizon, it was time to go. I made my way up the trail and headed back to my car.

The View Out Back: 120107

"The sad part about life at this point is there's no horizon; the horizon is the cemetery. You always remember the fun things you do with your family."

Ike Joles

As the picture indicates, it's starting to look like winter out the backdoor. This morning there was no snow and now the ground is starting to get covered and the wind is blowing from the east -- an "ill wind," as we say around here. I see the snowmobile markers are staked out in the nearby fields and by tomorrow morning the sound of snowmobiles may echo in the neighborhood -- it the weather forecasts are correct. That means I maybe able to get the cross-country skis out, after the shovelling and snow blowing gets done.

The picture is the first one I've actually transferred from my digital camera to my computer to this blog site. I've had the camera for about four years. I inherited it from my Dad who received it from us as a Christmas present in 2002. He died in 2003. I finally figured out how to work the thing this summer and now -- with the snow falling -- I finally moved the picture to my PC. I one point in life, I could take picture with a 35mm camera, develop them in a darkroom and print them in a processes that involved the use of chemicals and darkness and the danger of overexposure that could take and hour or two. Today it's point the camera, push the button, plug the chord from the camera to the computer and unload the picture to the blog. Takes about 5 minutes with no smudge or cleanup.
Before the snow got going this morning, I headed to town for my Saturday routine. Having breakfast at the local cafe, I came across an interesting story in The Country Today newspaper about a guy name Ike Joles. Joles now lives in Luck and spent the first few years of his life living in a tent with his family back in the 1920s. Spending his early childhood living in a tent gave him a great perspective and the realization that material possessions don't matter.

This story made me think of how times change and the lessons we get passed do to us from our fathers change with those times. Times have definitely changed and we've gained more gadgets that we know what to do with. We might know how to program a cellphone but we are clueless as to how to fix it when it breaks. But then again, why fix it when you can toss it away and get an updated version that is slimmer, more complicated and fashionably cooler for half the price of the old one. Practical knowledge has been been tossed into the ditch somewhere along the information superhighway.

At the age of 52 and an avid music fan, I've traversed through a progressive mazes of recorded music options. It started 1964 with me spending my paper route money to buy a "45" of Jan and Dean's "Dean Man's Curve." I moved into LPs with the purchase of Credence Clearwater Revival's "Green River" in 1969. Then there were 8-tracks, cassettes and reel-to-reels and now CDs. I do know there are MP3 players, but I haven't got there yet...and may never get there.

Recently while browsing for CDs at Wal-Mart, a middle aged man asked the kid working if they carried tape for reel-to-reels. The kid said, "you mean like cassettes?" A nearby manager stepped up and volunteered that he'd heard of reel-to-reels before but had never actually seen one and had no idea where you could get tape for them. It's rather humbling to think that in the late 1960s and well into the 1970s reel-to-reels where a symbol of high-tech savvy. But then again, in the late 1960s, having an actually stereo was pretty cool. Cars had AM radios and then came FM and now there's satellite radio.

And the day the Joles family tent caught fire and everything burned, Ike Joles said, "The old man stood there and cried like a baby." Today, he could have got a much better one on sale at Wal-Mart, charged it on the credit card and worried about paying for it some other day. And in 1930, my Grandma used to walk to job that she got paid in chickens. She couple cook from scrath, knit, sew, can everything, fish and shoot a gun. Grandpa caught a huge catfish on the st. Croix that fed the family for a couple of weeks. He built the boat he fished in and the rod he caught the fish on.

Today, people are afraid to drive from New Richmond to Hudson without a cellphone -- in case something happens. And so it goes...

Humble beginnings
Born and raised in a tent, Luck man has led adventurous life
by Heidi Clausen
LUCK - From his birth in a tent somewhere outside St. Louis, it seems Ike Joles Jr. was destined to lead an adventurous life.

Out of that humble beginning came an entrepreneuring spirit that has served him well throughout his life.

Mr. Joles, 83 and living in Luck with Florence, his wife of more than 60 years, has been known to try almost anything once.

For decades, he and his family made a living selling medicinal herbs picked from here to Florida and Christmas trees cut by hand from northern Wisconsin woods.

Over the years, he also served in two wars, worked as a landscaper, owned a bait shop, managed a hardware store, ran a youth Bible camp and worked as a newspaper printer, among other titles he's held.

But life hasn't been all work and no play.

Read more @The Country Today.