Miscellany

I haven't been real good about updating this blog since we moved. There are multiple reasons for that: We are living in a small cabin with one bedroom; the computer has to sit in a corner of the living room that isn't terribly convenient, otherwise I can't get the wireless to work. So, when it does work, I generally try to do as much Eisenbrauns work as I can. That doesn't leave much time for blogging. Second, I've been busy with the cabins and with building a garden at Joel and Renee's. Third, the spare time I have is used for hiking and biking.

Speaking of gardens, we are in the process of putting up two hoop houses. I'm terrible about pictures—as you well know!—but I'll try to get some. We filled in the boxes with a pickup load of aged horse manure. I planted some green beans, peas, and carrots right away. The weather was warm enough that they sprouted almost immediately. Hopefully we'll get some beans before the weather turns cold. We should; I've got row cover and the hoop houses to keep them warm.

And, speaking of hiking and biking, we've done a good bit of that the last few days. On Friday, after taking care of the cabins, we went hiking in the afternoon at Temperance River State Park and then continued on for a mile or two on the Superior Hiking Trail. One of my bucket goals has been to hike the entire trail (not all at once!). We got a bit closer to that on Friday and Saturday.

On Saturday, again, after taking care of the cabins, we went hiking. This time we went to Magney State Park and hiked to the kettle. From there we took the Superior Hiking Trail west. At the beginning of the trail was a bear trap; Debbie wasn't too sure she wanted to hike the trail with a bear trap there. I told her it wasn't baited; if a trap is baited, it smells very strongly of licorice. This one didn't have even a hint of it. Nevertheless, she was a bit skittish. We walked for a good bit, then turned around and went to the Kadunce River, which is a spur train on the Lake Superior Hiking Trail. Noticing a pattern? Because we couldn't start until late afternoon, it was getting dark, so we didn't go very far. It will be a regular on our list, though.

On Sunday, we didn't do any hiking, although I rode my bike to Lutsen and back—about 40 miles. Day of rest and all, you know :)

Today, Monday, I got done cleaning the cabins and Debbie asked me if I wanted to ride the Gitchee-Gami bike trail. It will be a bike trail eventually connecting Two Harbors to Grand Marais. Right now, there is a section about 1/2 hour from us that we have always wanted to do when we would visit Joel and Renee. I said, sure. So, I loaded both bikes into the Prius and off we went.

It was a blast! We only rode about 20 miles, round trip; that's all that is done in this area right now. Ironically, we rode right through the Temperance River State Park that we had been hiking in on Friday. We stopped on the bridge—you can never see a waterfall too often or too long!—before continuing on. We both decided this would be on our list of regular occurrences, as well.

So, that's why I haven't been posting as much as usual. Oh, and the fact that the books I've been reading aren't electronic so I can't cut and paste...besides the fact that the ones I've read lately haven't lent themselves to excerpts very well.