A Happy New Year to All

One week ago today, it was bustling in the kitchen at Heston's Lodge. As is our custom of many years, several cooks were preparing for our New Year's Eve feast. I have been doing this for about twenty years. Prior to my days at the stove, Sharlene would prepare the buffet. We invite all of our cabin guests and several friends to gather, eat, and usher in the new year.



Through the years, I have been an armchair traveler of several different cuisines to guide me in the menu plan. 2009 was no exception, but I chose a broad base: Asian foods. This allowed me to pick and choose from many different countries to come up with dishes that sounded best, looked easy, and had readily available ingredients. I think we were successful on all counts. Each year, the comments come through that this was the best one yet, but I think our memories are getting shorter!



Without all of the wondrous helpers who show up throughout the day, I would be lost in getting this meal together. Typically we have about sixty people who come to eat. One cook can't do it all in a kitchen my size. Judith made a beautiful platter of sushi; Gerri and Karen prepared several recipes, from Asian coleslaw to Potato and Cauliflower Curry; Greg and Tim grilled several sticks of satay; and I stir-fried over a campstove on the back porch. Mo and Tim brought an amazing halibut curry, and Tony and Tre saved the day by bringing fresh basil (for the Thai chicken) all the way from Green Bay! Ruth and Jody brought delicious entrees and appetizers from their own kitchens as well. Several folks pitched in for set-up and dish-washing duties. It was an amazing joint effort.



Addie did a fabulous job on the dessert table, and

those are actually the only photos I got. She made some pretty little meringue mushrooms and then frosted balsam branches, to adorn a gingerbread sponge roll with semi-friddo filling, made by Gerri. That was my favorite. We also had a blueberry cheesecake, chocolate torte, many cookies and holiday goodies....a wonderful finish.



We had a bit of music, thanks to Jim on the guitar and piano by Erik. Lots of good conversation and camaraderie flowed through the lodge. We capped off the evening with our bonfire. Greg has passed the torch on to the next generation, and so Paul and James did an excellent job of building and starting the fire. Everyone enjoyed the full blue moon shining down upon us.



What a wonderful way to honor the old and begin the new year.

The Luck of the Moment

Addie recently asked me why I hadn't been posting things to my blog or my twitter. I told her that it is because I haven't slowed down enough to have the words drift in to my mind. Even now, as I type a first draft of this, it is full of misspelled words and errors, a sign that I am still moving and thinking too fast. But fortunately, sometimes things propel me to take a moment to stop, and see what is happening around me.

So it was this morning...We've been closely watching the lake, waiting for it to freeze. The temps have certainly been in a range cold enough, with a low this morning of minus twelve. The wind has been our big foe, as it was blowing strong from the west, keeping the big waves rolling along. Any bits of shore ice were dashed to pieces. The result of that is a pleasant tinkling sound as the pieces rub up against each other. But what I really wanted to hear was the silence that first ice brings.

Today I got that. The lake appeared from my windows to be frozen at least halfway out from our shore. I bundled up and headed down to the landing. It is like a fairy tale world down there at this time of the year. The frost coats the branches and twigs with a flocking that Hollywood movie sets would envy. A large block of shelf ice covers the perimeter of our beach. And just beyond is the newly-formed lake ice, thickness unknown. It is covered in frost crystals, too, though barely a skim. If I were still a skater, I would be chomping at the bit. (I remember many nights of entertainment spent at the local rink when I was in elementary school. I also remember how my feet would ache in those first few days of lacing up the skates.)
It's a lovely world out there. And the bonus for me was that while I was snapping pictures and watching and listening, the Canadian wolf pack started to sing. I couldn't help but smile.

And So It Goes

What goes, you might ask? The days, the weeks, the months....and soon, the first decade of this millennium. Amazing to think that not that long ago, we were contemplating the whole Y2K deal. Crazy! Now we are asking how people will refer to the new year. Will it be "Two-thousand-ten" or "Twenty-ten"? My personal favorite is "twenty-o-ten." However you say it, it seems way to soon to be here already.

I've been saying that a lot this year, it seems. Mostly I have been referring to the fact that soon we will be joining the empty-nester crowd. Both boys left us in the last three years. Addie is now a senior, and may even be starting college in January. It's getting pretty quiet in these parts. I've had some people ask me how we will cope with that empty nest....The way I figure it, by the time we truly would be without kids, where they no longer return for summer vacation, or holiday breaks... about that time, someone will be ready to move back. And that is fine with me, as there is plenty of work to go around.

That said, a quick update for everyone, since I haven't written since last May. As many of you know, it was a different type of summer at Heston’s Lodge, as Greg took a job outside of the resort. From early May until mid-October, he left to go to work installing wildfire sprinkler systems. It was challenging, for the both of us, as we had worked together for the last twenty-three years. Now I understand a bit more what it is like for people when a longtime co-worker leaves and gets a new job. I’d joke about his job, and also about the fact that he now had a boss, and it wasn’t me! I also got back into the routine of making lunches, something I hadn’t done since the kids came home to homeschool. But those were just the small changes.

The bigger change for me was that suddenly I had more hats to wear. Not only was I trying to do my own work, but each day found me at some point trying to do Greg’s job, too. I have to admit that I learned a lot, and most times I enjoyed it. It is good to cross over like that. I can’t say that he is ready to do my job, but that’s a story for a different day.

Some days I would pretend I was Greg, like when neighbors would stop by to borrow a tool or something. I would walk around to the various shop locations, and try to figure out where Greg would choose to store that particular tool. Most times I was successful. That doesn’t mean that I can decipher his system of organization in his shop any better than I could before! Most of the time, it was probably dumb luck that caused me to stumble on what I needed. But now I know where a few more things are kept, and that is useful.

I also learned more about the running of the boats and motors. One would think that after all of these years, I would be fairly proficient at this. Not so. If someone wanted to rent a boat in the past, I would send Greg, or Robert, or Paul to get it ready. Easy as that. Now I had to send me. I’d get down there, and do whatever was needed to minimize embarrassing myself. For example, I find that it is much better if I start a motor while the boat is tied up to the dock. That way, the wind isn’t pushing me into shore while I am struggling to remember all of the steps it takes to simply start a motor. One time I failed to tie up, and though I got the motor started fairly easily and got going, I narrowly missed running into the dock! I don’t think that I ever flooded a motor, but I know that I came close. Each day I would have at least one question for Greg when he got home from work. The question of the day, I called it. One particular question stands out in my mind, and I know that now I will never forget it. Do you pump the gas line first, and then prime the engine? Or do you prime and then pump? Doesn’t matter, he told me. That will be good knowledge to have next summer, when we start things up again.

For now, the motors are all stored away in the boathouse, and the boats and canoes are pulled up on land. The docks have been taken in, and it looks like it is all ready for winter. Whether I am ready for winter has yet to be seen. We’ve seen some early snows, while the leaves were still on the trees. Most of October was a cold, wet month. That is actually a good thing, as it means we have some fine ground moisture as we head into winter. That in turn helps in the spring, when we dearly need it before the leaves come out. But now I am getting way ahead of myself, thinking two seasons down the road. For now, I’ll concentrate on continuing the winter prep work.

And I will do my best to start to catch up with this blog. Lots of fun stories from this summer to share….Stay tuned.

News from the little town of Eagle, Alaska

Today finally feels like the first day of spring. Never mind that the season actually came almost two months ago...It was a long stretch of cool, often wintry weather between March 20 and today. At that, today is a lovely 55 degrees, and we couldn't be happier. The nicest thing about this in-betweeen weather is that it keeps the bugs at bay. The sunshine is warm and pleasant, but the shade is still fairly cool. But if it means the mosquitoes and flies aren't out yet, that's fine. And I can finally sit on the porch to blog. That's saying a lot!

The days have been incredibly filled since I last wrote. March seems like one big active blur: from the steady pace of the Winter Tracks weekend, to a quick trip to St. Cloud for a sister visit and a college visit, all the way to the end of the month when we took off and went to Arizona to visit relatives and the Grand Canyon---whew! If time allows, I hope to share stories here as I go along through the summer. We came back in mid-April, and I was naively hopeful that we had missed mud season. Not to be. The snow and melt cycle continued, and I remembered all the reasons why it is fun to travel to the southwest during that month!

But now it is May, and although it's not perfect, I'm perfectly happy. We've been open for the last two weekends, first with Gunflint Green Up, and now with the fishing opener. The weekend has been a busy time for the fishermen and women. We've been hearing good things about walleye and bass and northern, and even a report or two on the trout. As I've mentioned before, those are our favorite. We're happy that folks are finding some fish out there.

The real story that I wanted to relate today, though, is not about Gunflint Lake. It has to do with the small Alaska town of Eagle. Many of you know that Greg's mom, Sharlene, and her husband Jim, have a cabin in Eagle. The town is located on the eastern straight-line border of Alaska, right on the Yukon River. Sharlene has been enjoying the opportunity to visit Eagle every year since the early 90's, as she says it reminds her of Grand Marais forty years ago. She usually spends about three months a year up there.

Unfortunately, Eagle has not being faring well this past week. In the course of the break up of the Yukon River, massive flooding occurred in town, mostly along the main street that generally sits well high above the river bed. The place that Jim and Shar own is about a mile uphill from the town center, so they have been safe. But many of their friends, and the community as a whole, have been deeply affected.

The first wave of flooding came about a week ago. Along with the water rising came huge chunks of river ice, which washed up on the banks and literally surrounded cabins, the store, motel, cafe and some historic properties. People had to evacuate in the middle of the night, and over the course of the week, the water rose and fell a few times. In washed more ice chunks. The photos in the Fairbanks News Miner are incredible. I will include a link later in this post.

By the latter part of the week, the ice jams had broken up and the water was running freely. The danger of continued flooding was over. But left behind were scores of ice chunks and blocks, some as many as twenty feet high. Eagle is very far north. It takes a while for the day to warm up there. This means that some of these ice chunks will be hanging around until well into July. The other unfortunate side of the coin is that winter returns there much sooner than in these parts. The townsfolk know that they must prepare now, even though the last winter has barely finished. It's going to be a tough road ahead.

That's the capsule version of the events. There is lots to read and see in the Fairbanks newspaper. Go to http://newsminer.com/photos/galleries/2009/may/05/2009-breakup-flooding/ for a gallery of photos. For the news articles, do a search at http://www.newsminer.com/ and you will find the stories.

Sharlene and I spoke last night again, and she says that things are moving forward as best can be expected. I can't help but be reminded of our own disaster two years ago, when the Ham Lake Fire roared through our area. Interestingly, it was two years to the day for the flooding event. In 2007, Shar and Jim had just arrived back in Eagle, when they learned of the fire. They were glued to the phone and the internet, looking for any updates they could find. Now here we were, in the opposite position, scouring the 'net, and recognizing friends and buildings in the photos we were finding. It's tough to be in that spot, watching. The sense of wanting to be there, to help in anyway we can, is such a strong one.

For Robert, that sense has such a pull that it turns in to action. Two years ago, he could no longer stand it. He called Greg and said, "I can be on a plane in two hours. I'll be there tomorrow." Greg replied, "You better get to the airport." In this case, Robert was already in Fairbanks, with plans to leave for Eagle later in the week. He planned to return to his summer job, doing maintenance for the Yukon-Charley River Preserve, an entity of the National Park Service. But first, he needed to be there early to assist in any way he was asked.

The response to the disaster has been phenomenal. I like to think that it is always this way, based on my experience here in Cook County. It was incredible the way the whole community came out to help us all during the Ham Lake evacuation. Listening to Shar, and reading the articles indicates to me that Eagle is very similar. The evacuation center is at the school in town. Meals are a community effort, with Sharlene, and Dana (a friend of Addie's) and Amanda (Robert's girlfriend, and also a friend of Addie's), amidst many other neighbors, taking their turns at cooking. Plane loads of donated supplies are coming in daily (as weather allows) from Fairbanks. Buildings are off of foundations; some even ended up in the river, headed to the Bering Sea. But folks are hanging in there, doing what they can to make things better.

One of the things that Robert and Amanda did was to rescue a little critter. They were walking around town the end of last week, surveying the damage and taking pictures. They came to a block of river ice that was about twenty feet high. Robert retrieved his ice climbing gear and made it to the top of the block. Up there, he could see the remnants of someone's roof, imbedded in the ice. Then he heard a sound, and low and behold found a cat in the insulation of the roofing. He was able to free the cat, and bring it down to Amanda. The poor little thing was plenty dirty, so they cleaned it up, and later were able to reunite it with a very grateful owner. Even little acts of kindness like this can mean so much at a time like this.

So that's the story for the day. Both Robert and Sharlene have been taking many photos, but neither has internet connection for the time being. Shar will be home in mid-June, so by then we will be able to see her pictures and hear more of the stories. In the meantime, please keep Eagle in your thoughts. It's a wonderful little town that needs all of the good wishes it can get right now.