Star Island, day 5

Apparently, there is a difference between a woodpile and a pile of wood.

One is allowed under the terms of our permit with the National Forest Service. The other is not.

So Dad and I have spent the last three days splitting logs, cutting branches, moving wood, and generally cleaning up the piles of brush and whatnot that took up a fair bit of the yard out back. (I say yard, but it's kind of hard to say what's actually yard and what's just semi-tamed forest.) The Forest Service, you see, doesn't approve of collecting three years' worth of kindling materials and then just leaving them in a tangled heap. They want it tidy, or they want it out in the deep woods and gone.

*sigh*

My arms, shoulders, back, and legs are killing me, and we're still not quite done.

Today, however, the temperature finally rose to the mid-70s, so we hauled out the bathing suits and went down to the dock around noon. I waded for a few minutes, and then sunbathed; I don't think I'll get anything even vaguely close to a tan, but perhaps my legs will no longer be painfully blinding in their paleness. :-)

Yesterday we hiked down to the East Portage, in to Windigo, and then back to the East Shore via the Windigo path. Several people were fly-fishing near the portage, and a number of boats were dragged up onto the shore over by the North Portage (which is the one for bringing small motor boats in from the main lake). The old burn in back of the Taylors' land is getting completely overgrown these days, full of young trees and lord knows what-all shrubbery. I remember back when it was nothing but raspberries and poison ivy, and you could still see the sky.

On our way back, we saw a red squirrel. There aren't any gray squirrels on the island, and the red squirrels are small enough that from a distance, it's easy to mistake them for chipmunks (of which there are probably thousands). This one scrambled up a scrub bush, perched on a thin, whip-like branch, and tore off a leaf to nibble on, never once taking its eyes off us.

The chief differences between red squirrels and chipmunks seem to be puffier tails, no stripes, a slightly more reddish cast to the fur, and a greater prediliction for climbing. Oh, and they're maybe a third larger. But chipmunks do climb, and red squirrels do scurry along the ground and hide in woodpiles, so it can be hard to say for certain what you just saw when a brown streak dashes across the corner of your vision.

We leave tomorrow morning.

God, I'm going to miss the cabin.

Star Island, day 5

Apparently, there is a difference between a woodpile and a pile of wood.

One is allowed under the terms of our permit with the National Forest Service. The other is not.

So Dad and I have spent the last three days splitting logs, cutting branches, moving wood, and generally cleaning up the piles of brush and whatnot that took up a fair bit of the yard out back. (I say yard, but it's kind of hard to say what's actually yard and what's just semi-tamed forest.) The Forest Service, you see, doesn't approve of collecting three years' worth of kindling materials and then just leaving them in a tangled heap. They want it tidy, or they want it out in the deep woods and gone.

*sigh*

My arms, shoulders, back, and legs are killing me, and we're still not quite done.

Today, however, the temperature finally rose to the mid-70s, so we hauled out the bathing suits and went down to the dock around noon. I waded for a few minutes, and then sunbathed; I don't think I'll get anything even vaguely close to a tan, but perhaps my legs will no longer be painfully blinding in their paleness. :-)

Yesterday we hiked down to the East Portage, in to Windigo, and then back to the East Shore via the Windigo path. Several people were fly-fishing near the portage, and a number of boats were dragged up onto the shore over by the North Portage (which is the one for bringing small motor boats in from the main lake). The old burn in back of the Taylors' land is getting completely overgrown these days, full of young trees and lord knows what-all shrubbery. I remember back when it was nothing but raspberries and poison ivy, and you could still see the sky.

On our way back, we saw a red squirrel. There aren't any gray squirrels on the island, and the red squirrels are small enough that from a distance, it's easy to mistake them for chipmunks (of which there are probably thousands). This one scrambled up a scrub bush, perched on a thin, whip-like branch, and tore off a leaf to nibble on, never once taking its eyes off us.

The chief differences between red squirrels and chipmunks seem to be puffier tails, no stripes, a slightly more reddish cast to the fur, and a greater prediliction for climbing. Oh, and they're maybe a third larger. But chipmunks do climb, and red squirrels do scurry along the ground and hide in woodpiles, so it can be hard to say for certain what you just saw when a brown streak dashes across the corner of your vision.

We leave tomorrow morning.

God, I'm going to miss the cabin.