Fern haven

These transplants from friend Connie’s yard gave me the cover I needed around the septic tank eyesore. When I stuck them in the ground last spring, they looked sad and discombobulated. But Loveless is a fern-loving paradise. And this spring was so wet, the ferns shot up in proud display earlier than usual.

 

Who needs a dog bed when there's tall grass and clover?

Those crazy Cheeseheads

I was loading in groceries Friday evening when I heard the telltale sound of a motorboat gunning on Loveless Lake. I ran down the hill, and there they were:  A couple of bundled up guys in a boat, and a third in the water who’d just popped up on a slalom ski.

Hard core. The air temp was 52 according to my company-issued smart phone, and official ice out was just three weeks ago, on April 27. It’s a good bet this wasn’t their first time out.

With this glacially slow unfolding of “spring” in the North Country, most of the trees have yet to leaf out, and not a single fiddlehead has popped up around my fern-loving lot. Yet the lake is plenty active. In my first half hour, I saw a loon make a splash landing, a  heron take flight low and slow, and one of our awesome eagles fly right up against my tree line.

In the words of our late friend and Loveless Lake champion, Lane Burke, “It’s always nice at the lake.”

Foggy Bottom

It has been so dreary that I figured I might as well post a black-and-white picture, though it's not far off nature's own color scheme. I snapped this on a misty Easter morning, when we were enveloped by a rare 70-degree spike in temps.

Chris, Chipper and I sprawled out on the (still) OSHA-unsafe deck for hours, drinking in the kind of sunshine and warmth that lends a person to think big, hopeful thoughts of life and the future.

My next-door-neighbor, Scott, finally out of hibernation, hollered up a greeting and waved around a bright pink plastic flamingo as if it were some sort of divine omen of the warmth to come. In short order, he was drilling holes into his deck railing and making it a permanent fixture of our woodsy/kitschy panorama.

The giddiness of that singular day -- which tricked us into packing up our turtle necks and winter boots prematurely -- is now lost like the eerie fog that hung over Loveless that morning.

Since then, our part of the world has been snowed on, iced on, rained on ... and cursed upon.

7-degrees? No fair

Another day of punishing single digits in the North Country. We are sooo hungry for spring.

The final winter tally in the Twin Cities: 50 days with below-zero temps. No wonder nearly every person I know is dreamin' and schemin' about getting the hell out of here -- forever, or at least for Winter 2015.

Dan, Dan the Plumber Man

Winter released its icy grip long enough for me to get to Loveless for a long-delayed meeting with Dan the Plumber last week. He restored running water to the kitchen after our pipes froze in January, and installed the drain in the shower – the first step to getting a functional bathroom. Whoohoo! 

I made it down to the lake for what could be the season’s final snowshoe outing, a slushy but sunny tour. The ice houses are gone and the extra hours of sunlight are making a dent into the snowpack, which was thigh-high as I trudged down the hill.

 

Repeat customers

Chris and I were so determined to make it up to Balsam Lake for WinterFest's second annual snowshoe “race” that we set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. on Saturday and drove in from the Twin Cities.

I’m pretty sure we’ll move heaven and earth from this day forward to make it there, thanks to Chris. His beer man costume was such a hit last year, that race organizers cheered his return as soon as we walked in the door. On the trail, fellow snowshoers asked why he didn’t wear it this year.

Ever the gentleman, Chris chose not to answer with a sneer in my direction. I suggested that he try something new this year. I rejected his “Elf” costume as untimely in this post-Christmas month, and possibly too creepy…

... so Chris went low-key and donned the Uncle Sam look.

Even though it was still colder than all get-out, the number of participants almost tripled from last year, when there were just nine of us. 

We made the 3-mile course in just under an hour, including stops for equipment malfunctions and photos at the scenic creek. 

With temps hovering around zero (or maybe just below), we embrace this notion of partaking in festivities that celebrate winter. Other than crumbling into a heap of writhing despair, what choice do we have?

Liquid gold

Propane shortages across the Midwest have reached the crisis stage, and it’s hitting home at Loveless. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker declared a state of emergency last weekend, which means that National Guard troops can knock on doors to make sure people aren’t in danger.

It's seriously scary. In news reports, people are turning their thermostats way down to conserve what little is left in their tanks, and are using electric blankets and space heaters to make it through the below-zero nights. About 250,000 rural Wisconsin residents rely on propane to heat their houses.

Prices now top $5 a gallon. When I filled my tank last March, I paid $1.53. I read somewhere that's the equivalent of paying $13 a gallon to fill up your car's gas tank. 

The shortage is caused by a colder-than-normal winter, the shutdown of a key supply pipeline and heavy use of propane by farmers to dry out their grain last fall, experts say.

This is my first full year using an LP tank and, like everything else about this Loveless experience of mine, I’m proving my creds as a damn clueless city chick. I have no earthly idea how long a tank of liquid propane lasts.

The last time I was at the lake I failed to trudge through the thigh-high snow to check the gauge. Now I’m kicking myself. But I’m part of the elite. When I go up this weekend, I’m checking on my year-round neighbors.