One Great Run

Today was one of those days when everything worked the way you always hope it will. This was one cold, rain-soaked, snow-pelleted, wind-blown day and it was great. Katabatic and Memphis led with Red and Smokey making the corrections and keeping (Memphis) doing the right thing (she's always ready to go and always ready to try to turn the team around to take them home).Without Nike's confidence and enthusiasm beside her, Kat did her best - I was so proud of her again. Taku-Chinook, Zephyr-Matanuska were perfect! Whoo-hoo!

Halloween

Tonight we had Halloween!
In the past 31 years we've had 3 Trick-or-Treaters knocking on our door. But tonight (!) thanks to the recruitment efforts of "my neighbor through the back field, Peggy" we had 13!! Here are four of them...very cute!

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold,
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Trail 17

The Hancock/Calumet trail travels through the heart of the Copper Country range. More than three-quarters of the nation's copper came from this region of the Keweenaw Peninsula from 1843 to the 1920's. It was the only place on earth where pure copper was found so free of impurities that it could be formed into pots and pans without refining or processing.
The Mineral Range Railroad cars hauled hard-rock copper along this route throughout those years. Today this section of the rolling corridor is home to 13.4 miles of trail that also goes by the names "Jack Stevens Calumet-Hancock Rail Trail" and "Snowmobile Trail #17. It alternates between crushed stone and dirt, and as I travel on it I sail past stands of northern hardwoods, numerous ponds, wetlands, fishing spots, mine tailing piles (piles of rock brought to the surface during mining), and other relics of the copper mining era. I've spent countless hours and traveled countless miles on Trail 17 during the past 26 years. The old rails and ties were pulled up and hauled away years ago - and tonight as I ran with Cooper, I stopped to listened to the quiet, to breath in the pervasive spicy smell of the autumn forest, to study the stands of trees - most of which have given up their leaves now, and to think about the history laid down by this strand of trail.

Blind Hog Cider Press

"There are times when even a blind hog finds an acorn."
...it seemed to be a long-shot - the success of a cider press designed and built in David's shop by himself and his friend, George. Apples are bumper cropping this year apple on trees that were purposefully planted and those planted by herds of cows over the years. This was our first taste of the Blind Hog Cider Press product with the promise of more to come.

The Very Day I Wait For

AUTUMN

by Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.

Today is the tenth day of October, we've shared it with the first snow of the season. The wind started stiffly blowing early in the morning, followed by the snow which came in an assortment of forms and volume. Large, quarter-sized flakes, hard balls of corn-snow, at times horizontal blankets, tiny, floating crystalline-like bits that clung to the branches of the trees and grasses in the fields and glistened when the sun shone through the low-hung gray clouds (enlarge the pictures of the birches and you'll see what I mean) - all served to accumulate and leave a clean white ground covering that Robert Frost would have been more than pleased with.

It is this very day I wait for all year - this remarkable change in season day - from here on there'll be no question: we're on the cusp of winter. With that in mind David and I loaded a few dogs into the car - our destination wasn't mapped out - we let the roads take us where they would. We ended up at a bridge - we'd been there once before. Following the Sturgeon River Road we came to "THE BRIDGE" - it seems to lead only to a red farm house as it spans the Sturgeon River. We didn't cross it but someday I will and investigate the possibilty that the road just might reduce to a wee-small two track beyond the red farm house - and follow along the river bank.