still standing

My friend Ali lives in Wisconsin and frequently goes up north to the Ashland and Bayfield area. She drives right by Phillips when she goes, so I asked her to stop by Lake Kemosabe and see if the cabin was still standing. In August, she and her friend and their dogs paid a visit to the shack, which was indeed still standing. Not only did they visit and report that the place was still standing, they took pictures.


This is the end of the road, where the "gate" used to be. Here begins a very bouncy drive on the dirt track, or a nice walk if you prefer.


Here is a view of the front of the shack, still standing, still leaning.


My dad built the roof over the area where firewood was stored. The roof was hailed as a great improvement, especially when trying to start a fire on a snowy or rainy day. The front porch is visible to the right.


Here's another view of the firewood storage area. Note the somewhat erratic chinking between the logs.


The screen on the front porch has fallen down on the end, but is still largely intact. Lake Kemosabe is visible in the background.


It looks like the front porch door has been removed, along with almost everything else. The mossy wooden gutter over the porch door is also gone. The wooden table that the squirrel liked to gnaw on remains.


The wood stove, bunk beds and table are all gone from the main room. The place looks so sad and barren. The lake is visible through the window, which has been broken. I don't think anyone will fix it this time.


The kitchen sink used to be there, to the left. I washed a lot of dishes while looking out that window. I wiped that counter top many times. It looks like it could use a good wiping. I wonder how that broken deer skull got there.


MJB mentioned that there was a dead porcupine in the kitchen, and here it is. Its final resting place is where the old gas refrigerator used to be.


Up north.

armistice day

One thing I always liked about Wisconsin was the weather. I liked the wide range of different types of weather. In the summer, there were some mild breezy days, and some windless sunny sweltering days. Sometimes in the middle of summer, the nights would be hot, but in early or late summer, the nights might be cool, even if the days were hot. In the winter, or even late autumn, the temperature might fall below zero fahrenheit. There was often snow in the cold season, up to several feet of it.
In addition to the wide range of normal weather, there was always the threat of more extreme weather. Summer thunderstorms could be violent, with rain pouring down and fierce wind gusts that would break off tree limbs or even knock down whole trees. Winter blizzards could dump huge amounts of snow in a short amount of time, with wind piling up large snow drifts. There were also occasional tornados in the state, adding to the excitement of a rapidly darkening summer sky.
My uncle told me about being up at the cabin in Phillips during an unusually strong rain storm. He said the cabin was shaking and he thought it might fall down around him. The old windows (before the vandals broke them, and they were replaced) had cracks in them, and the rain was coming down so fast, and the wind blowing so hard, that a little jet of water was shooting through one of the cracks in the window. Lots of trees were blown down during that storm. I think he had to cut through about twenty trees that had fallen across the dirt road to get to the county road.
My dad told me about going up to the cabin one winter. I had been there in late November quite a few times, and the cold and snow was more extreme than what I was used to in the middle of winter, so it was hard for me to imagine that it could be much worse. But from his description, it was a lot worse. There was a blizzard while he was there, and the temperature dropped precipitously. He was spending most of his time just trying to stay warm, constantly feeding the wood stoves. One evening, he loaded up the wood stove to get a roaring fire going to try to warm up the place. He took a drink from a mug of water, and put it on the wood stove to keep it warm, then got into his sleeping bag on the bunk next to the wood stove and fell asleep. After a few hours of sleep, he woke up shivering. The fire was out, and the mug of water he had left on the wood stove was frozen solid. I think it was then that he decided to leave the cabin as soon as he could get his car to the plowed road.
Grandad told me that he was walking through the woods after a severe storm, and there were a lot of trees down. Constantly having to climb over, or squeeze under the fallen trees made progress much slower than usual. He got to one area where almost every tree for twenty or thirty yards was blown down. The strange thing about it was that all the trees were blown down in a direction facing out from the center of the area, so it looked like there had been an explosion of some kind. It was as if a huge column of air had come straight down to the ground, spreading out in every direction, knocking trees down as it went.
Grandad also told me about the Armistice Day storm of 1940. He said it started out as an exceptionally mild fall day, about 60 degrees Fahrenheit, with occasional light rain. It seemed like a perfect day for hunting, so all over Wisconsin and Minnesota, duck hunters went out to their favorite spots. Since it was so warm, many hunters went out in short sleeves and took only light jackets, if anything. Hunters went to ponds in the woods, or rowed boats out to their blinds or islands in lakes and rivers. What they didn't know was that there was a fast moving cold front heading their way.
Towards midday, clouds came rolling in and the temperature started to drop. At this point, some hunters decided to call it a day and head home. Ironically, as the wind increased and the temperature continued to drop, all the ducks started flying down to lakes and ponds to try to get away from the worsening weather. This caused many hunters who might have gone home to stay out because the hunting was so good. By the afternoon, many hunters had shot their limit, but by this time, snow was falling and the temperature had fallen to nearly zero fahrenheit and the wind was gusting at up to fifty miles per hour.
By the time they realized how bad the weather was getting, it was too late for a lot of hunters. Some foundered in boats overloaded with freshly shot ducks in the waves whipped up by the wind on even relatively small lakes. Some got lost trying to find their cars in the white out conditions and froze to death. Some hunters were found days later, frozen solid in their shirtsleeves. Over 150 people died in that freak storm.
I can't remember whether grandad said he was out hunting that day, or if it was someone he knew, but whoever it was, was in a duck blind at the edge of a large lake. As the wind picked up, blowing right into their faces, the water around the duck blind started mysteriously rising, eventually pouring into the duck blind. That caused the hunters in the duck blind to get wet, so they decided to call it a day and go home, fortunately for them. Their route home took them around the other side of the lake, and as they drove by the opposite lake shore, they saw something that explained why the water had risen into their duck blind. The water on that side of the lake had receded, leaving about twenty yards of lake bottom completely exposed. The wind was so strong and steady that it was blowing the lake water to one side of the lake.
Later, I read somewhere that this weather system had started in the west, where it caused particularly strong winds in the Tacoma Narrows in Washington. The reader may be familiar with a particular event that occurred on November 7, 1940, having to do with a bridge over the Tacoma Narrows.
So one night while I was at the cabin alone in the summer, I heard the wind blowing. I didn't remember it being windy earlier, so I went outside and the wind had definitely picked up. The moon had disappeared behind thick clouds, leaves were rustling and trees were starting to sway. I noticed some flashes of lightning in the distance, and it smelled like it was going to rain. It seemed eerie standing outside in the darkness with the wind rushing past my face and I suddenly felt a little bit vulnerable. I was thinking about tornadoes, falling trees and fast moving cold fronts.
I had left a few recently washed towels and t-shirts out to dry, so I took them inside. The wind started getting stronger, and the cabin started creaking and I could feel little drafts blowing through the various cracks and holes in the walls. I started hearing distant thunder and seeing more frequent flashes of light in the sky. Then the wind actually started howling and the cabin would occasionally shudder when a gust hit it. I was worried that the old place might blow down with me in it, but I consoled myself that the place was indeed old, and must have withstood lots of storms like this one.
There was a bright flash and almost instantaneously after a loud crack of thunder, and rain started pouring down. The rain was beating against the windows, and when I looked out front, water was streaming off the roof. Seeing a stream of water that didn't have to be carried from the boat spurred me into action. I started collecting all of the tubs, pots and pans I could find and took them outside to collect the rainwater flowing off the roof. I quickly got soaked as I placed the vessels under the eaves. The wind had died down a bit, but the pouring rain and crashing thunder were deafening. I got a strange almost euphoric feeling as I was rushing around in the din trying to find every container I could to fill with this wonderful clean water that didn't have to be fetched from anywhere. I even got some old plastic jugs. There was plenty of water to rinse them out and fill them up from other pots sitting under the eaves. I even filled up a plastic jug by holding it under the faucet-like stream coming from the end of the wooden gutter over the door.
All the containers were overflowing with rainwater, and the rain was still coming down. Since I was already soaked anyway, I took off my clothes and took what seemed like a real shower out in front of the cabin. The rain was actually pretty cold, so it wasn't exactly luxurious, but at least I didn't have to pour the water on myself.
It was still raining as I dried myself off and put on dry clothes, and there seemed to be even more lightning. I stood in the doorway on the porch looking out into what was alternately bright light and complete darkness. There was lightning almost every other second, and it seemed almost like a disco with a strobe light. The trees were dancing violently to the music of the storm. One second there would be a flash and a big tree would be leaning over to the left, the next moment, another flash, and the same tree would be leaning way over to the right.
By this time I had more confidence in the cabin, and its creaks and shudders were more reassuring mutterings of a sturdy old friend than startling cries of impending danger. I felt a great sense of well being watching this spectacle of nature gradually die down from under a relatively leak free roof, having secured a good supply of water with minimum of work, and gotten clean in the bargain.

push reel

When my brother and I were assigned the task of mowing grandad's lawn, we would usually split the task. One of us would mow the front and sides and one would mow the back. We would often argue about who would get to do the front. The back yard had trees, the swing, usually a lawn table and chairs, the charcoal grill and various other obstacles to mow around or under, or have to move, mow, then move back. The front yard was a large rectangle of grass, unencumbered by obstacles which slow down or redirect a lawn mower, making it much more appealing for the young lad who wishes to finish his assigned task and commence to fiddle farting around.
The front yard was also a more pure mowing experience. Once the slightly irregular area next to the house was done, the remaining almost perfect rectangle could be completed by walking a single line around the outer edges of the rectangle, shaving off a strip until nothing remained. Or one could go back and forth on one edge of the rectangle, mowing long strips on one edge until only a single long strip remained. The adventurous mower might mow diagonally, or even mow in a complicated criss cross bow tie pattern.
Sometimes one of us would mow the entire lawn, while the other worked on something else. One might use the hand trimmer to cut the grass around the flowerbeds and obstacles, and rake up the cut grass after the other one mowed. There might be an extended period of negotiation to determine who would mow, trim, rake and or fertilize which part of the yard. We always kept a running tally of who had done what last time, or at least we pretended to.
While cleaning out the garage one time, we noticed an old push reel mower behind some things up against a wall. Being fascinated by all sorts of tools and machinery, we extracted the dusty old mower and took it out to the lawn. It was extremely hard to push, and didn't cut the grass very well. We put a bunch of oil on it, and it was a bit easier to push, but it still had a tendency to grab the grass and stop instead of cutting if it wasn't going full speed. It was a neat machine though, and fun to play with. We pushed it down the driveway as fast as we could so we could hear the blades whizzing around at high speed. We did actually cut a few strips of grass, but it was too dull to do much without extreme effort.
We told grandad about finding the ancient reel mower and that we thought it was pretty cool. He seemed pleased that we liked it, and announced that we would go and get it sharpened the next day. I think he liked the idea that we might potentially do more work while performing the same task, but he probably suspected that we would push it around a bit more, even if it was sharpened, and get bored of it and go back to the easier gas powered mower.
We took the old reel mower, the blade of the gas mower and the hand trimmer and shears to the place where grandad got things sharpened. It was a few miles away, in a little garage-like building behind a house. When we arrived, an old guy came out of the house to the building and did the sharpening. When we got back, we tried out the freshly sharpened reel mower as soon as we got it out of the car. It was much easier to push, and even going slowly, it cut right through the grass. The lawn could probably have waited another day or two to be mowed, but I decided I'd go ahead and mow the front yard with the reel mower since it had just been sharpened.
I started off at a good clip, confident that I'd finish quickly, now that the mower was oiled and sharpened. It wasn't too long before I slowed down though, realizing that the reel mower, though it was a lot easier to push than when I first tried it, was still significantly harder to push than the gas powered mower. I also noticed that the reel mower was narrower than the powered mower, so I was going to have to do more passes to finish, and I'd have to push it a lot further. It was harder to push, but it was more pleasant in some ways. There was no loud sound of a reciprocating engine, just the whish of the curved blades sliding over the cutting surface. It was nice to watch the cuttings shoot out of the mower and rain down behind it on the freshly cut surface of the grass. The faster the mower was pushed, the higher the cuttings would fly. I also liked the idea that I was doing the whole job without the help of some other power source.
As I got more and more tired I considered giving up, or stopping and coming back later to finish, but the part I had mowed looked nice, and I decided not to let that remaining bit of lawn defeat my intention to mow the whole front. My hands started to get sore, and I felt like I might be getting some blisters, but I kept going. I just kept looking at remaining amount of uncut grass and thinking I'd do at least one more pass. I thought that every time until there was only one more pass left to finish, and then I did one more, and I was done. I pushed the reel mower back towards the garage and stopped when i got to the garage and turned around to survey my work.
I was extremely pleased. The cut seemed so even and sharp. I remember thinking it must have been the first time I thought of a lawn as beautiful. There were no trails of battered grass spit out from a spinning blade, just an even coating of sliced grass. There was no smell of exhaust or oil, only the smell of freshly cut grass. I was very tired, and my hands were sore, but they weren't numbed and buzzing from the vibration of the gasoline engine, and there was no ringing in my ears.
I thought about doing the back yard with the reel mower too. It would have really looked great, but I was much too tired. I thought maybe I'd do it the next day, but then I remembered it wasn't my turn to do the back yard.