Ski Trail, Cloquet River
I’ll come clean. The photo wasn’t taken yesterday. It was taken a few Sundays back when the dogs and I made a long loop on the ski trail in the woods behind my house. I was skiing on trails I cut twenty years ago, when our three oldest boys were still in school and Jack, our youngest, wasn’t even an inkling. I would have taken a photo yesterday for this blog if I hadn’t essentially shoveled myself to exhaustion. I worked so hard and so long out in below zero temps, I simply forgot to snap pictures. So the above photo, which was at least taken on a Sunday, will have to do.
When I got up yesterday dressed in my jammies and thick bathrobe, I meandered into the kitchen and punched the buttons on the coffee maker before waddling over to the back door to read our outdoor thermometer.
Twenty-one below. Christ, I thought as almond wafted from the percolating coffee maker into the still, quiet Sunday air, will it ever get above zero?
I’m a Minnesota boy. I’ve endured all sorts of winters; cold and snowy, cold and snowless, spring-like and wet, and all combinations in between. There was the mega storm of my youth, 1962, I believe, where the power went out over most of Duluth due to tons of heavy, white snow snapping off electrical cables. My dad and mom loaded up our old 1961 Dodge Dart station wagon, the first car we ever owned with a third seat (it faced backwards which made for an interesting ride) with my brother Dave and I and headed to my uncle’s motel in West Duluth. We stayed with Willard a few nights while crews worked like beavers to restore power. Then there was the winter of 1991, the great Megastorm that dumped three feet of snow on us on All Saints Day, the earliest blizzard I’ve encountered during my nearly 60 years on Earth. And there was the -44 day in February of 1996, in the midst of a cold snap that coincided with our old farmhouse being torn apart for remodeling. Below zero, I can handle. Arctic below zero, temperatures below -30 are another matter entirely. But if you lump all of these experiences together, they don’t approach this winter. They just don’t. Hell, I’ve recorded six mornings driving into work this year with temps below -30. Six. That’s gotta be some sort of record, don’t you think?
Yesterday, after I checked the temperature, let Jimi Hendrix, our miniature Dachshund outside to do his business, and released Kena, our exuberant Labrador pup from her kennel, I ventured into the basement. Rene’ and I were bound and determined to make it in to church as a family, which meant rousing Jack, who has the entire lower level of our home to himself, from slumber. But it turned out that Jack was battling stomach flu and, despite the fact I got him to leave his bed, was in no shape to worship.
I’ve been battling an issue with my neck and left arm, disconcerting symptoms I won’t bore you with. Suffice it to say, as I tugged on my insulated Carhartt jacket and bibs, pulled my winter boots over thick wool socks, donned gloves and a hat, I wasn’t looking forward to another day facing bitter cold. But the wood rack was empty. The sidewalks were treacherous. And there was an ice dam looming over our back porch. All of these things needed to be addressed and with Jack down for the count, it was left to me to handle the chores.
Outside in the cold, as I chipped away at the stubborn snow covering our porches and sidewalks, Lexi, my son Matt’s Labrador, joined the throng of dogs milling around my feet. The sun was high and bright. On the rare occasions when I stopped to take it all in (like when I was on the roof, knocking snow and ice onto the ground to clear a path in case, just in case, the weather ever turned and the snow on our roof began to melt) well, the promise of spring held by the big yellow globe teased my face. After clearing the roof, porches, and sidewalks of snow and ice, I set about digging a path to our woodpile; the neatly stacked oak only a suggestion in the deep snow behind the dog run. On the way home from church, I’d purchased two new shovels from Menard’s. Seems all the snow we’ve moved this year wore out the shovels we had on hand. New shovel in hand, I dug a channel from the driveway to the wood pile through hip deep snow. While dragging a plastic sled piled with wood, I had to dodge Kena and Lexi. The labs found a tennis ball buried in the snow and proceeded to invent a game which involved one dog holding the ball and teasing the other dog into a frenzy by placing the ball on the snow, tempting theft, only to snatch the yellow ball up and dart away. An hour later, the wood bin was full. My neck sore, my left knee throbbing from climbing stairs with arms full of dry oak, I put Kena back in her kennel and found my way into the house. I peeled my Carhartts off, gulped down tumblers of cold water and climbed to the master bedroom where another episode of Band of Brothers was waiting for me on DVD.
When I got out of bed this morning, tired and still stiff from yesterday’s cold and chores and in no mood to face Monday, I padded my way across the cool hardwood floor of the kitchen to gander at the thermometer.
Twenty-three below. When will it end?
I have no idea. Do you?
Peace.
Mark
Boy Scout Camp 28, Cloquet River.
