A List of Things I Am Thankful For In 2011

I was recently challenged to list one thing I am thankful for for each of the 21 days in November leading up to Thanksgiving Day. I tried to do them one by one, but I just can't keep up that sort of thing, so here goes a list all at once and in no particular order:

My spouse who supports me in my crazy plans and even helps implement them with me. 

My sons who are not children anymore but competent adults with opinions and ideas and goals all their own, who are smart and kind and generous and creative and inventive and compassionate and who remember to call their mother on the phone now and again, and their father who helped nurture all those things in them.
Their girlfriends who value their originality and compassion and individuality and do things to take care of them when I can't anymore because we live so far apart.
Friends who support me even when I'm a jerk.
My artwork that has brought me self-confidence and satisfaction and fulfillment and has brought me the company of other artists and has lead me to Mineral Point, Wisconsin.
Nature, especially prairie, and my gardens at my homes and the people who have shared time with me in them.
Music and musicians and especially local singer songwriters that you can see live and up close and musical instruments, and CDs and electronics that allow you to take it home and on the road with you.
Wild Ones Natural Landscapers organization that promotes end educates about native landscaping and the friends there.
Photography
Amazing parents
An amazing sister
The seasons and the changes in nature that it brings. The cycle of a day that brings morning light and warm glowing later afternoon light and night that brings starry skies and cicadas and morning that brings fog and dew and frost and songbirds' song.
Health and quality health care and healthcare professionals and researchers.
Flowers and florists and garden shops and nurseries and growers that supply them.
Facebook and reacquainting with old friends and meeting new friends .
Books and used book stores and small book stores.
Cats - also lemurs, horses, otters, tigers, dogs, and other animals - the companionship offered by some and the gracefulness, playfulness, and beauty of them all.
Hiking and backpacking and paddling and trips to the wilderness.
GPS's that help me with my total lack of a sense of direction and geocaching with my kids.
Schools and teachers and opportunities for individualized education.
Boy Scouts and leaders and parents and how it shaped my sons.

Lakes and rivers and paddling in them and overcoming fears so that I can enjoy the company of other paddlers and the solitude of a solo trip on the water.

Wood and making things with it like houses and furniture and such.
Good food and fine restaurants and chocolate and olives and raspberries and pomegranates and asparagus.
My senses, the ability to see color and light and the ability to hear a voice and music, the sense of touch to feel warm breeze and cool rain, the smell of a damp woods, dry corn fields, skunk, rosemary, flowers, and the essence of a loved one, the tastes of good food and salt in seaspray.

Adventures in Worry

Six years ago today or thereabouts I was obsessed with bears. My first born baby was going on his first Boy Scout High Adventure wilderness canoeing trip. There were bear bags mentioned for stowage of food at night and sessions where they learned to prevent their clothes or bodies or tent from becoming 'smellables'. They learned how to eat and deal with other 'details' to keep free of the smell of food and things like mint and perfumes that a bear would take as a signal of food. They learned to make a moderate bit of noise while hiking to prevent surprising a bear and they learned never to approach or run from a bear. I woke up around 4 a.m., certain my baby was going to die in the wilderness. Certain. I went out into the backyard in my pajamas and robe and walked around trying to figure out how to tell him he could not go. I eventually realized that if I kept him home, I would save his life and make him hate me forever: This was not a 'no' that we could ever recover from. So I sent him off later that morning and cried all the way back from dropping him off. My friends invited me on outings and took me to lunch and tried to distract me, but there were too many hour in each day for them to cover and so I worried and cried and cried and worried. And worried and cried.
When he returned safe and full of stories some 10 days later, I was so proud of him. The adults had tales of his hard work and maturity and helpfulness while his centered around the fun they'd had paddling and swimming and portaging the canoes through various adverse conditions of trail and weather and the beautiful and amazing sights they had seen. He seemed taller and definitely more grown up, and when I sent him off to summer camp with the rest of the boys a couple weeks later, I missed him almost as much, but I sure didn't worry. Summer camp in Wisconsin was a safe haven at a luxury resort compare to the wilderness he had just returned from where hungry bears roamed freely.
So they both go off again in the morning. The bags are packed and the lists are checked off and the international and local paperwork is done. This is the oldest's seventh summer high adventure and the youngest's fifth. I had the privilege of going with them on two of them and I know they are competent, skilled, and wise young men, and I look forward to their safe return in 10 days! And I look forward to their stories! Paddle safely, men, paddle safely!

Compass Rose

The first time I saw this idea was on the floor of a stone house that was hand built by one of my heroes, a local naturalist. His house is on a river, and his water source is a spring that flows through his house and out to the river. His staircase echoes the shape of his wife's baby grand piano! Some of his crown molding is grapevine split into quarters. I loved the hand crafted touches in his beautiful home. We have been trying to fit a compass rose into every remodeling project and building project since and finally, at the lake house, it seemed right. This granite tile is set into the slate floor of the foyer, revealing the orientation of the house in relation to true North. Up north, where we came from in North Dakota, up north where we spent lake vacations at Star Lake when the kids were younger, up north where the Boy Scouts went on High Adventure paddling and are going again in a couple weeks. If you were looking at a map of Lake Redstone, knowing where true North is might help you understand where our lot is in relation to the southern bay of the lake. Knowing the cardinal directions might help you understand where the sun will rise and set in relation to the houses amazing windows and views. The design has an abstract sail as a North arrow in honor of the little sailboat my kids and their dad rescued from the garbage and restored to use. The bur oak represents the prairie savanna that covers the rolling hills of the region. The sugar maple represents the maple-linden woods that shelters the stream edges and valleys. The white pine grows to towering heights along the shores of the lake on the sunnier drier slopes, and our lot whose slope faces nearly north has hemlocks that drape their graceful branches near the shore where we put in our canoes and kayaks. Some day, I hope to carve this design into a linoleum block, reversed of course, so that I can make prints of it.

Frank and Joe Introduce Me To Joe

I did not learn to love coffee until I was 47. I had gone on a 10 1/2 mile practice hike carrying a backpack fully loaded with my tent and sleeping bag and other gear. I hiked for 5 hours in the pouring rain to a forest preserve where I was supposed to meet the biking Boy Scouts for a Friday night campout. The bikers postponed until Saturday morning, so I camped in the cold rain alone. Early Saturday morning, Frank dropped off the troop gear trailer then went back to ride with the bikers. I was out on a walk to photograph wet nature, so he left me a coffee and a breakfast pastry in a bag on the picnic table by my lone tent. He did not know I was not a coffee drinker. The last coffee I remembered having was as a toddler when I would make the rounds about the coffee table, emptying the grounds from the cups of coffee left there while my parents were on the front steps seeing off the evening visitors. But that morning, I was cold and wet and had been so for about 18 hours so I drank the coffee anyway. It was warm. Steaming. Black. Aromatic. Warm. And warm. Another night of camping in the cold followed, this time at least in the company of my sons and the rest of the Boy Scout Troop. When Joe made his Sunday morning coffee in the troop's beat up tin percolator, I welcomed another cup. Joe made it strong and I drank it black and it was very very warm. I was in love. No, not with Frank or Joe, but with coffee.
Now I drink it when I am driving alone and it is cold outside and in the winter when I need a break from the chill of the snow or wet. I make it one cup at a time in a French press, of the darkest roasted beans that the local store carries. I make it about half again as strong as the directions say, and I drink it black. I enjoy the fragrance and the tactile experience of cradling the steaming mug in my hands as much as I enjoy the flavor. And more often than not, during the few minutes it takes for the coffee to steep in the press, I think fondly of my coffee mentors, Frank and Joe, and the warmth of the campfire and the camaraderie of my sons and the boys in the troop who let me join them on campouts and high adventure trips. Coffee is not just a beverage to me but the sum total of all those experiences: Coffee warms me on a cold day in such a wealth of ways.

Fifty Miles

What is fifty miles? About an hour of time driving? A couple gallons of gas burned? A long enough trip to consolidate missions like shopping for groceries and having lunch with a friend? On foot, it is another thing entirely. If you are a little bit crazy and don't take much gear and walk all day, I suppose you could do it in a couple days. But as a regular backpacking trip, it is the better part of a week. It is 6 days of 8-plus miles. It is at least five nights of sleeping in a tent. At least five set-ups and tear-downs and re-packings. It is six breakfasts of nutty grainy hopefully chocolaty bars. It is six lunches of tuna or salmon in a pouch or beef sticks or jerky and crackers. It is six dinners of dehydrated meals in foil pouches that begin with six waits for the water to boil and then for that water to rehydrate the casserole-like meal. It is at least 12 stops to filter and purify drinking water. For some of us, it is six mornings of taping toes and joints to prevent blisters and other minor but painful injuries and six mornings and six afternoons and six evenings of Advil dosings. Therein is the reason some of us refer to it as Vitamin A. If the usual odds hold, it is a least two days hiking in rain and at least 3 mornings putting on wet boots and at least 2 nights sleeping with raindrops hitting the rain fly of the tent. It is countless mosquito bites and a few fly bites and chapped lips and at least a little sunburn.

But it is also six days and nights of fresh air, fragrant with the scents of flower nectar and the aromatic oils of leaves and the decomposing of leaves and the varieties of fragrance medleys of streamside, woodland, sunny meadow, high pine ridge, which all have their unique signature and which, after a few days, you can identify by smell before you reach them. It is six days of quiet without the sound of traffic or phones and only the rustle of leaves and the calls of birds and the wind creaking the trunks of the trees. It is six mornings of beautiful sunrises or magical mists and six days of wonderful amazing views of panoramic vistas and close-ups of wildflowers and insects and leaves and bark and seeds and buds. It is six evenings of magnificent sunrises or foggy dusks and maybe a few nights of crystal clear sky with more stars than you remember there ever being up there. And it is six days of camaraderie with your hiking companions, of sharing the beauty of the area, of commiserating on your pain or the challenges, of talking about things in depth that you might never have time to reach in the real world, of joking and laughing and clowning, and of sharing stories of past journeys with people who know and understand what you are saying and who appreciate the achievement that each trip represents.

Fifty miles. I got my second Fifty Miler patch today from my sons' Boy Scout troop, for the trip to Isle Royale this summer. Yeah, I am damn proud of it, too!

The Ferry Ride From The Island

The ferry ride from Rock Harbor back to Windigo at the other end of the island, then on to Grand Portage, Minnesota was long. We were tired. We were happy. To ride the ferry back along the island where we had just backpacked over the last many days was exhilarating in a way. To look at all that land and know we had been there, that we had each walked it with our own two feet and slept on its ground and felt its rain and breathed its air and watched its creatures and drank its water was amazing. Rarely do you get a chance to step back, like in a MapQuest zoom, to see what you have traversed from such a different perspective. We were a little impressed with ourselves, yet a little humbled at how fast the ferry covered the same distance, with such graceful swift ease. But still! We did that! From one end to the other! We were too tired to say much about it, more than a few brief observations, but we all knew it as we rode. We did it! We really hiked that island from one end to the other!

Ways to Hike

One can rush through a hike, ticking off the miles, to call it an achievement. I heard one backpacker at the end of the journey, as we waited for the ferry back, tell a companion that it was a 'knock down' for him, to prove he could do it, to prove he was stronger than the island, that it couldn't get him. I think he viewed his trip a success, but I don't think he had a very good time. His point was to be in control, to do something to the island, to beat it.

One can pause to enjoy and wonder, to wander and look and listen and turn over the leaf and look at the flower up close and wait and watch the moose until it leaves the pond. One can take the time to use all the senses, to catch your breath and take in the quiet and then to absorb the sounds of the birds and insects and the leaves moving, especially in the aspen forests. One can ponder the light coming through the leaves of the ferns and through the canopy overhead. This is my approach, to let the island happen to me. It is a little scary perhaps. to admit that I am not in control and must adapt to the conditions to remain comfortable, but I think it is a more real way to approach such a hike and a more rich way to live in general. It takes a little or a lot longer to cover the miles but I think people who approach it this way have a much better time at it. The slow meandering backpacker gets into camp later but has fewer blisters and less chance of injury, and has more pictures and more to write about in their journal in their tent after dark.

Thoughts From The Ferry

On the ferry back to Minnesota, there were things running through my head like:
"I sure hope I don't need major surgery to fix this knee."
"I wonder who I can give my gear to because I am never doing anything like this again."
"Will I ever forgive my family for making me do this?"
"That sure was beautiful, but was it worth it?"
"I wonder if my gear will mold before it dries out."
"I can't believe I just backpacked 50 miles."
"My feet hurt. My ankles hurt. My knee really really hurts. The other one hurts too. The place I fell on my shin hurts. My wrists hurt. My back hurts. My forehead hurts from that fall."
"I wonder how soon I can get some fresh fruit."
"I can't wait to sleep in a bed."
"That short shower was not enough. I really need another longer one."
"I think I might go to a mall when I get back."
"That was sure beautiful and we saw some amazing things. But was it worth it?"
"I saw a moose."
"I sure wish I could sleep on this boat."
"I saw lady slipper orchids."
"When will my knee quit hurting."
"I wonder what kind of woodpecker that was."
"What time it is? Can I have more Advil?"
"That island sure was full of fantastic views. I wonder when I will be certain that I am glad I went."
"My kids sure are cute when they sleep."
"I hurt in way too many places to be having fun."
But these two people? She was reading Travel magazine and he was reading a travel guidebook on Guatemala. Planning their future trips before they are even off the ferry from this one.

At Rock Harbor

The ferry boat harbor was the end of the trail. I hit the flush toilets with their running water and shopped the camp store. I found canned peaches to satisfy my fruit craving and cheese to satisfy my salt craving and the most wonderful food of all, ice cold soda pop. We shared the cheese with some backpackers we had met up with at various points on the trail and visited with at a couple campsites, then set out to find the Boy Scouts, assuming they had beat us on the rocky shoreline trail, but they were not there yet. So we snuck into the harbor cafe to get some non-dehydrated food cooked over an actual stove. After they found us we caught up on the day's news. Because my knee was beginning to hurt a bit, I decided I had better get in my missing mile before I couldn't move anymore, so we headed off on a trail farther on toward the tip of the island, where we found more magnificent views. On the way back, we encountered a huge woodpecker, the kind that must have inspired the cartoon Woody. Shortly after returning from that walk that put me ahead of my 50 miles to qualify me for my second Boy Scout patch, my knee suddenly stopped working and I could not go up or down stairs and could barely walk at all on a slope. Everyone else went back to camp to set up and I stayed at the harbor to wait for them for dinner and the ranger talk.

Day 6 - Daisy Farm to Rock Harbor

This was our last day of backpacking, as we neared the west end of the amazing island. It poured in the night so everything was soaked, including the shoes that had nearly dried from the previous rains. The trail followed along the shore of Lake Superior as the trail gets rockier and rockier, climbing over a slight ridge to the shore of a bay called Tobin harbor to a park like trail along the shore of the bay. After smugly announcing that careful hikers do not fall during a camp discussion of who had fallen and how badly, I slipped stepping down a smooth faced stone slope and twisted an ankle and fell on a knee and shin, causing a huge red welt that promised to hurt more later. I was glad we were on our last day, because an injury like that can flare up in camp and cause delays the next day. We had been warned by the Daisy Farm ranger, John Denver, that the trail got rockier and rocker the closer one got to the harbor, and advised to cut up over the ridge to a flatter trail on the Tobin Bay side of the peninsula. The cut over the ridge initially seemed treacherous, but that turned out to be a false alarm, and the trail on the harbor side was relatively flat and smooth, with a slope down to the harbor water on the left and a slope up on the right. The harbor side alternated between evergreen trees that obstructed the view and opening that revealed it to make us ooh and ahh all over again each time we were treated to another harbor view. At first, the bay was very narrow and the other side was close, then as the bay widened, there was more lake and less background to the views, giving fresh perspective each time. We happened upon a duck family that we watched for a while. We were chipperly chatting along enjoying out last day out with a cheerful optimism when BAM I was face first on the trail with my pack pinning me to the ground and my head in searing pain. My partner behind me was enjoying a laugh at my expense and commenting that it was a good thing I fell on an area of soft moss and ferns. I uttered something unprintable that I was forgiven for later and pointed out that just under a misleadingly thin layer of moss was sharp jagged rough hard rock. He helped me up and helped twist and wiggle my pack back into place and asked where I hit. I pointed to my forehead under my bandana and he asked to see, so I lifted the bandana. He visibly winced back a little and said 'ooh, that's not gonna be pretty in a couple days'. Uh, thanks. We trudged on, and I tried to be grumpy about not one but two injuries, but the trail and its views were just to amazing. I kept thinking of it as a Japanese garden on some botanical park. The trail was that wide and that level and the views were stunning and the vegetation was lush. When we arrived at the harbor, we dumped out packs with great relief. A wonderful day filled with beautiful views and a sense of satisfaction that only hard work can bring.

Day 5 - Chickenbone Lake to Daisy Farm

From Chickenbone Lake campsites, we hiked long Greenstone Ridge Trail, then down to the shore of Lake Superior though the term down is misleading for every down slope was followed by an upslope almost as long but not quite, resulting in a general trend down that was achieved there bit by bit. Since I was trudging ahead in the lead to set the pathetically slow pace, I deprived my companion of the ability to share in the observation of my first moose. Since it was vastly hugely larger than I imagined such a thing would be, I loudly exclaimed a few words that would have been totally inappropriate in the presence of the Boy Scouts, providing another good reason for our setting out ahead of them. He kindly let me live after I scared the moose away before he could see it, and we moved on. We were rewarded later, when we came to a beautiful pond with rock formations and wild irises and I confidently said with my new found expertise on the species, "This looks like a good place for moose." And yes, there, just yards away, was a giant dark brown hulk munching on something from the depths of the pond. I snapped photos from afar, resting on my worn out feet, while my partner snuck back for a closer look.

Later on the trail, we encountered another first, this time a botanical one. Yellow lady slipper orchids appeared, first singly then in groups. Their brilliant yellow would be enough to make them stand out in the shade under the tree canopy, but their unique shape, with a ballooned pouch under a trio of striped burgundy petals, two of them long narrow and twisted, makes them like nothing else in the plant world. Only the onslaught of mosquitoes kept me from shedding my pack to creep about the soggy ground on my belly to photograph them from every angle. Instead, I snapped a few shots from above and by holding my camera low, and scurried on. Remaining a moving target is the only sure way to keep the tiny biting devils from sucking blood. Just as I was remarking that I had seen the two most amazing things I had ever seen, one from the animal world, and one from the plant world, we came upon the longest boardwalk I had ever seen, longer than I could imagine people thinking wise to build from one board at a time carried from miles away. Along that boardwalk were interesting woody plants that I assumed to be blueberries, making me crave fresh fruit more than ever before, and horsetails and the usual ferns and skunk cabbages, but then, alas, something new and entirely different. The pitcher plants were in flower! Rich deep maroon red down-facing flowers of thick waxy petals over tubular leaves that are carnivorous, in that they trap and dissolve insects. What an truly amazing day! Camp at Daisy Farm is in the woods away from the shore of the 'big' lake, Lake Superior, where the wind was cold but after being hot and sweaty for so many days in row, it was a welcome cold. And it felt good to know that there was just one long day of hiking left, meaning there was a genuinely good probability that I would make it back home alive.