Happy 2010!

The Sparrow-Finch-Polls are back! I was beginning to think that I'd wasted money on a whole big bag of thistle seed... we've gone through about 10 pounds of sunflower seeds and another 10 of corn for the jays, Canadian jays, grossbeaks and our huge family of hungry chickadees - but not a finch or a sparrow or a red poll have we seen - until this morning. A whole flock of hungry goldfinch arrived bright and early today and ... well, I'm glad the finch feeder was ready for them because they were more than ready for it!

We did have one unusual visitor over the weekend - I've seen them before, but not around here. When I turned on the porch light to let Major out for his bedtime walk I saw the reflection of eyes in the feeder - so I ran for the camera. It's a little hard to get a photo late at night in the dark - but here's a hungry little flying squirrel enjoying a free supper.

Here's hoping you have a wonderful New Year's Eve and that 2010 will be a great year for you and yours!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Mike and I at Rockwood to all of you! Thanks for all your cards and notes - we love hearing from you. Here's hoping the roads are clear wherever you wish to go this holiday season, safe travel, great fellowship, and a wonderful Christmas!



The Gunflint Trail got about 4 inches of snow yesterday and overnight, so Mike's been out blowing the driveway and thinking hard about his snowmobile. He hasn't gotten it started yet this year but now there's probably enough snow - not to mention winter fishing opener coming up so he's got that on his mind!

Getting ready for Christmas

The Christmas tree is up and decorated, yet another year when Mike and I just couldn't stand the thought of cutting down a real one. Guess we lived too many years in a new subdivision located more or less in the middle of an Iowa beanfield - trees take too long to grow for us to cut one down! I've gotten a little sentimental about our artificial tree, anyway - we've had it a long long time. And it's fun to look out the window past the tree and see how nature has decorated the trees outside with snow! We're starting to feel pretty "Christmasy" around here right now!

The lottery for 2010 BWCA permits is open, and we'd be happy to help you with yours! It's the same website as last year - www.recreation.gov . Lottery results will be sent out around January 18.

Snow at home

We're back! We had a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving week - saw all the family, enjoyed great dinner, great fellowship... and we're also greatly thankful to be home again on the Gunflint!

The weather was fantastic almost the whole trip, traffic wasn't bad, our truck cooperated - everything was fine. On the other hand, Mike had a little trouble sleeping because of all the noise from cars driving by our relatives' houses, I missed my "pet" grouse and there sure are a lot of yard lights in southern Minnesota, all of Iowa and most of Missouri!

We knew we were getting close to home when we started to see deer along the road near Lutsen, knew we were getting closer when we got to Grand Marais to see a dusting of snow, and were sure we were almost home when we started up the Gunflint Trail in a minor blizzard with the road 100% covered in new snow and no vehicle tracks! There were a LOT of fox and snowshoe hare tracks to welcome us, not to mention a long string of moose tracks wandering down the middle of the road. This morning there's a nice coating of new snow on the lake ice. It must have been warm while we were gone, since there's a bit of open water along the shores of Poplar Lake but we're obviously in winter mode here!