Casa Blanca: May 2021

Because we are away from Lincoln so much these days, I'm not getting the riding in that I usually do. I did sneak in one quick ride before we packed the car and headed north to Hus OLAF.

40-mile Syracuse ride with Steve, Annete, Clayton and Don

Lindsay and Jeff are into the black skeleton version of home decor. I think these lawn ornaments are a hoot.

It is customary for Rusty and me to take a trip into the Boundary Waters as soon as the fishing season opener occurs; this year was no exception. On some trips we've had snow, ice and nighttime temps below freezing. This year we had daytime temps in the 80's and nighttime temps in the 60's. One has to be prepared for whatever Mother Nature has in mind.

Rusty loads the canoe as we prepare to launch.

After 2 portages and about 7 miles of paddling, we find our campsite.

We called this "our island" since it was near our campsite.

The black flies were awful, so I spent most of my time in long clothes and a headnet.

Rusty and Steve solve the problems of the world near the campfire.

View from our campsite----beautiful!

One day we caught so many bass that we had fish for dinner, fish eggs for breakfast the next morning, and fish tacos for lunch.

Fish eggs, still in the sack.

After Steve cleans the fish, he puts the remains on a rock near our campsite. Each evening we had an "eagle show" with them coming in to feed.

Eagle feeding

During a successful day of fishing, we stopped here to eat lunch.

There were pretty flowers...

...and blooming strawberries

I'm not sure how many trips we've done together, but it has to be approaching 30.

Most of our month was spent at our cabin; when we arrived the trees were just beginning to bud.

Much is happening up there and we find it pretty exciting!

Over the last couple of months, our neighbor and carpenter built new stairs leading to the porch.

He also installed a third railing on the loft, which we felt we needed for our safety.

Our portage trail to the water is very boney (lots of rocks and dips), so we spent some time making needed adjustments.

Di filling a hole with dirt/rock mixture

We also did some trail marking.

We paddled nearly every day on our lovely White Iron Lake. It is 3,246 acres with over 14 miles of shoreline; the deepest part is 47 feet.

At the end of our paddle we look for our Pyramid rock to find our landing spot.

We used a crowbar to remove offending rocks so that we could land and launch without hitting rocks and tipping the canoe.

Our own special "slip".

It's easier to leave our canoe near the water rather than haul it up and down the trail for our frequent paddles. The trail is on state property, not ours, and anyone can walk across it. Leaving our canoe at water's edge seems risky, so we created a space to hide it.

The next 4 pictures are taken from the trail closest to our hiding spot. Each picture gets a little closer. Can you see it?

This is our hiding spot!

Improvements on our outhouse were big on our list this trip. We removed the old Biolet, cleaned the floors, and installed the new, bigger, better Biolet.

I made curtains for the window.

I washed all 96 "crystals" on the chandelier.

It's much prettier and brighter now.

We have been going to town about every 3 days to re-supply our water. We've been anxiously awaiting the digging of our well.

This enormous truck arrived and started to dig.
A second truck carried additional pipe.

Well-digger operator

In one hour water began pouring out of the ground!

We were very lucky! They hit water at 45 feet.

Running water!

The previous owner had a burn pit that was one big, ugly heap of ash. I began relocating the large pile of ash because he kept referring to this area as a fire pit.

Eventually I found the fire ring and its surrounding rocks.

Laundry day is something that I look forward to.

I load ten days worth of laundry into the machines..

Then I walk across the street to the local coffee shop.

I sit and drink my latte and chat with the locals.

The entire process takes about an hour! Not bad, huh?

Look what I found.

Me n Ole

Our next big project is the construction of two new buildings. One will be a sauna for me (and anyone who is interested). The other is a woodshop, or for insurance purposes we will be calling it a bunkhouse. Each building will have its own wood stove. In addition to being a place for Rusty to work on projects, it will also house our canoes. With cots, 3 or 4 people could easily sleep there.