When I awoke this morning it was -26º outside and only 60º in the cabin…a good day to stay inside and write a blog. (Rusty and I will take our daily walk in the forest, but only a half mile.)
As is the case almost everywhere, The busy Christmas season starts the day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday really isn’t a “thing” here, but there’s no shortage of events.
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| The Holiday Party preparations began at the Folk School where I helped others prepare food. |
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| We made meat pies, called Pasties, that are quite yummy! |
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| The Holiday Party is held at the beach. People can socialize while staying warm near the bonfire. |
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| Warm pasties, cookies and hot Gloog is free to everyone (donations accepted). |
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| A warming tent with wood-burning stove is available if you get too cold. |
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| Snow is cleared off the lake for skating. |
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| Kids play on the swings |
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| …and climb up the slides |
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| …and free dogsled rides on the lake. |
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| The Festival of Trees has beautiful decorations on silent auction with proceeds going to the nursing home. |
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| We had a pre-Christmas celebration with Steve and Kate. |
A new fad (instead of charcuterie board) is a butter board. Have you tried one?
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| Steve and Kate loved this one. |
We hosted 18 of our peninsula neighbors for an open house to celebrate our one year of living here.
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| There was good food… |
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| Some libations… |
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| …and everyone seemed to have a good time! |
AAUW
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| Alison and Autumn sat with me at the AAUW Christmas dinner. |
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| Cute napkin table setting. |
The AAUW also had a silent auction that evening and we raised over $1200 to help send middle school girls to STEM Camp.
Christmas Cards Galore!
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| So many of you sent lovely holiday cards. Thanks! |
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| Rusty and I went to Christmas morning church in Duluth |
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| …and had dinner at the Boat Club while watching the large ships in the harbor. |
We each hike or snowshoe or ski daily. The silence of the snowy woods is beyond description. This is one of my favorite routes: I leave our cabin and go down to the dogsled trail. I follow the trail east and then across the main road. Then the trail goes down through more woods, and then the marsh, and out onto the lake. This is the part of White Iron Lake known as the “back bay” and also where our pack of wolves hang out. I pick up a dogsled trail on the lake and go southeast. Eventually I turn right through the marsh and back up to Sunset and then home. It’s just under 2 miles. This GPS map (images taken in the summer) shows my route.
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| In the marsh |
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| Our neighbor has multiple igloos. |
Biking is a year-round thing here.
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| There’s fat tire biking if the snow is right… |
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| …and spinning with Autumn when its not. |
Rusty and I tackled burn piles this winter. The piles are made of mostly dead balsam trees that we cut, or paid to have cut.
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| When a flake of hot ash rose to the top of a very dead tree and settled in the open top, the tree ignited. |
The chain came off the saw and an ax wasn’t enough for this big tree. Rusty got the chain back on and eventually felled the tree while embers fell around his head.
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| This pictures shows the remains of the burn pile and two more big piles in the background. |
We successfully burned 5 piles and still have 15 to go. We’re considering hiring someone. Each pile took us 4-5 hours to burn and it’s pretty cold out there.
Rusty and I love to cook. Lest you should think our primitive lifestyle limits our cuisine, here are some of our more recent dinners.
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| Curried chicken with peas and potatoes, served over rice |
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| Steak, potato and applesauce |
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| Shrimp creole |
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| Rusty’s Hot Brown (Chicken, bacon, mornay sauce with Romano cheese over Texas toast.) |
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| Pasta putenesca and broccoli |
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| Venison roast (thank you Steve), onions, potatoes and carrots. It was fall-apart tender and delicious! |
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| Oven-baked chicken, sweet potato and spinach salad |
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| Rusty’s soup beans, homemade cornbread, sliced peppers |
Toby and Alison Bell are newer neighbors we enjoy spending time with.
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| Dinner at The Steak House |
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| Followed by some pool. |
Lincoln friends come visit
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| Karl and Lou drove north to Duluth to watch the John Beargrease Dogsled Race and we were able to get together for dinner. |
With February around the corner, we are looking forward to ten days of the Ely Winter Festival. The blocks of snow are already set up in the park and waiting for sculptors to begin. This year’s festival will include the first ever End of the Road Film Festival for four days. Local artists also have their work displayed in shop windows along Main Street in preparation for the art walk. The final days will include the Wolf Track dog sled race.
No matter the season, there’s plenty to do here in Ely!
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