Trail Time – Spring? Not Yet.
“How can you stand the winters up there?” my southern friends say (“southern’ being relative — it encompasses everyone I know who lives below the 48th parallel of latitude). My friends don’t realize that it’s not winter that’s going to crush your spirit, but it’s the long on-again, off-again arrival of spring that might break your heart. For example, yesterday was sunny and cloudless. Lars and I spent the afternoon loading some fresh split firewood into our wood shed and lingered outside as long as we could, chatting with neighbors, just finding any excuse to stay out in the gorgeous sun.
Today a winter storm was predicted, then it came and is here still. Fat flakes are coming down thickly. I can’t see the other side of the lake. Maybe we’ll get the 8” of snow that was forecast and maybe not. But one thing I know. Spring is not coming today. You just can’t get your heart set on spring. It will come, but only in its own good time.
It’s been a quiet few weeks on the Trail. Snowmobiling isn’t over yet, I don’t think, but with a lot of the resorts closed, we don’t hear that roar of snowmobile fun much. Gunflint Lodge, as always, remains open, but Trail Center, Poplar Haus, Hungry Jack and White Pine Lodge are all closed for dining. We’ve seen a big uptick on ice-fishing this year. Lars and I both lack that particular ice-fishing gene, though we do enjoy fishing in the summer. Well, I like to eat fish and sit in a boat. Lars does the fishing.
There don’t seem to be many animals or birds moving around lately. I’ve seen very few new tracks, mainly voles and squirrels. I’ve seen and heard pileated woodpeckers and I’ve been hearing a barred owl most evenings. The owls must be nesting soon, if they haven’t already started. We saw some fantastic moose prints recently in deep snow after one roamed the woods around us one early morning. The ravens, however, are always with us. You can almost always count on a raven.
I watch the ravens whenever I can. One usually soars by our north-facing windows every morning, heading east. Today our morning raven was cruising over us but then landed on the flattish top of a dead birch right below my window. As the raven bent his head down I wondered if he had found something for breakfast, but no, he dipped his head and scraped his beak on the trunk, one side then the other, cleaning it off. Perhaps he’d already eaten.
Yesterday — a sunny day — I saw a raven circling overhead then spiraling slowly down, down to the dirt road — the newly exposed gravel warming up as it soaked up the sun’s rays. The raven landed, then walked along on top of the snowbank, stepping easily over large clumps of snow. In no hurry. At his ease. He looked far bigger to me than he really was. It was very strange. His wings looked like clasped hands behind his back as he walked along, looking like someone mulling things over. Thinking about weighty matters. He reminded me of a bishop I used to know. He saw me and gave me an inscrutable look.
The raven then continued walking in a kind of ponderous way down the road, lifting his feet high, then staring at the ground in front of him. His self-importance was obvious from a distance, but maybe I’m mistaking confidence for something else. Maybe he was looking for some early worms. He had an abundance of dignity — more than you would expect from someone that eats dead things off the road. I don’t think I looked nearly as dignified when I clumped down that same half-frozen road, with spikes on my boots, walking in mud, then on sheets of thick ice, then in wet clumpy snow. I think the ravens understand something about winter that I don’t.
If I were to take a lesson from Mr and Mrs Raven it would be this: do the work of the day in front of you, not the day you wish it was. Deal with the present. We never know what is going to be dumped on us, so we must be clear about our work so we don’t get distracted by surprises — things that happen and things that don’t. Oh, yes, and be flexible.
This winter is waning, but it will not give up easily. On the plus side, the moisture that every snowfall brings is like money in the bank (or water in the bank) as far as wildfire danger is concerned. A slow spring means a slow melt — the earth needs to thaw before the water can be absorbed. The earth will melt, the lakes will rise, and summer will come again. Just not today.
— Marcia Roepke
