Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
DECEMBER 27, 2023 – This day last year marked my 31st day of skiing in a record season of 128 ski days. I know these numbers because they’re recorded in tally form on our basement wall. This year’s total ski days to date: ZERO, thanks to the cold and snow of winter having so far …
APRIL 11, 2023 – On this part of the planet, in many years we often skip spring and go directly from winter to summer. That seems to be the case this year. Just a week ago last Saturday, we woke up to another seven inches of snow on what was already a record amount of …
MARCH 24, 2023 – Today in these parts, the spring melt was final on, full force. The mercury soared well into the 40sF under a sky monopolized by the sun. As I skate-skied up and down the Bernese Oberland of “Little Switzerland”—my 109th day of the season—I reveled in ideal “spring skiing” conditions. These occur …
MARCH 17, 2023 – As a “glass half full” individual, I greeted favorably this morning’s blinding sunshine off the heavy blanket of snow that still covers the landscape in these parts. I chose to ignore the temperature (a high of 17F for the day) and the brisk, northwest winds, gusting up to 30 mph. At …
MARCH 11, 2023 – Today I have much to write about—thoughts, delights, reactions, encounters, contemplations. But as the weekly snowfall quietly accumulates outside our windows, possible topics are subsumed by the pleasant memory of afternoon’s trip to “Little Switzerland”—ski day no. 96 of the season. According to my basement-wall-tally system, out of 29 years of …
FEBRUARY 21, 2023 – For the next several days, our region is under a winter storm warning, with the threat—or promise?—of 20 inches of new snow. We desperately need something to cover the ubiquitous ice that threatens every one of us with a takedown faster than you can think, “banana peel.” (For the record, when …
FEBRUARY 14, 2023 – Michaela, the smart, cheerful nurse who administers the study I’m in, understands me well. That’s partly a result of the trouble I caused at the outset by asking questions to which she replied, “I’ll have to get back to you on that.” By regular injections of humor, however, I was able …
FEBRUARY 6, 2023 – This afternoon I switched from skis to snowshoes and headed into the woods. I wanted to harvest some poplar shoots for use in my next gnome home, and I knew a place where I’d find an ample supply. The challenge was reaching it through the heavy snow. My route took me …
FEBRUARY 5, 2023 – After imitating a prone coal-miner for an hour yesterday, hacking, chopping, picking away at the compacted snow under my car, I repaired to the cabin to fire up oak in the wood-burning stove and crank up Simon and Garfunkel on the CD (“Cabin Disc”) player. I then whipped up supper. While …
FEBRUARY 4, 2023 – Maybe winter’s getting to me. Yesterday I’d talked by phone with Beth about our narrowing drive and how our plow guy will have to round up a front-end loader to remove enough snow to accommodate the large gas truck that refills our propane tank. Otherwise, for the rest of the winter, …
FEBRUARY 3, 2023 – Last night here in northwest Wisconsin the temperature “went rogue,” plunging to minus 22F without regard to windchill. In such conditions, you get a little slap happy. Early yesterday evening I discovered that a banana had slipped out of a grocery bag and spent the previous 24 hours in the trunk …
FEBRUARY 1, 2023 – This afternoon just before sunset, I arrived at the head of our narrow, twisting drive to the Red Cabin. The last time I’d driven it, I’d summoned insufficient momentum for the sharp incline at the end. The car slid backward down the hill and into a snowbank. What ensued was our …
JANUARY 29, 2023 – This morning, while reading the news and facing a window, I peered occasionally over the top of my laptop screen to monitor outside activity—sunlight inching along the snowbanks; trees shuddering in the cold; and periodically, a person in heavy wraps and with steaming breath, out walking the dog. The canine was …
JANUARY 27, 2023 – Last night I risked life and limb to take the garbage and recycling down our 50-foot-long driveway to the alley receptacles. Winter’s been hard on the big, hard-plastic bins. Smacked several times by the plow, they stand at odd angles, in rough cut-outs of the snowbanks along our rutted, ever-narrowing, nearly …
JANUARY 19, 2023 – In these parts, snow—manna to a skier—is still falling from heaven. My wife, who isn’t a skier, would say it’s falling from hell, a thermically and directionally paradoxical perspective. I recently gained a better understanding of her disdain after I backed my car into a snowbank up at the lake and …
JANUARY 15, 2023 – Today the weather gods smiled, and gave a taste of spring-skiing. As I skated down the ski track, up and down dale, I noticed a number of weekenders on the course—friends on a lark; parents with young kids; older folks, gliding along slowly but surely. Citizen racers were few. Doubtless they …
JANUARY 12, 2023 – Today a reader-friend asked me: Are you accident prone? Are you a risk taker? Are you foolish? These questions were prompted by yesterday’s post about the bite of a bungee cord. I answered “no” to the first two. To the third I responded that another reader often calls me after a …
JANUARY 11, 2023 – From space the earth is a peaceful orb, pleasantly blue and green with shades of tan and brown, wrapped in white, whimsical swirls. But down at ground level, earth is home to chaos, dangers, and disruptions. Take, for example, winter in Minnesota. More specifically, damn winter ice dams in Minnesota. Ice …
JANUARY 7, 2023 – Followers of this blog know that in the course of my stem cell transplant procedure back in late August, Drs. Killjoy (both of them) told me, “No more downhill skiing for you. Cross-country, fine; downhill, no.” Their perfectly sound reasoning was that the multiple myeloma had turned my skeleton into “Swiss …
JANUARY 6, 2023 – (Cont.) Out of the wrecker cab dropped a driver from central casting—a burly, bearded fellow, wearing blue transition-glasses, a baseball cap, heavy-duty gloves and a green safety vest. His name was “Jim.” and he proved to be as much a witty conversationalist as he was an engineer on the fly. He’d …
JANUARY 5, 2023 – (Cont.) But we still had the stuck vehicles to worry about. John had plenty of devices and equipment for pulling his tractor out of the snow, but I couldn’t see how my car could be rescued much before spring. I was prepared to abandon it until then. In that case, however, …
JANUARY 4, 2023 – Mylène got her wish: being snowed in at the cabin as the world around us turned into a winter wonderland. While for several days we’d enjoyed the gorgeous winter scenery outside, and inside, played cards and Scrabble and kept the wood-burning stove loaded with oak, the window was closing on our …
JANUARY 1, 2023 – Happy New Year cheers to all my readers! May 2023 bring you good health and lots of happiness. And may it bring a measure of peace and prosperity to the world. Yesterday, I celebrated the end of an eventful year by skiing for an hour on the American Birkebeiner Trail, the …
DECEMBER 11, 2022 – Currently, snow conditions aren’t optimal, but I’ve learned to adapt. I’ve found a loop of skiable snow in “Little Switzerland,” a 10-minute walk from our house. My course is only a little over a kilometer but has what every serious x-c skier needs: two straight-aways—one for “V-1” (poling with every other …
JANUARY 24, 2022 – Woods are fraught. Little Red Riding Hood nearly met her doom there, as did other “Grimm” characters. Belleau Wood is where U.S. Marines were baptized by fire in WW I and in the Ardennes Forest a later generation of U.S. soldiers battled the last German offensive of WW II. We still refer …