September Events

We had three weddings at Gunflint in September. They were all quite different which made it fun for us. Here is a picture of one of them. Weddings are good business for Gunflint but we are all glad when the last one is over. Perhaps the biggest effort goes into moving furniture in and out of the main lodge. Yesterday as everything came back to normal, we all heaved a sigh of relief.

With no weddings Bruce is now freed to go back to his first love – tearing out old buildings to make room for new buildings. This year we are removing our oldest canoer cabins at the outfitters. They will be replaced by nine very small individual canoer cabins. Although the guests will still use the outfitters shower house, the cabins will have four beds, insulation, heat (for May and October), ceiling fans, refrigerators, gas grills and screened porch. It will be a nice upgrade for our canoeing guests.

So here is a picture of Bruce on his backhoe tearing out buildings. Today he is down working on the foundation pads for the cabins. We need nine and don’t want them to be in just a straight line. Ronnie Smith (our gardener) and I have been working on shrubs, trees and flowers to help with the landscaping next spring. It is always fun to have new projects.

The Pagami Lake fire in Ely continues to smolder. As of today the Forest Service has it 53% contained. Yesterday the planes worked hard to put out flaming hot spots. The tally is 267,000 gallons of water were dumped on hot spots just yesterday. Realistically, the fire will not be totally put out until the snow flies. There is nothing like a layer of snow to melt into those hot spots and finally put them out.

This last week fall color has hit the Gunflint Trail. We had rain (whoopee!) for several days and then the sun came out Saturday afternoon. I celebrated yesterday by working on my iris bed. Got everything dug up, the soil roto tilled, everything respaced and planted. Today I will work on planting some new irises I just got. Of course, last night I paid the price for crawling in the dirt. Out came the Advil bottle.

The fall color is only one of the changes around us. Although I still hear loons at night, there does not seem to be as much calling. Saturday I saw a flock of snow buntings on the road. They just migrate through our forest on their way south (or north). The partridge season is open but we have not gotten out nor have we seen any birds. There are lots of bunnies around the house but they have not yet started to turn white. They start with their feet so I will be looking carefully.

My garden is pretty much finished. I still have to dig up carrots. I will also cut all the parsley and dry it for winter use. Hopefully I will have time to pull out all the dead plants to clean things up for next summer. Pulling them makes me think of all the great fruits and vegetables we got from the garden.

October comes Saturday. Where did the summer go?