Brad Sondahl's blog

Brad's Blog

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April 5, 2017

We walked along a new to us logging road yesterday... Great views of Spirit Lake all along it...

Here is a buttercup, rare in that it is double--twice as many petals as usual.

On the way, around milepost 3.5 on the lake road, the grass widows are at their peak...

April 8
As I went down for a second walk of the day I saw both an eagle and osprey flying above the lake, the osprey having arrived just this week in the area. Also the other day red necked grebes were back with their raucous call. Walking in the woods there are still snowy and icy patches, but some of the run off streams have dried up... Buttercups and grass widows and spring beauties remain the dominant spring flowers, a bit of sun and warmer weather would do us all a world of good... We had another 3/4 inch of rain yesterday, and showers including snow showers are predicted for the next few days...
I did decide to plant the rest of the garden starts, including tomatoes and green peppers which aren't frost hardy (nor is our greenhouse).

Here's a pair of goldeneyes on the mill pond...

April 12
Over the winter I decided to build a bigger Little Free Library, because if it were me looking for books, I like variety. So today we put up the Big Little Free Library:

The Little Free Library.org designated the original dimensions, then later showed imaginative larger versions people had made. I preferred having more books over more cuteness, so made this, with a pottery mosaic roof on it, and recycled window door... The magnetic catch at lower left is a strong magnet from an old computer hard drive... Also in putting out the books I found one I couldn't let go without reading (or possibly rereading)--one of the recently late Elmore Leonard's westerns, The Bounty Hunters...

April 14
We hiked up the Pinball trail portion of the Empire trails today, and made our way back down Birch Creek.

There were lovely cataracts all the way down...

Remnants of logging pre-1930's fire were common, like this narrow truck rim along the creek that a small tree had grown up inside. There was also an old logging road with 16 inch trees grown up in it in places. We found a dump, common in the old logging sites, with lots of rusty cans and mostly broken bottles. Then I saw these:

There were several that looked like melted plastic but were actually glass, melted by the big fire that nearly took out the town of Spirit Lake. It impressed me that the cooling was even enough that the glass hadn't cracked (there's part of another steel cap imbedded in the bottle). I recently joined the local historical society so we may donate it to the local museum, if it ever manifests itself.

April 17
On Easter we hiked up the Lakeview trail at Priest Lake until we were stopped by snow. Previously we've been stopped by voracious mosquitoes, since the trail starts across from a huge swamp. Only saw one mosquito today, and this frog:

April 21 A new bird today, embarassingly common, but we mostly have redbreasted nuthatches, and we saw this female white breasted one preparing a nest hole today:

Books read and other media of note

I'm continuing to read several Alexander McCall Smith series this month. Corderoy Mansions, The Dog who came in from the Cold, and Finer points of Sausage Dogs and Full Cupboard of Life... All very fun..