Andrew at the Eben Ice Cave

Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day.  And it was somewhat warm, with temperatures in the mid-20′s.  This felt like a heat wave after several days earlier in the week when the temperature barely struggled to five degrees!

Of course, any time it warms up during the winter, any red-blooded Yooper will find something to do outdoors.  Since the last adventure Andrew and me had was in October (when we climbed Hogback Mountain and visited the Lily Pond), we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go to visit the Eben Ice Cave.

This is a little waterfall in the summer, but it freezes into spectacular walls of ice in the winter months.  We’d been hearing about it since we moved here two years ago, so off we went!

Footbridge over creek - Eben Ice Cave

It’s a bit of a trek to get there; you have to drive down to Eben, a little town about 30 miles southwest of Marquette.  Then you hike in.  The walk itself is gorgeous, through the winter woods.  This little footbridge is part of the trail.

View of small waterfall from footbridge

The last part of the trail was up and down.  We both had our ice grippers on our boots, and it was a good thing we did.  It was SLICK!  I slid down a couple of spots on my bottom.

Just before you get to the ice cave, the trail is VERY steep and slippery.  Add at least 75 people into the mix, and a half dozen dogs, and it was pretty exciting, with dogs and kids running and sliding everywhere.

Click on the pictures to make them bigger.  If you click twice, they get much larger, so you can see the details.

A frozen waterfall is a spectacular sight.  If you ever make it up the UP during the winter, don’t miss it!

Andrew in front of the ice cave.

Me standing by the entrance to the ice cave

Andrew inside the ice cave. You can walk completely behind the ice and come out on the other side. I chickened out, as there was a sheet of ice on the floor. (Ha, he looks like an alien with those glowing eyes!)

Giant icicles by the entrance to the ice cave. You can see where the water froze as it ran down.

Snowed in! This is the end of the driveway where we got plowed in.

Guess the Upper Peninsula is going to live up to its reputation for snow this year.  Last week it snowed for three days nonstop, and it looks like we’re getting it again this weekend.  The wind’s been howling for two days, and isn’t supposed to stop til sometime tomorrow.  Sigh.  And winter’s just getting started!

I shot this from the livingroom window since I wasn’t about to go out into the wind outside.  That pile of snow between our truck and the street is part drift and mostly snow from the city plow.  This compacts into a solid mass that’s about four feet wide, and fifteen feet long.  I’m really glad we’ve got someone lined up for snow removal this winter, because this Granny isn’t up to that kind of hard work anymore!

Andrew has been doing some work on my loom for me.  He noticed that the eye hooks on the bottom part of the harnesses have pulled out or broken off repeatedly over the years.  You can see the holes in the bottom of this harness:

Holes where eye hook has pulled out of bottom of harness

Some of the holes even have part of the eye hook stuck in them where they broke off in the past.  Of course, my husband’s analytical mind went right to work on the problem…

Here’s a picture of the Union 36 Loom from my copy of the Rag Rug Handbook by Janet Meany:

Union Loom from Rag Rug Handbook by Janet Meany

It’s a bit blurry since I took a picture of it instead of scanning it.  But you can see how the treadles are attached to the harnesses at an angle.  Andrew took one look at this picture and immediately knew why the eye hooks either broke off or pulled out.

He said that because the treadles are pulling at an angle, instead of straight down,  it puts strain on the neck of the eye hook, which eventually causes it to break off.  It also pulls the eyehook to one side, which loosens it in the wood, until it pulls out.

Andrew came up with the idea of making two metal brackets on the bottom of the harnesses and using an s-hook to attach the chain between the harnesses and the treadles.  He said it will hold better because it will be attached in two places, not just one!

Repairing split wood in the beater upright

He’s also repairing the uprights on the beater.  They’re attached with hinges, and over the years, the screws caused the wood to split.  You can see how big the screw holes are.  He’s going to glue some 1/4″ dowel into the holes and redrill them so new screws will fit better.

Can you tell it’s wonderful to be married to a carpenter?  He used to work construction, so he knows how to do all this stuff that’s totally beyond me.

Molly keeping an eye on things.

To finish things off today, here’s a picture of Molly.  No matter where I go in the house, she’s right there to supervise.  Sh’e not much for being cuddled, but she’s a great little companion!

Mean Pumpkin

Well, this month is nearly gone already, which is hard to believe.  I snapped this picture of the Mean Pumpkin on one of my walks around town.  Actually the first time I saw it, the little pumpkin had a beer bottle stuck in its mouth, which seemed appropriate, considering what’s happening to it.  But by the time I came back the next day with my camera, somebody had removed the beer bottle!  Too bad…

I played a lot of hooky this month.  Fall was glorious here this year, with unbelievable leaf colors, and mild temperatures.  Andrew and I went on many, many walks, and even a few bike rides.

We climbed to the top of Hogback Mountain on Columbus Day weekend, which surprised both of us, since Andrew is a disabled vet who sometimes has trouble getting around.  It was a long hike back there, and the last bit to get to the top was quite challenging.  But it was worth the trip.

View of Harlow Lake and Lake Superior from the top of Hogback Mountain

Here’s one of the views from the top.  Harlow Lake is the gorgeous blue jewel in the center of the picture.  You can see Lake Superior in the background.  It was warm and a little hazy that day, so it’s hard to see where the Big Lake ends and the sky begins!

It was amazing how many people made the climb up to the top.  There was quite a crowd up there that day.  If you ever visit Marquette, you really have to go.

The very next day, we took a hike back to the Lily Pond, which is in back of Wetmore Bog, and southwest of Hogback Mountain.  All the trails are interconnected.

The Lily Pond was a total surprise.  We were expecting a little pond with a marshy area around it.  This place has to be one of the best-kept secrets in the Upper Peninsula!

Me by the Lily Pond. It was absolutely gorgeous back there.

Andrew snapped this picture of me.  It was a perfect, glorious fall afternoon in this incredible place.  We stopped and rested on the rocks overlooking the Lily Pond, and ate our snack there.  It was hard to tear ourselves away from it!  If we get another nice day, we may get back there again this fall, even though the leaves are down now.

Somehow the season changed, when we weren’t looking!  It’s been a lot colder since that big storm went through last week.  And I even had snowflakes hitting me in the face on one of my walks along the beach on the Big Lake last week.  Winter is closing in.

But I’ve been weaving up a storm on my new rigid heddle loom.  Molly Cat was afraid of it at first, but now she skulks around underneath while I’m weaving, looking for loose yarns she can grab at.

First project on my rigid heddle loom! You can see Molly lurking underneath.

Here’s my first project.  This loom is so EASY to use, and it’s even easy to warp.  I totally love it!  I’m working on my fourth scarf now, with plans for another as soon as it’s off the loom.

I also want to order some carpet warp so I can do some rag weaving.  I have several ideas for rag tote bags.  I used to do a lot of rag rug weaving when I lived in Tennessee.  I have LOTS of material already cut in strips, so I’m ready to go!

The business cards I ordered from VistaPrint should be here in another week.  When they come in, I’m going to try selling some of my scarves at Zero Degrees, the local art co-op.  I just applied to join, so we’ll see what happens!

Winter may be coming, but I have lots to keep me busy.  Plus I’m looking forward to getting out my snowshoes again!

Coyote tracks through a winter landscape.

When you live in the Upper Peninsula, you’d better enjoy winter, or you’re in for a long, hard slog.  As the saying goes, we have ten months of winter, and two months of rough sledding!  Actually that’s not quite true.  Winter is about six months long here, usually starting in November, and extending into early April.  But the summers, short and fleeting though they are, make getting through the long winters well worth it.

Andrew wanted to go fishing Saturday afternoon, and he invited me to go along to go snowshoeing.  We finally had some sun, the first sunny day in well over a week.

Fishing in the winter, you say?  Oh yeah.  Like I say, you gotta make the most of winter around here!  Apparently the Chocolay River, south of Marquette, is a hotspot for steelhead (rainbow trout that live in the Great Lakes and come back to their native rivers to spawn)  and even salmon.

Andrew, hoping to hook into a steelhead

Here’s Andrew, making a cast.  He did get a nibble from a big steelhead, but wasn’t able to land it.  Apparently they’re hard to catch.  Of course, the fishermen use little tiny hooks, which I don’t understand.  Seem like you could catch a big fish easier with a bigger hook, but then I’m not a fisherman!

While Andrew was fishing, I strapped on my snowshoes and wandered around in the woods.  It was cold, but I was bundled up, and I stayed warm as long as I kept moving.

I took several pictures of coyote tracks weaving through the woods.  I want to figure out how to use the tracks in a quilt design.

Sunlight slanting through the trees

I liked the way the sun was shining through the trees, backlighting them.  The sun is so low in the sky this time of year that it looks like it’s much later in the day than it really is.

Ice frozen on a branch in the Chocolay River

I’ve had to take a break from working on my AAQI Challenge Quilt. I enjoyed the handquilting so much the other day that I definitely overdid it! I have carpel tunnel syndrome, and it usually doesn’t bother me if I’m careful.

But I cheerfully threw caution to the winds last week, and I’ve been paying for it with numb hands at night, and achiness in my wrists and hands. It’s getting better now, though, so maybe I can work on it a bit tonight. There’s not much to do to finish it, but I do need to pace myself.

Blocks cut in half

I had cut the blocks from the Quilt from Hell in half last week. Yesterday I cut my brown squares. Using the technique you use when sewing lots of half-square triangles,  I sewed two triangles to each square, so I could avoid stretching the bias. Then I cut the squares in half and pressed them open.

Today I’ll trim the blocks so they’re all the same size, and square them up. Then the fun starts as I try out different arrangements for sewing them together. The blocks will end up being about six inches, which means they’ll finish at about five-and-a-half. Small blocks, but I have sixty of them. It will be interesting to see what I wind up with!

Gotta love the Upper Peninsula!  100% chance of snow tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night, and Saturday, with 12 to 20 inches expected, all told.  Oof-da!  (And I’m not even Norwegian!)  We managed to miss the last big storm the Weather Service forecast, but I don’t think we’ll miss this one.  Just looked at the radar, and the tell-tale bands of lake-effect snow are already showing up.  Oooh, it just started to snow!  And it’s really coming down…

I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow! 

But between the shoveling and snow blowing, I’ll be finishing up Sarah’s quilt.  I only have one border left to quilt, and then I can square it up and bind it.  Yay!  I’ve enjoyed working on it, but I’m ready for my next project.

Why do they always get an itch whenever I want to take a picture?

When I stuck my head out the door to get the mail a few minutes ago, I saw one of our many squirrels in the big oak tree by our driveway.  That’s the neighbor’s house in the background.  Mr. (or is it Ms?) Squirrel was sitting in the tree eating an acorn and looking cute, but by the time I managed to snap his picture, he’d put his head down to scratch his ear or something.  Drat!

The cat does it to me all the time, too.  Animals must see me coming when I have a camera!

It was cold on the porch, but I tried again.  This time he’s sitting on the ground,  having his snack.  Better shot!  I do like the telephoto button on my camera.  Otherwise, all you’d see would be a little gray dot against a big tree!

The wind is still blowing cold off Lake Superior, and there are yet piles of snow in the shady places.  But the snowdrops are blooming!  These brave little flowers are happily nodding their little heads on our compost pile.

My husband noticed them.  They’re one of his favorite flowers, so he was thrilled to see them.   They’re a complete surprise; we didn’t even know they were there.

I saw a couple of robins the last day of March.  Haven’t seen them since, so maybe they gave up and went back south!