Season total: 147″. The crocus is in bloom.
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Episode Transcript
[0:00:24 – 0:00:27] SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ, girl, what a people don’t think.
[0:00:27 – 0:00:37] SPEAKER_00: When I show up to one of several funerals, I’ve a ten-year program on the screen.
[0:00:51 – 0:01:09] SPEAKER_00: Someone’s gotta help me, dear Someone’s gotta help me, dear She’s eating flowers and she’s throwing a chair through a window.
[0:01:09 – 0:01:10] Adam: This isn’t good.
[0:01:14 – 0:01:17] Adam: One of the greatest music videos of all time.
[0:01:17 – 0:01:19] Adam: I’m pretty sure it’s been discussed on the show in the past.
[0:01:20 – 0:01:25] Adam: Hollywood Forever, Cemetery Sings, Father John Misty, and Fear Fun 2012.
[0:01:26 – 0:01:30] Adam: Instant classic, and again, go check out the music video.
[0:01:31 – 0:01:33] Adam: Good afternoon, Tumble Homies.
[0:01:34 – 0:01:37] Adam: My name is Francois Lecastore coming to you live from the Tumble Shed.
[0:01:39 – 0:01:42] Adam: And this is your final installment of the Snow Log Podcast.
[0:01:45 – 0:01:48] Adam: Today is May 10th, 2023.
[0:01:49 – 0:01:55] Adam: And we did get a few more small snowfalls since the last episode, but none of them stuck.
[0:01:56 – 0:02:02] Adam: And the snowblower, bless the John Deere, it never had to be fired up again.
[0:02:02 – 0:02:08] Adam: So we finished the season with 147 inches of snow.
[0:02:09 – 0:02:14] Adam: The second best here at the Tumble Shed since we acquired this beautiful property.
[0:02:16 – 0:02:18] Adam: I’m joined here in the tumble shed by baby Pike.
[0:02:18 – 0:02:19] SPEAKER_00: Hello, baby Pike.
[0:02:21 – 0:02:22] Adam: Wow.
[0:02:23 – 0:02:30] Adam: And the arrow, the incredible Alaskan Husky, is patrolling the boundaries somewhere out there, getting muddy for sure.
[0:02:30 – 0:02:39] Adam: So, yeah, I’m pretty confident that’ll be the end of the snow log.
[0:02:40 – 0:02:40] Adam: You never know.
[0:02:42 – 0:02:43] Adam: Yeah, I’m sorry to say it, too.
[0:02:44 – 0:02:46] Adam: No more snow, but no more snow that will stick, at least.
[0:02:50 – 0:02:51] Adam: And, uh…
[0:02:53 – 0:02:54] Adam: It was a good winter.
[0:02:54 – 0:02:55] Adam: Oh, dear.
[0:02:55 – 0:02:56] Adam: It was a good winter, though.
[0:02:57 – 0:02:59] Adam: I have a lake ice report for you.
[0:02:59 – 0:03:05] Adam: I think everybody’s trips are going to be just fine here, and fishing openers should be okay in a few days.
[0:03:06 – 0:03:08] Adam: I saw a video from…
[0:03:09 – 0:03:14] Adam: Tuscarora Lodge, and it looked like Seagull was just about to go, and it is warm out there today.
[0:03:15 – 0:03:16] Adam: Yeah, and it’s warm.
[0:03:16 – 0:03:18] Adam: It’s going to be really, really warm tomorrow.
[0:03:20 – 0:03:23] Adam: And the home river is ripping.
[0:03:24 – 0:03:34] Adam: We took the loppers and cleared off the trail going back there to the beaver pond, to the beaver dam area there.
[0:03:35 – 0:03:38] Adam: And it’s going right over the top and through that beaver dam.
[0:03:39 – 0:03:39] Adam: I know.
[0:03:42 – 0:03:45] Adam: We have a seed check-in and some garden plans to get into here.
[0:03:46 – 0:03:47] Adam: Hold on.
[0:03:48 – 0:03:49] Adam: Did you drop your Frisbee?
[0:03:49 – 0:03:49] SPEAKER_00: Here.
[0:03:51 – 0:03:51] Adam: There you go.
[0:03:54 – 0:03:57] Adam: Yeah, we’re still on the hunt for some pear pollinators.
[0:04:00 – 0:04:01] Adam: What’s this guy in the van doing?
[0:04:01 – 0:04:03] Adam: I don’t know about this guy in the van.
[0:04:04 – 0:04:30] Adam: this is a real fishy yeah we have um we have a pair and a plum and the one pair we had a third pair or a second pair and a third tree in the little orchard and it died uh two inches ago we weren’t able to replace it oh dear so yeah we had to we got to get another at least one more different kind of pair and there’s only so many pear trees that grow in zone zero
[0:04:32 – 0:04:36] Adam: So we’re on the lookout for one, but apparently Blue Moose and Grime Ray is going to have some next week.
[0:04:36 – 0:04:38] Adam: So should have that going.
[0:04:38 – 0:04:42] Adam: The potato sets and onion sets were acquired this week.
[0:04:42 – 0:04:43] Adam: The ground is still a little too cold to put those in.
[0:04:44 – 0:05:00] Adam: The tomatoes and a couple other plants that Natalie had gone under the light array in the laundry room, they’ve been pulled out of there and are kind of being rotated over to the porch when it’s nice and then back inside for the night.
[0:05:00 – 0:05:01] Adam: But they’ll be going in.
[0:05:01 – 0:05:04] Adam: sooner rather than later, to their outdoor homes.
[0:05:05 – 0:05:10] Adam: And the rare Monstera plant is in its new pot with a special soil.
[0:05:10 – 0:05:14] Adam: I guess it needs a really fancy soil in this thing.
[0:05:17 – 0:05:17] Adam: Yeah, it’s…
[0:05:18 – 0:05:23] Adam: I don’t know what kind of medicinal properties or spiritual properties this plant has, but it was quite expensive to acquire.
[0:05:25 – 0:05:28] Adam: And… Yeah.
[0:05:29 – 0:05:30] Adam: She should be able to…
[0:05:31 – 0:05:36] Adam: propagate and take cuttings off that eventually and kind of get a bunch of these things.
[0:05:38 – 0:05:45] Adam: Anyways, you know, it’s always exciting to try some new plants out in the spring and get excited for the garden.
[0:05:47 – 0:05:49] Adam: Father-in-law planted a bunch of white pine seedlings.
[0:05:51 – 0:05:51] Adam: Oh dear.
[0:05:53 – 0:05:54] Adam: In the yard today.
[0:05:55 – 0:06:00] Adam: And I definitely was assessing the garden fencing and the snow was
[0:06:02 – 0:06:29] Adam: really heavy and kind of destroy the garden fencing so that’s gonna need some work and possibly repair and expansion well we’re gonna wheel the bit we’re gonna wheel the boy out here into the yard i’ll tell you what it’s like downright muggy in the shed i got the window open and the big front door open here but my lord gee whiz um
[0:06:29 – 0:06:30] Adam: I’m out here in a t-shirt.
[0:06:32 – 0:06:32] Adam: Yeah, that’s better.
[0:06:35 – 0:06:37] Adam: Yeah, I’m just kind of doing a little yard work today.
[0:06:39 – 0:06:40] Adam: Happens really fast.
[0:06:40 – 0:06:49] Adam: All of a sudden you think the snow is never going to melt and then you get some rain and you get a couple of these warmer days and then all of a sudden you come home from work and it’s just mostly gone.
[0:06:50 – 0:06:56] Adam: I can see standing here right in the front of the tumble shed just a few little pockets of snow off in the woods.
[0:06:58 – 0:07:00] Adam: But for the most part, yeah, it’s all gone.
[0:07:02 – 0:07:06] Adam: And it’s a little eerie right in between the snow melting and then everything starting to green up here.
[0:07:08 – 0:07:10] Adam: I was reading a book I got from the library.
[0:07:12 – 0:07:12] Adam: Hanging on.
[0:07:13 – 0:07:15] Adam: It was homesteading in Colville.
[0:07:15 – 0:07:17] Adam: Got a signed copy from Eleanor Stone.
[0:07:17 – 0:07:21] Adam: It was the daughter of John and Maria Jackson.
[0:07:21 – 0:07:25] Adam: They sailed to the New World in 1899.
[0:07:28 – 0:07:31] Adam: and claimed their 160 acres out here in 1906.
[0:07:31 – 0:07:35] Adam: Yeah, it’s like a 40-page read.
[0:07:36 – 0:07:38] Adam: Um, read it all basically in one night.
[0:07:39 – 0:07:42] Adam: The biography was published by the Cook County Historical Society.
[0:07:42 – 0:07:44] Adam: Shout out to the CCHS.
[0:07:45 – 0:07:53] Adam: And, uh, it features a beautiful woodcut neighborhood map of, uh, this area we live in here out east of Grand Marais.
[0:07:53 – 0:07:55] Adam: Uh, it was done by Betsy Bowen, uh,
[0:07:56 – 0:08:00] Adam: Some of you listening may have heard of the artist.
[0:08:02 – 0:08:03] Adam: Hang on to him.
[0:08:03 – 0:08:10] Adam: If you have any originals, those will probably be worth more than a mercury dime at Antiques Roadshow in a couple years.
[0:08:10 – 0:08:20] Adam: Yeah, these people were like dairy farmers out here, which is kind of odd and silly to think about, but that’s what they thought they were going to make it work.
[0:08:20 – 0:08:21] Adam: They figured if they…
[0:08:22 – 0:08:23] Adam: Oh, I got to go grab my beer.
[0:08:24 – 0:08:35] Adam: They figured if these huge trees could grow here, that they could grow anything, including dairy cattle and all sorts of crops that were never going to work out here in Zone Zero.
[0:08:35 – 0:08:37] Adam: But you got to give them credit.
[0:08:37 – 0:08:39] Adam: They did try, these crazy people.
[0:08:40 – 0:08:44] Adam: They’re out here churning butter, clearing timber, taking on odd jobs.
[0:08:47 – 0:08:50] Adam: I had started to look into this because I was looking at an old map.
[0:08:51 – 0:08:55] Adam: And it listed one of the old trails across the river as the Overbees Spur.
[0:08:56 – 0:09:02] Adam: And sure enough, they have a whole list of the original settlers out here and includes Olena and Ole Overbay.
[0:09:03 – 0:09:04] Adam: Now that’s a power couple.
[0:09:08 – 0:09:09] Adam: Should we move around?
[0:09:10 – 0:09:11] Adam: Yeah.
[0:09:15 – 0:09:16] Adam: Can you imagine just getting 160 acres?
[0:09:18 – 0:09:19] Adam: just up here on the North shore.
[0:09:20 – 0:09:30] Adam: And they’re like, Hey, just get a couple of cows, make some cream, hide the cream down in your well to keep it, keep it, you know, nice and cold.
[0:09:30 – 0:09:32] Adam: Don’t let your children fall in the well.
[0:09:33 – 0:09:35] Adam: And then, uh, profit.
[0:09:36 – 0:09:39] Adam: I mean, they got the land for free, but they really didn’t.
[0:09:40 – 0:09:43] Adam: I asked our neighbor, Tim White about this stuff.
[0:09:43 – 0:09:47] Adam: He told me the story of all these horses that were trying to pull, um,
[0:09:48 – 0:09:53] Adam: like huge logs down to the sea, and the logs got away from him.
[0:09:54 – 0:09:58] Adam: And this thing he calls the Incline Road, which is another one of these trails.
[0:09:59 – 0:10:04] Adam: And then he showed me, well, he showed my father-in-law the map, and I got a copy.
[0:10:05 – 0:10:09] Adam: It’s an old neighborhood map with the hand-marked dogsled trails and the old roads.
[0:10:10 – 0:10:14] Adam: And I’ve been skiing and snowshoeing and hiking these trails for six years now.
[0:10:17 – 0:10:19] Adam: There sure are a lot of ghosts out here in the woods.
[0:10:19 – 0:10:30] Adam: I was looking at the modern plat book and you see the family names of the original European settlers and homesteaders out here.
[0:10:31 – 0:10:32] Adam: It’s a really interesting reading.
[0:10:33 – 0:10:38] Adam: It just makes you wonder about these people and how they were able to make the life work up here way back then.
[0:10:40 – 0:10:45] Adam: Makes you think about all those people living up here before the big boats and
[0:10:46 – 0:10:51] Adam: how many people are buried in the Lily of the Valley Cemetery just east of here.
[0:10:53 – 0:10:56] Adam: What other long-forgotten burial grounds are out there?
[0:10:56 – 0:11:02] Adam: A lot of these trees in the yard are getting some fresh buds on them.
[0:11:03 – 0:11:05] Adam: These willows over here are looking really nice.
[0:11:08 – 0:11:10] Adam: But yeah, it’s a beautiful afternoon out here.
[0:11:11 – 0:11:16] Adam: The last of the remnant snow has melted off near the house, and the little white crocus…
[0:11:17 – 0:11:20] Adam: is in bloom, poking through the matted grass now.
[0:11:20 – 0:11:24] Adam: And just like a week ago, that was, you know, still knee-deep snow over there.
[0:11:27 – 0:11:29] Adam: This is quite a warm and muggy afternoon.
[0:11:31 – 0:11:39] Adam: You know, I think we’ll leave it there for baby, for doggie, and for me, Francois Le Castor.
[0:11:40 – 0:11:44] Adam: It’s been a real pleasure to tell you the story of this winter and these little
[0:11:45 – 0:12:10] Adam: many chapters of audio such as they are but uh i know it’s not the the same as the full show but it’s been fun to do for me and um thanks for anybody who took the time to listen to these this little crocus flower grown in the yard it sure is a delight and for me it represents the end of winter and the final form of snow
