I’m sitting here in my log cabin in the woods east back of nowhere. There is a 48″ jack frame loom on one side of me, a spinning wheel in use on the other side, and high speed on my lap.
Yes, that’s right, high speed internet has finally landed here in the back woods. After dancing with Storm for well over a year, they finally said they could bring 2 Mbs to me if i would put up a 50′ tower. Then I noticed Rogers has extended 3G (that’s the network technology the iPhone uses) coverage from a tower just across the way and they offer this nifty wireless 3G hub. I picked one up, plugged it in, turned it on, and it just works.
Okay, not only does it just work, but it gives me 5.4 Mbs download speed at exactly half the price Storm was asking for 2 Mbs. Without a tower.
And that, my friends, is sweeter than the maple syrup boiling away over on the woodstove.
We live on the glint line, where the Canadian Shield meets the flat bottom of the pleistocene Champlain sea. We get a mixture of wildlife native to both biomes. This can make for interesting and frequent encounters.
Sunday we were out for a bike ride and came across a black rat snake trying to cross the road. It appeared to be a fairly young specimen, about a meter long, that reared and lunged at me as I passed by. I was unaware that these snakes rear and lunge like a rattlesnake: everything I read says they don’t. I guess this one couldn’t read. It sure could move fast, unlike the turtle I ran over with the car earlier in the day on the same road.
Last night we went out for another ride down a different road. We believe we saw a bear with a cub cross the road in front of us. We did not try to verify our sighting. Perhaps it was just a big lanky dog followed by a smaller dog running loose. After all, it was garbage pickup day and many of our neightbours like to treat their dogs to something special once a week.
We also frequently encounter a colony of turkey vultures that live up the Scotch Corners way. There used to be two, now there are five to seven. Sometimes they sit lined up on consecutive fenceposts. Mostly you see them crowded around roadkill or riding thermals. After the end of days I expect there will be plenty of well-fed vultures and cockroaches.
The mosquitos are also back in full force. The dragonflies are just coming back to try to keep everything under control.
The house in which I live was randomly renovated over the years by a tribe of do-no-good piskies. These wee folk managed to rearrange the waste pipes that run between the main stack and the outlet to the septic in such a way that it actuall runs up hill for about 5 metres. As you can imagine, this roguish trick is the root cause of some number of problems.
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The high speed fairies continue to denied me their bounty. The medecine men from Storm came out, climbed to my root, waved their totems and chanted but they could not make the the magic happen. They mumbled something about “lining up a micronode down the line” (another cryptic incantation) and hurried off, promising to be in touch when the heavens are aligned more auspiciously. Hmph.
Anyways, this year for the first time in a few I seem to have manage to get a giant pumpkin 
to fruit. It may look small now, but I have every confidence it’ll be a contender for the fair at the end of August. If nothing else, our experience is that the giant pumpkins make a wonderful, sweet, mild pie filling (and muffins, and cookies, and a delicious pumpkin ginger chutney). And lots of it, too. Lots. More than sufficient quantities. And it’s really good for you.
The monk peas are in full bloom, and they have a very attractive flower. All delicate pinks and veined with crimson. Not at all like the tonsored and robed monks I picture cultivating these guys back in the 1300’s. The little pictire here doesn’t do full justice to their beauty, but until the high speed internet gets hooked up (in a couple of weeks) this is the best I can do.
We’ve grown these peas for the last few years, although the squirrels tend to get an unfair share. We don’t seem to have a problem with squirrels this year. The local population seems to have, um, dropped. I pity those poor guys over on the other side of the lake. I suspect they’re experiencing a bumper crop of the little devils.
We do have other wildlife. Lots of fences are keeping those nasty pointy-hooved forest rats (hey, that’s deer to you) away so far: the electric fence is keeping the peas and beans safe but the potatoes have been well-trimmed. I spotted a pair of Colorado beetles making the beast with two carapaces in the giant pumpkins, and we have a family of snakes in the woodpile which makes it hard to move (we have to move the wood to fix the collapsed woodshed). Nobody wants to disturb the little guys while they’re sunning themselves so comfortably.
Finally, I’ll finish up with a picture of a damselfly alighted on a Jerusalem artichoke leaf. Damselflies and dragonflies (which come earlier in the year) are the only creatures that can move all four wings independently. That means they can hover or fly backwards or sideways, a great adaptation if you’re a predator and prey. It’s stood them well: there are fossilized dragonflies as far back as the carboniferous period and they’re almost identical to modern species. It was much much warmer during the carboniferous than it is today. I suspect the dragonflies might still be here in another few million years. We should be so lucky.
Well, we heard the frogs singing last night, which is the signal to play taps for the taps. This has not been the best year for sap: between the dry fall last year and the too-warm nighttime temperatures ate the end of the season and the too-cold daytime temperatures at the start, the yield has not been very good.
It’s kinda strange to be tramping around in knee-high snow in the woods wearing a tee-shirt. This has been a bit of a weird spring so far.
The sap is slow to run this year. 
It was running when we tapped the trees but a week of below-normal temperatures (not cold, but cold enough) has slowed the run. That’s ok, it’ll make up for it next week and we’ll be desperately trying to keep up with the boiling again in no time.
Here’s a picture of where Rapa Nui used to stand. Well, actually, he’s still standing, down near the elms just to the right of the snowshoes. He’s probably all warm and cozy under his blanket of snow.
I suspect there may be some hauling of buckets in the snow this year. Wool socks stay warm event when sap sloshes into your boots.
Jacob’s Cattle lying on the dining room table waiting to be planted.
One of my potatoes started from seed (!) last year — a two year investment before you know if you’ve got something useful.
Jerusalem Artichokes — my first time, it seems there were already some growing in that patch.
The garlic is healthy as usual.
For the first time in seven years, we have a blossom coming out on an apple tree in our “orchard.” Yeah, it’s only two trees for now, but I mean to plant one for each of us and I hope to have a few more years until I’m forced to plant more (although planting sooner is better than later, they don’t all have to be a memorial). Hopefully some day they’ll look more like this, a wild apple at the edge of the bush.