Summer Palace Week One

After my long journey back to where I belong, I settled in and started up the Summer Palace.  I had a full tank of propane, so I could feed myself and stay warm.  What else do I need?  Oh yeah - water!  There was still a chance of freezing temps overnight, so the water wasn't going to be turned on until there was no chance of the pipes bursting.

So for 5 days I hauled water from our Community Center for coffee but mainly to flush the toilet.  Luckily we have good shower facilities there too.  I learned to appreciate water that comes straight from the taps without having to haul it in 5-gallon buckets.

But the water was eventually turned on, and I flushed all the pink antifreeze out of the lines.  That full tank of propane only lasted 2 weeks - it was cold overnight!

A lady turkey had her home base nearby it seems, since I saw her quite frequently wandering in my backyard.

And the pair of fox from last year started a family!

And this week I saw a bobcat running through the property two doors down.  I've gotten a lot of grief from folks who don't believe it was a bobcat, but I know what I saw, and they're not uncommon here.  And late last night I may have seen it again bounding through the property.  Where are those nigh-vision glasses when I need them?

Friends of mine that have a cabin on Pelican Lake (site of my Summer Palace a few years ago) had a cinnamon colored black bear strolling through their front yard.  And the next day 2 cubs were seen.  That freaks out a lot of people, but there's a research organization up in Ely, MN that has been studying black bears for years, and have been able to prove many myths are untrue.  For example, bears don't sleep through the winter.  They wake up quite often, leave their den, and will sometimes eat snow for the water.  When their cubs are born (during hibernation), they are good mothers, and just like humans, don't sleep much for the first few months!

Check out www.bear.org - this winter I actually watched Jewel, one of the bears in the study, give birth to 2 cubs.  The cameras with audio in her den kept me coming back time and time again just to check on her and the kids.

I think I missed my calling.  If I could somehow combine my passion for nature with my passion for cooking, I'd be a happy camper!  In a way, that's exactly what I've done already.

Back Home Where I Belong

I was chomping at the bit to get going.  After all, the temperatures had reached 70 already in Detroit Lakes (okay, so it was one day and it probably snowed the same night).  I got back from my latest 2-week jaunt to Australia, spent the weekend packing, worked a couple of days, then I could stand it no longer.  Even though the campground isn't open officially until May 1, I knew they wouldn't kick me out if I showed up a week early.

I may have mentioned that jet lag coming home from Australia kicks my butt.  Generally for 2 weeks after I get home I suffer from disturbed sleep, diarrhea, and even depression.  So I know that driving for two days straight wasn't the smartest thing to do.  The first day wasn't bad - I drove 12 hours, checked into a hotel, and even stayed awake to watch TV a couple of hours!

Day 2 was a little harder.  Even though it would be a shorter day, I found myself all fidgety and cranky, and worst of all, sleepy.  Driving through South Dakota, I really kept wishing I was in Minnesota already.  So knowing that I couldn't shorten the drive anyway, I decided to at least "get to Minnesota".  I exited on Highway 90 and turned east.  Before you knew it, I was in Minnesota!  And I had never visited Southwestern Minnesota before, so I felt like a tourist.

 "So it came to be (1993) that a cluster of more than 70 wind turbines was erected about Hendricks and Lake Benton in Lincoln County, MN, as the U.S. government, the State of Minnesota and several energy conglomerates began a serious effort to create electricity from wind. Soon a second cluster of turbines - more than 140 - was erected near the same site.

A dozen years later there is uncertainty attending the precise number of wind turbines across and along Buffalo Ridge. There are thousands of them. Southwest Minnesota’s landscape has been transformed, just as the search for energy has been transformed. Minnesota’s southwest corner, in particular, has become an American center for the production of electricity.

The sleek, nearly silent wind turbines are all about 250 feet high. Each turbine weighs nearly 100 tons. Most have three blades with a rotor diameter of more than 150 feet. They are awesome structures.

Each turbine may generate the annual electrical needs of up to 250 homes. The wind-driven turbines supplant the burning of hundreds of thousands of tons of coal which would be required to fill the needs of the power now harvested from Minnesota breezes.

Some farmers in the southwest region, who have watched turbines being erected on their lands, call their farms “wind farms.” They now reap harvests from winds which once only rustled their corn crops."