CAST OF CHARACTERS

At 68, I haven't figured out "the true meaning of life", but I am getting close.

  

Five years ago, my wife Mary and I built a retirement home on a ridge overlooking Lake Superior.  We designed and built the house ourselves,  from September of '03 to July of '04.  It was a labor of love and it turned out, much to our delight, a cozy, energy efficient home in the wilderness of northeast Minnesota.

I fell in love with this area forty one years ago, hunting deer with my good friend Marland .  The area being homestead land of his dad and mom, Isak and Minnie.  Each fall for 41 years, I walked the deer trails not knowing that I would be virtually living on my old deer stand.

 

When construction ended, my old hobbies of birding, knife making and fishing took center stage.  In the ensuing months on our Cedar Ridge, the knife making and fishing suddenly "fell off the stage".  I found that hiking the ridge, observing the wildlife was taking up the majority of my time.  Birding was spectacular and the variety of animals was down right amazing. Observing the wildlife became the watchword of each day.  Some days Mary would accompany me up and down the ridge's trails, logging the sightings of the various flora and fauna.

  

The daily observations and sightings became increasingly difficult to remember.  I am not sure whose idea it was, but I decided to buy a digital camera to record the day's sightings.  The obsession began.

To this day, I never leave the house without my camera.  I am on the fourth camera and researching the fifth and hopefully last ultimate SLR and lenses.  Which leads me to the "Cast of Characters" that inhabit Cedar Ridge.

I have photographed at least 22 varieties of warblers, moose, deer, fishers, pine martens, bear, gray & red fox and too many other animals and birds to list.  In the upcoming posts, I will describe my interactions with some of the more precocious inhabitants of Cedar Ridge... past and present. 

 

 My trail into the Superior National Forest starts 50 feet from our house.  Each day I walk as far as a small clearing on the trail.  I stop and place kernels of sunflower hearts in the palm of my hand. In a matter of seconds, I see an undulating flock of birds flying down the trail.  By their flight it is not difficult to discern their identity as Black-capped Chickadees.  The leader of the flock is first to alight in my hand, with the rest perched in surrounding trees, ready to take their turn.  The polite chickadees take the seeds out of my hand and ready themselves for the arrival of the "King of Cedar Ridge".  

In a matter of seconds, two Red-breasted Nuthatches follow the same flight path as the chickadees.  The female is usually first, followed by the male.  I have named them Noreen and Norris, "King of Cedar Ridge".  They have entertained me for over two years and their escapades will be discussed in future postings.

When these little birds land in my hand each day, the first sentence of this post isn't necessarily all tongue-in-cheek.    When you look deep into their eyes, John Muir's quote rings true, "In God's wilderness lies the hope of the world".   

Until next time......