Making Lemonade

Sunday evening - May 21, 2017

I don’t need your sympathy. I’ll have your envy in no time.

Tonight, we are rich, wealthy beyond measure.

I woke up to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of songbirds. I rolled over in our flannel sheets under the homemade quilt and felt the breeze come through the window screen over my head and brush across my shoulders. I could hear the occasional creak of a kitchen chair as Gregg sipped his coffee and scribbled numbers on his latest Sudoku puzzle, a morning ritual. I smiled to myself, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and ran my fingers through my gray hair.

This is my life, I sighed deeply, rolling out of bed and heading toward the eco-friendly porta-potty on the other side of the bedroom.

After a quiet morning of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on the radio while we ate breakfast sandwiches (caribou breakfast sausage, eggs, and pepper-jack cheese on mayonnaise fried English muffins), I worked on a crossword puzzle until Gregg came in from outside asking if I’d like to go for a boat ride up river and fish a little. I pulled on my Xtra Tuffs, Beaver Hat, and Outhouse Jacket (Duluth Trading Fleece), and was out the door in 30 seconds.

Eighteen miles up river (Unalakleet River), Gregg shut the motor off in an eddy where we saw Dollies jumping, and we started casting. The river runs fast, but the eddy we were in kept the boat stationary without an anchor. Inside of 45 minutes we had both caught five Dolly Varden (about one gene away from an Arctic Char, as Gregg explained) and each had two others that jumped off the line before we got them to the boat. We let them all go. It was just for fun. Fish are so easy to catch here that if we want fish for dinner, all we have to do is walk down to the shore in front of the cabin 15 minutes before dinner, cast a few times, catch two, and fry them up. Voilah! Dinner! There is no reason to catch fish eight hours and 10 miles from where we are going to eat them.

The boat ride was chilly and I was glad for my beaver hat. We saw a moose, dozens of geese, a pair of swans, an eagle in her nest, and an osprey even flew overhead with his Dolly dinner in his claws.

There was not another human soul on the river all day. Not a boat. No one. I was reminded of a time 15 years or more ago when I took the girls camping and canoeing in Arkansas one chilly March weekend. Highs were in the low 50’s and we had frost at night. We canoed down the river in our coats, hats, and gloves. When we stopped on a sandbar for our picnic lunch, April (my 10 year old daughter) asked me, “Mom, do they only let one boat down the river at a time?”

“No, honey. Everyone else thinks it’s too cold to be out.”

“That’s crazy!” was her adamant response.

I thought of her today, 26 years old and married to an avid outdoorsman. They would have loved today, almost as much as I did! I’m hoping that I will be able to share this paradise with them this summer.

It was only 1pm by the time we were back home from our river adventure. Since the sun never sets this time of year, time means… nothing. After a lunch of summer sausage sandwiches, we went to work in the garden, tilling, weeding, and planting bean and pea starts. We nursed the rhubarb and raspberries before heading to the upper deck to get the flower starts into the flower boxes.

After a cocktail break, but before starting dinner, we went out to forage. Initially, we were looking for fiddleheads, but found none. Instead, we came across a crop of Ayuu, the leaves of which make a medicinal tea good for most anything that ails you. We also admired the new crop of cranberries, rose hips, and wildflowers that were just coming up.

The rain started as we were heading back, common at the end of a “hot” day, which today was defined as since it was above 70 degrees. We were able to collect 15 gallons of roof runoff in less than one hour, which mean water for washing dishes and taking baths tonight! That’s three fewer trips up the 40-some stairs hauling water from the river, in addition to giving all of our new plantings a good water!

Chicken-fried Caribou tenderloin nuggets with mashed potatoes and corn for dinner (dogs get all of the scraps) and blues music on the radio brings a peaceful end to the day. Bucket baths and a movie on the flatscreen, while sitting in the recliner couch before retiring to the “treehouse” bedroom loft makes a perfect end to a perfect day.

No time clock, No schedule. No boss. No plans (lessons or otherwise). Just clean living, hard working, and true love in the form of an intimate companionship where we are constantly looking for ways to make life easier for one another. Sometimes that comes in the form of Gregg making an extra step for me to get down to the garden or me making dinner.

I’ll now sign off as Bob Dylan croons on the radio, “I have no sense of time.”