THE GREAT OUTDOOR IRONY

Yesterday morning my dog flushed a family of grouse from a thicket at the base of a crooked jackpine. There had to be at least 6 grouse altogether. The mature bird flew off in a straight-line clear out of view, while the young ones changed direction at least once and lighted in trees nearby. My vizsla, Autumn, was wound like a cheap Timex for the following hour. The sun was just poking through the trees to the east and the light shone green as it filtered through the forest and morning mist. It was one of those snapshots in the great outdoors that will stick with me forever. 

If you have followed my stories over the years, you’ll know that I’m a bit of a romantic. 

But this was not a stroll in the woods or a dog-training session. I was simply walking over to the shed on my Lake Superior property. I was headed there to do some work and spent the rest of the day slugging it out in the 30-degree heat covered in sweat, soil and sawdust. 

For anyone who owns lake property you know the drill. While your love of the outdoors may have inspired you to buy the place; your time fishing, hunting and pursuing the outdoor things you love most becomes mixed with never-ending grunt labour doing repairs and chores that have no regard for the timing of the salmon bite and other nuances of the seasons. 

It is the great outdoor irony, if you will.

Last weekend, for example, I was standing in my rubber boots in a wet, stinky hole in the ground repairing a plugged septic line. I will spare you all the details, but I will tell you that I was wearing safety goggles, rubber gloves and an N-95 mask wielding a saws-all with a long blade. 

Not so romantic.

But this has become the norm for me since the snow left back in April. A little fishing here and there, and a whole lot of hard work in between. Just the same, it has been rewarding and enjoyable. I am one of those strange ones that loves hard work. While I do enjoy fishing, hunting and all of those wonderful outdoor pastimes, I relish in working with my hands. 

After I retired in 2011, I fished, hunted, checked my trail cameras - and so on - ad nauseam. Eventually, I discovered that the times I was most happy, were the ones where I was setting up a tree stand, felling trees and cutting firewood. So I decided to go back to work as a carpenter: the career I started after highschool; and really, my first love, so to speak.

So purchasing an old, run-down resort on Lake Superior that needed lots of TLC, seemed like a good fit. 

Although my days are chocked full of this hard work that I apparently relish in, I do have Superior at my doorstep to provide a reprieve now and then. Like yesterday when I stripped down to my shorts and walked like a zombie up to my neck in the cool clear water at the end of the work day. I was hot, sticky, dirty - and a bit crabby. But the water washed it all away, and reminded me that it was all well worth the toil.

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