After a long hiatus Dave and I finally got a brew in yesterday. It took a very long time partially because we had to get together all our equipment that has been in boxes for months, partially because we have not done it for so long, and partially because we were being tricky about it! This was the long talked about lavender beer. Yes we have attempted to imbue the flavor of the lavender flower using .2 oz of dried flowers to 5 gallons of liquid.
Winnie, wanna go to the park?
Winnie challenges a cocker spaniel to a chase
Zoooooooooooom!
Winnie wins!
Relaxing in the dandelions
Streamlined corgi
It wouldn't be a happy dog park trip if it didn't include a roll in the dirt...
Let's go home!
Time for a nap... Winnie loffs her lobster.
I finished my 20-hour-long preceptorship this afternoon, which was the last official assignment of my first year! Part of me feels like the year flew by, and another part feels like St. Olaf graduation was soooo long ago... Both are probably true. At this time last year I didn't even know that I was accepted to vet school!
They are rolling in....Hi guys,
The St. Paul shelter just announced that we will be hiring 2 Vet
Students for the summer to work as Vet Techs. Your knowledge will help
us in the shelter environment and you will gain experience working
beside our Vets and Techs.
Pass this along to anyone who may be interested.
I have been offered and accepted the position of Visual Resource Assistant at Macalester College starting June 1st. I will continue to work for St. Olaf as Visual Resource Curator until August 31st when my contract with them expires. The job search to find my replacement is already underway. My only condition that needs to be worked out with Mac HR is to change the title to Visual Resource Curator because it is virtually identical to the position I am in now at St. Olaf and I don't want it to look like a demotion on my resume. Everything else is great, it is virtually the same pay rate I receive at St. Olaf but 20 hours a week instead of 10. It is also only about 2 miles away instead of nearly 50, so I will be saving about $25 on gas a week! I also have access to their health care package that I can buy into if I wish, and I will remain in an academic setting which I like.
We had our housewarming party on Saturday, which was both a lot of fun and a great way to force us to unpack and clean up. I think we counted 23 people who came. Thanks to everyone who made it! We'll post pictures soon.
I took this photo from the Duluth News Tribune to show a bit how fire can be a benefit to our forest even while we are in the midst of the uncertainty and distraction of it all. I think the tribune chose this photo to show the helicopter juxtaposed with the fire, but if you take a look at the fire behavior it's working just like it should.
• All the balsam have burned. These are the most explosive burners and fuel large fires like this to a great extent. Fire is their enemy, as it destroys their seeds as well as the tree. If you remember the spruce bud worm infestation in 1993 was caused by the dense population of balsam (who are killed by the bud worm) that allowed the worm to jump from tree to tree with little pause for hundreds of square miles. Fire breaks the balsam population up so the worm can not travel can cause mass kills such as 93'. In a circular fashion however, all those dead balsam probably made this fire hotter than it otherwise would be! It will take years free from fire disturbance for the balsam to return to the numbers we see now.
• The red and white pines have survived. This is not always the case, but if a tree is lucky its thick bark protects it from the fire like armor. It is then free to drop its seeds on freshly blackened soil rich in nutrients from the ash, and the seedlings can grow with little to no competition for light for the next decade or so.
• All the birch have burned, but their roots might still be intact. This will allow them to shoot up clones of themselves very rapidly where they will not have to compete for any sunlight. It is a theory that their paper-like bark developed that way to make small fires burn more so their neighbors are killed allowing them to take control. Devious birch trees!
• I don't think I see any here, but the jack pines will flourish like mad after this fire. Unlike the red and white pine who's seeds can sprout with out fire, the jack pine needs fire's high temperatures to open its cones that are shut tight with sap. They have very thin bark so the parent will inevitably get killed, but the heat will open all their pine cones at the top of the tree and over the weeks after a fire they will shower the freshly burned forest floor with thousands and thousands of seeds. How altruistic!
• The edge of the shore here has been left un-burnt, and this is where you will find the cedar trees stretched out over the water. Cedars are very susceptible to fire so they survive by growing in swamps, on lake shores, on rocky crags and so forth. This is why some have survived since the roman empire despite their often diminutive and gnarled appearance.
Well no news tonight, but I think thats a good thing. I did snag this radar clip of what appears to be some showers running over the entire BWCA. Also, the forecast calls for a 40% chance for thunderstorms on saturday and saturday night, and then a 30% chance on monday. Good news.
Ok for the first time in days it seems something NOT fire related! Megan and I are having our housewarming party for our new apartment! It is from 3:00 ~ 7:00 PM tomorrow (saturday) and we have food and drink for any one who stops by. We are very excited to be living here and we would love to have people over! It was unclear if it was fire from an intentional fire conducted Wednesday night, or elements of the original wildfire, that spread into Canada on Thursday pushed by 35 mph west winds that later shifted from the north.They were the first to report this (I posted it a bit back) but from what I heard on WTIP this morning and on the star tribune last night, they were just wrong and it is clear back burn clearly saved much of the north end of the trail. Amazing work.
Already the most destructive fire in terms of lost buildings since 1918, it’s now probably Minnesota’s largest wildfire since then as well.I went back to my now unpacked "The Boundry Waters Wilderness Ecosystem" by Miron Heinselman, a MUST have for anyone interested or living around the BWCA. Heinselman's made extensive maps of the fire history in the BWCA. Below here I have photographed a map of the fire activity during the modern "suppression period" where all and every forest fire was snuffed out as soon as it was found.
From WTIP here is an actual photograph of a fire map! I am glad to say that my drawing of it was too large. I will be updating the google map now.
UPDATE: My dad will be there this morning unpacking our pump system along with our neighbors, making sure they are running, and then getting them cranking. I watched a piece from channel 11 news last night reporting from the line of the mandatory evacuation just before trail center, and it looked really spooky. The photo on the right is taken from that. All smoke and red sun, it looks as if the fire was right there. It's not of course, it is still miles away, but an eery sight none the less.
In preparation of an expected wind shift, a burnout operation was conducted by firefighters late yesterday afternoon west of Gunflint Lake and north of Magnetic Road. This burnout was critical in fire suppression operations. Containment lines are holding. There remains a major concern for long-range spotting in and amongst structures on the south side of both Gunflint and Loon lakes. There has been some spotting, but no additional structures have been reported lost. An estimated 200 residences and over 20 commercial operations remain threatened.
An intentional fire lit today near Magnetic Lake, which was supposed to head north, also headed east early today, into Canada and directly across Gunflint Lake from hundreds of people.They are describing this as a "worst case" and I don't think they are too far off. I have also updated the map to show a better idea of the size of the controlled burn that is not so controlled.
Also today, my Dad has decided to drive up to the cabin to get our own sprinkler system up and running, as well as our neighbors. He was planning to go up on monday normally, but events up there are getting a little to unpredictable so this will at least make every one feel better. Like I keep saying, 100% survival rate so far for structures with sprinklers. The photo on the left is what I am talking about. We installed those sprinklers in 2000 after the big 99' blow-down (thanks FEMA of old) and it consists of a water pump by the lake that runs on gas and propane, that pumps water into a network of pipes that runs out to hoses that connect to dozens of those sprinkler heads that are attached to buildings and on stakes through out the woods. When we were installing it we made fun of them, 'going golfing in the woods!,' 'at least the lawn will look good' (what lawn) and so on. But what they do is create a "dome of humidity" around the area so that the fire literally passes around and over (think floating hot ash) the area protected. It also soaks deep into the fuel around the area if you have time to run it for a few days before hand, so the material wont get dried out by the intense heat of the fire. This is another reason its good my Dad is headed up now, so he can run the system now just incase either this fire jumps miles due to wind spotting ash, or a new fire starts for some unknown reason. Better safe than sorry!
Alright, as of 2:00 a new map of the fire was relesed and it is growing larger to the east, the worst direction it could go but also the most predictable. As of now it is getting within striking distance of Gunflint lodge and other iconic destinations. Word is that winds are steady at around 15mph, and there is no real rain in sight. 
This information is up to date as of about 12:30 am tuesday morning."While 40 buildings were lost, officials said more than 50 in the fire's path were spared, apparently because they were protected by outdoor sprinkler systems owners installed after by the 1999 "blow-down" killed millions of trees in the area and increased fire danger for years to come."Good news for the cabin, where even in this apparently intense fire there was a 100% survival rate of buildings protected by sprinklers and a 100% burn rate for those without. That is very impressive.
The apartment is coming together really well. Megan and I hit IKEA just to walk around and walked out with a huge load of stuff. Mostly small stuff, like a spatula and some hangers, but we started to buy chairs to replace the ugly ones I brought up from Northfield. The chair in question is to the left here, and it looks much better than its big bulky brethren next to it. Comfortable too. 
