A Christmas Story (kind of)

Greetings and Happy Holidays!! The staff and guests of Ottertail Lodge wish you the best Christmas ever. Here we see the official tree of the season, prominently displayed in the greatroom of the lodge. Kind of makes you wish you were here, doesn't it??
What with Lucy in Milwaukee, Mag in Oh, Clare!, the Ottertail is a little quieter than usual. We have no guests in the Lodge proper, but the big bunkhouse has a few rooms occupied. I'll try to give a little recap of the season.....


We all went to Donna's house for Christmas Eve. Donna is Peg's mom, so we also got to visit with Jim and Gary, Peg's brothers, and their families. Quite a houseful, but Santa managed to elbow 'his' way in. And what a bag of goodies he brought us!!


Apparently Santa figured Peg had behaved herself well enough to get a stocking filled with goodies. Of course, he was completely correct, as usual.


How THIS one scored a stocking of goodies is beyond me..... just kidding. Now that I think about it, Santa looked a lot like this one a few years ago..... funny how that works.


Of course, this was the first time for Hailee and Ashley to get scared by that gruff old Santa. But it worked out O.K. and no one cried. O.K., Chris sniffed a few times, but other than that, we were good to go.


We convinced 'Santa' to stay around a little while so we could all get our picture taken with him. He's usually a little more secretive than that, but I guess all things change over time. Especially Santa's looks!!!


When the festivities and feasting slowed down, some of us headed down cellar to check out the games. Carlo brought his "Crusher" serve out of retirement and soundly thrashed all takers. He hadn't had this much fun since college....


Of course ID tried valiantly to overcome the intense pressure of the "Crusher", and I wish him better luck next year.


But Carlo was humbled when 'Side Pocket' took him to school on the pool table.... some kids get teddy bears as a first toy, --this guy got a pool stick for his second birthday.


Back at table tennis, we had this. I'm not sure what this is all about and I'm not even going to venture a guess.


After Donna's, we headed back to the Ottertail. Not much energy left at this point, but we managed to stay up till 1:00 A.M., talking, playing piano, watching TV, etc. As I write this, most guests are still asleep. O.K., they're all asleep but it's only 10 minutes to noon.

I learned a new trick in the airplane last Thursday. It's called a 'forward slip' and is a maneuver designed to loose some altitude quickly if necessary. It consists of throttle to idle, stick forward and a simultaneous stick to left,rudder to right. This causes the plane to maintain it's path of travel, but at quite an angle. Kind of like going down the highway in a skid, going straight with the nose pointed toward the ditch. Returning the controls to neutral causes the plane to return to previous attitude and you can continue what you were doing. The plane looses altitude really fast during this and at first seems like something you WOULD NOT want to do. I enjoyed it, though.

Well, enough of this rambling, have a good day and see you all down the road sometime. I gotta go, Carlo

Three days to go......

I have three days of work left for 2005. I love it, not getting up early, not driving through the dark and cold to go to work.... cold and dark are for driving through on the way to Westwood, as pictured below. A fovorite watering hole. Being lazy tonight, I am going to throw in a bunch of wintry pix of the area.



Below is a little store in Phillips called "Northern Merchandise", locally know as northern paradise. A glorified junk store, it's the brightest thing in town right now. Some of you readers will have to remember this spot......



Plowing has been started and will continue for months... I kind of like doing the plowing except when it's dark or windy or cold or.... I guess I don't like plowing.




Things are looking pretty cool these days. Frost on the trees, mostly white on the ground. A few nights ago the moon came up at about 6:15, yellow as cheddar cheese. In a little while the outside world came into view as the moon gained altitude and power. It's a world that you just don't see anytime but in the grip of winter. Cold, erie images of all that you know well..... yet it all looks a little unreal under the full winter moon.




Lucy, your car looks cold!!!







I guess I should have put the water can in the shed before this. But then this wouldn't have happened.




On the late afternoon of the moon night I talked about, I was heading to the lodge to fire the stove when I heard the call of a pileated woodpecker. I thought it sounded quite close, and there it was in the flowering crab, eatint the little red apples. Must have been really hard and cold! The turkeys come around once or twice a day to inspect the area under the crab tree and scratch for goodies by the lodge.




I was supposed to fly this afternoon, but the weather did not cooperate. Mary, I know what you mean about the weather.... you said it barely made sixty the other day. It's barely made SIXTEEN here for the last few days!! The plan is to fly on Thursday if the weather is good. Steve just finished his Sport Pilot Instructor course, so we can move right on to the process of getting me certified as an FFA Sport Pilot license holder. I find myself daydreaming about warmer weather....
Have a good Christmas season, y'all!!
I gotta go, Carlo

Monday in December.

If you haven't checked this yet, give it a look. This is some cool art by my neice, Jenny, who just happens to have flourescent pink hair in this photo. For you dial up users, please be patient when clicking the dots at the bottom of the "portfolio" page. For me it takes about 45 seconds for the image to come in, and it's worth the wait. I'm trying to hint that Jen should do a landscape of the Ottertail Lodge in her unique style. I don't know if it's working, but I bet it would be one awesome painting!!!



Peggy took off last Thursday and Friday to head south to babyland. I had to work. Here's da kid and da mom.

This tyke is putting on weight like it means business!! Which is a good thing. Everyone seems to be getting along just fine.



And here's "pa" with the young un'.....







O.K., so here I am zooming down US 51 in the Toyota Celica GTS. You can tell the car by the big eye lashes.... Heading off to another fly lesson. I should have kept that car, it drives like a dream! A couple days later, Bryn took the car back to Wausau. Five days later, a flat on the front. The guy at the import dealer said that even if they could get the same matching tire, it would cost a fortune, it's a racing tire for God's sake... So they found a tire that would work for us mortals, of course having to put on a pair of them. So less than week afer handing it over, I'm handing over $140 bucks for tires.... go figure.

So anyway, I pulled in at the hangar and all the planes were scattered about. Steve's Cessna and John's Challenger were on the tarmack (isn't that a dumb word?) and the Quicksilver was just rolling out. Of course, that left the Mini-Max cool looking little plane in the hangar. It's hard to jam 4 planes in one hangar, and to make them fit, the Quicksilver needs to go way in the back, hence all the planes out. Steve stood by the door watching me drive in, stop and take a picture and then continue in. I guess he was wondering who the hell was driving in just then, as I realized that this was the 5th different vehicle that I have showed up in.


So tonight I did another 14 take off and lands, three with power off to simulate engine out. They were interesting, did good with the ones when we were at pattern altitude, but one he initiated just after making the second turn after takeoff. Obvious that we were not going to get to the runway to do a downwind landing, Steve said to land in the grass on the right. It was crude, Steve did some of the manuvering and we hit the snow covered grass. Steve hit the throttle and said "full back on the stick!" so we would take off again. Grass longer than he thought, lots of snow, too. This combination produced much drag and much snow flying around and into the cockpit through the hole by the front wheel. We finally got off the ground with Steve laughing and saying we looked like a couple of snowmen..... I didn't think it was THAT funny. Oh, well.

Steve said we don't have much left to do, "you're at the point where you don't need me anymore", or so he says. We'll do some crosswind landings next week, and I suppose a bunch of regular ones. I'm getting to like this landing business. Steve is taking his tests and checks to get his sport pilot instructor certification. Soon we'll be on to the next phase with my training, to nail down the sport pilot permit. The only bad thing about this is I wish I had started in JUNE!!! I'm learning new methods of dressing for cold. It's different than getting ready to go hunting and motorcycle duds don't do the trick. A light weight balaclava and some of those "hot hands" warmers that I use for hunting should get me close to geared up for winter flying in a semi-open "ultralight vehicle".

The view out the West windows. Who says winter is drab?

Northwoods News

Short on photos but long on news!!

Yikes!! Fire in the pumphouse!! Not the firefighters pumphouse, THE PUMPHOUSE!! Ivan returned from a sit in a tree to find smoke and flames breaking out of the north wall of the famed Northwoods shrine. He checked for occupants of the lodge, sent a call to the fire department and started in with a fire extinguisher. With the help of Julie and Nick, the flames were extinguished about the time the fire department went sailing past their driveway..... No damage to the interior, and some minor damage to the wall. A big mess though. Chuck happened to stop by and he helped Ivan get it all closed over with insulation and plastic (I think).
Apparently, there was contact between a wire in the wall and a screw used during some construction or other. Finally shorted the wire and caused a blaze. Good thing that didn't happen while they were at work.

Got a photo from Jenny showing "a barrel ceiling wine cellar" that my nephew Paul has constructed. He is a masonry contractor around the West Bend area and does some excellent work. Ivan, if you get around to that below grade sauna, you might want to check this technique. Here it is.



Ridiculously cold for this time of year. Below zero at night, hight of 7° today. Good grief! Archie used to call California "the land of the fruits and the nuts", but you have to admit that the weather is a notch or two warmer than here. The big snow we got early melted almost entirely. We have had a few dustings since, so it is white around here again. Hunting is getting to be less than comfy. The last time I sat I got really cold watching the light snow building up on the fletchings of my arrow. I did see the red bellied woodpecker that night.... last Saturday, I believe. The Thursday before that, Ivan and I sat out in the Otter woods. It was only about 10° with a breeze. After about 1.5 hours of almost being O.K., I watched two turkeys fly up into a big white pine tree a little ways down the hill. I watched them walk around on the limbs and finally settle down to motionless bliss. They were high enough to be above the surrounding woods, right in the wind. I realized that they were going to SPEND THE NIGHT LIKE THAT!!!! At that point I got really chilled and bailed out of that tree. I headed for the lodge (which had no fire in the stove) as fast as I could and marched around the lilac hedge about 10 or so times as I waited for Ivan to return. Hey, guess what? He got a deer with his black powder gun!! So I fourwheeled out to get it, and then we had a couple of ice cold beers on an unheated palace. Do we know how to live, or what?



Went flying last Wednesday. In the twenties with calm winds. Not as nice as the weather in the photo, but O.K. We just stayed in the airport traffic pattern and did touch and go's, 14 in all. We talked about different things to watch for during landing,how to correct them and when to decide to nail the throttle and just go around again. Take off procedure I feel very comfortable with. Steve doesn't pay attention during take off anymore. Most landings were this week were quite good, after getting the plane lined up. I went wide a couple of times, which requires a little throttle while making corrections. Had a great time and only got a little bit cold. When I got home, Peggy and Rosie were there. Rose was in the area visiting her ma and she stopped up for a few hours that evening. I tested the car Liz gave to Bryn. It's a Celica GTS, 1990 model. After driving it to Merril and back to fly, I decided that Bryn would get my truck and I would keep the car. Well that didn't go over very well, so Bryn came up to get the car on Friday night. I haven't heard from her since?????

Speakin of Bryn, I do believe she has gotten her hands out of the casts and can type again......

I got the tractor back today. The lifting mechanism in the back had quit working and I could not use the plow blade for snow removal. Actually, I haven't had to do snow yet, but it's inevitable. So Ken Bubenic from Phillips fixed it for me. Some part of the hydraulic pump was cracked from moisture freezing in the pump. Bummer. With part, labor and getting Don DeLasky to haul it, I'm now $500 behind schedule. Hmm... "the land of the fruits and the nuts" passes again through my consciousness...

Flying this afternoon was cancelled by me, as it was only 7° and windy....

Sometime in the next few weeks Peg and I will be going to visit her son and wife and BABY. Not sure if it will include the infamous "shopping trip" to Rapids, or not. I do really well shopping, don't I Peg? As long as it's Gander Mountain or Fleet Farm. I need to work on that, I guess.

That's all the news that is news, here in the hinterlands of Northern Wisconsin. Eat your hearts out, all youse dat lives in some dumb climate what cant' live up too da wun hear.

I gotta go, Carlo