Quarries and caves made the day ~ April 28, 2004

David Heiller

It’s funny how something can sneak up on you and bring a smile.

Cindy and I found that on Sunday afternoon, when we took a walk to the quarry by Reno.

The view of the quarry from the top of Hillside Road

We parked our car in the little lot on Hillside Drive, walked up the broad trail, then turned right and marched up the old road to the quar­ry.

It’s a marvelous spot. The limestone stands sheer and beautiful, 100 feet high, and still looks amazingly fresh. You almost expect to hear a dump truck come rumbling up for a load. Of course, that won’t happen; there are a lot of trees growing in the quarry pit now, big birches that tell you it’s been three or four decades since this quarry was active.

And that’s probably good, because another blast or two of dynamite might send the entire bluff onto Highway 26 and into the river. It’s really just a sliver of rock by nature’s standards.

It’s a spiritual spot. A couple of young people have died tragically in recent years, and their friends have gone to the quarry and spelled out their names – Josh and Mark – while someone braver than I stood at the top of the quarry and took their picture. I can see why they would do that there.

We walked around the south side of the quar­ry, and up a trail to a little goat prairie. It’s so steep that I got dizzy looking at the river and had to sit down. What a view! We could see both spillways on the dike that leads to Genoa. And what a pretty sight that city is.

The wind carved a current in the river that paralleled the land all the way to Wisconsin. Or was it the wind? Maybe it was a line of river current, a ghost of the old days before the Army Corp of Engineers dammed up the river in the 1930s.

We walked to the edge of the quarry, about two thirds of the way up, and thought about climbing the narrow ledge to its peak. But not for long. It’s not a climb you want to make if there is a shadow of doubt.

David and I hiked throughout our marriage.
There is nothing that a hike doesn't
 help put into perspective.

We climbed up the other side of the quarry as far as we dared also. It’s even more dangerous, with a crumbling ledge about two feet wide, fol­lowed by a clump of boulders eight feet high that stops most people. I remember climbing over that spot with a friend when I was in col­lege. Was I braver then, or just dumber? Yes to both.

We left the quarry and headed north to Fairy Rock. I wanted to check out the old cave.

I found the path and scrambled down. Someone had tied a rope to a tree to help in the final six-foot drop. I still came close to falling. Our two dogs couldn’t make it, and Cindy thought better of it too. So it was just me and the cave.

It hasn’t changed much since the last time I visited it, but I still marvel at it. The ceiling is about 12 feet high at the highest spot, and it’s about 25 feet long. The limestone inside peels off easily when you scrape it. The colors are rich browns, all shades, and some red thrown in here and there. There’s plenty of light from the two big openings, but it’s still always evening inside the cave. Another spiritual spot.

I always wonder who has lived in this cave over the eons — I mean before Tim Serres. And all the people who have visited it. I remember seeing my dad’s initials in it when I was a kid — at least I think I remember it.

I checked out the names that are carved in it now. Most looked new. “Carolyn + John.” “Brad ‘99” Then I stood on a ledge, and looked up and to my right, and there it was, a big fat “D.H.” And that brought the smile. I don’t remember — wait, it’s coming back a little. Didn’t I stand on that ledge, right there, and carve that? Yes, Jeff Mitchell was with, and Billy Burfield. We rode our bikes down, and after that we went to the Root Beer Stand and bought a root beer for a nickel from Rita Grams.

OK, maybe that all didn’t happen. It doesn’t matter.

I left the cave and looked up. An eagle soared past, heading south, then another, then another.

I scrambled back to the top, where Cindy and the dogs waited patiently. We headed back home, both smiling on a fine April evening made even finer by the Reno Quarry and good old Fairy Rock.

The call of the garden ~ April 16, 1992

 David Heiller

The sun was shining, the birds singing, the bees buzzing. You name the spring cliché, and it was there last Thursday morning.

Oh gardens!
Little Claire lends a helping hand later in the season

And the garden was the biggest magnet of them all. I could feel its pull even as I knotted my tie, grabbed my briefcase, and headed out the door for work.

I almost made it too. But the garden looked so inviting. I walked to it. A week of unseasonable weather had dried out the raised beds. I grabbed a clump of some nameless weed. It pulled out easily. I shook the dirt and earthworms from the roots, and tossed it on the grass.

I was hooked.

Back in the house, I slipped a pair of coveralls over my dress clothes. Tie and all. I grabbed the garden fork, and went back to the garden.

Loosen the soil, pull up the weed, shake off the dirt, toss the weed aside. Repeat. Repeat. Again. Again.

Malika helps to plant.

I found a carrot that had been passed over last fall. I wiped the dirt off with my hands, and ate it. It tasted as sweet and crisp as the ones last fall.

At first my movements felt stiff and awkward. I felt the damp soil soak through the coveralls, through my slacks, hitting my knees. My left knee groaned as I got up and down. It has pulled in one too many gallons of sap this spring. My back popped a few times, like plucked strings on a banjo.

My mind whirred: What am I doing. I should be selling ads, taking pictures, writing stories. I moved to a new bed, raked back the newspaper and straw mulch. The grass underneath was brown and dead, so I dug it up, widening the bed by half a foot, shaking out the rhizomes, tossing them aside.

Then there is the joy of the harvest.
Shelling peas with Noah.

My thoughts turned to Binti, our dog who died last fall. She should be here, I thought, sniffing in the dead grass, looking for mice. She always hung out at the garden when I worked there, keeping me company, and vice versa. This will be our first garden without her in 13 years.

My movements became more sure, more mechanical. I’m not sure why, but it always takes about half an hour of a job before I really feel sure of what I’m doing. The crick left my knee. My lower back muscles quit snapping. My mind lost its doubt. Work can wait a bit. The ads will get sold, the photos taken, the stories written.

A few honey bees buzzed past my ear. No worry about getting stung. They have other things on their minds. Hello, it’s spring, and I’m hungry. Praise the Lord and pass the flowers!

Collin helps plant peas.
 Everybody's got to get into the act!

The sun felt warm. A steady west wind blew over the garden, bringing the moist smell of fresh soil and manure. I started sweating, cool and damp, like spring soil.

Two hours, that’s all I needed of this. The garden looked fresh and new. I felt that way too. Then the coveralls got hung. I straightened my tie, and the ads got sold, the photos taken, the stories written. At least this one did.

The next day, it snowed six inches. Only in Minnesota. I took my coveralls from their hook, folded them, and put them in the closet a bit sadly. Thursday seemed like a dream. The garden looked like it did last November.

But deep down, I know better, and I bet a lot of you do too. It’s there, waiting, like a magnet. Soon it will be pulling us again.

The quiet house returns ~ April 25, 1991

David Heiller

The house is quiet tonight, for the first time in three weeks. Twenty-three days, to be exact. That’s because Tyson and Brooks are gone. Their parents retrieved them this afternoon, af­ter a long vacation.

Brooks, Queen Ida, Noah and Tyson.

We’d been talking about today for a week or so, about when Mom and Dad would come. Mostly I did the talking, out of some sense of duty that the boys should be missing their parents more.

I told them my “Mommy-Daddy Tomorrow” story. http://davidheiller.blogspot.com/2011/04/mommy-daddy-tomorrow-february-3-1983.html That’s what this one kid at Camp Courage (back in 1972 would say, countless times every day, “Mommy-Daddy tomorrow?” He really missed his parents, but he drove us counselors nuts, for 10 days straight. We couldn’t wait for the day when he would say “Mommy- Daddy tomorrow?” and we could shout, “Yes, Jimmy, Mommy-Daddy are coming tomorrow!” When that morning finally arrived, we crowded around his bed. But Jimmy spoke up first in a deadpan voice, “Mommy-Daddy TODAY?”

Noah and Brooks

Brooks, age six, laughed at my story. He caught the irony, but he never said those words. He and Ty missed Barb and Steve, to be sure. But kids being kids, they put it in perspective, somewhere behind playing baseball, climbing rocks, eating cookies, falling in creeks, making snowmen, eating cookies, wallowing in frost-boils, reading books, eating cookies, taking baths, watching cartoons, eating cookies, play­ing with Legos, putting jigsaw puzzles together, and eating cookies.
Cindy made 450 cookies during the past 22 days, we figure. And they are all gone now, along with Ty and Brooks.

Story time: Malika, Noah, Brooks and Tyson.

IT’S FUNNY HOW your relationship with kids can change when they are “yours” tem­porarily. If you have them for a day or two, you treat them like glass. You don’t small-talk with them the same, you don’t hug them the same, you don’t give them a tongue-lashing when they fail to pick up the baseball bats. You don’t hold their hands on the way to work, you don’t send them to their room as punishment, you don’t gaze at them after they fall asleep. At least I don’t.

Tyson and some
Mama level grooming.

But that all changes after about three days. They reach out to hold your hand. They cry when they are sent to their room. They volunteer to sing grace at the supper table. They take their dishes to the sink without being as­ked. They crawl onto your lap as you make a fire in the morning. They crawl into your heart too.

They trust you to fish them out of the river when they fall in, or scoot behind them up a steep slab of rock at Jay Cooke State Park. They accidently call you “Dad” once in a while.

They reward you by saying things out of the blue like, “David, I like staying with you.” Tyson said that in the car one afternoon. Is there any finer praise?

You feel proud too at things like getting four kids, ages four to seven, bathed, hair-washed, brushed, and jammied like clockwork on a Saturday night. Four kids are a lot of work!

But somewhere along the line something clicks in you and you can tolerate the extra 10 decibels of noise. You can step between two yell­ing kids and cross-examine them and figure out who did what, and hand over the toy to the right person, and send the right person to his room for time-out.

You can tolerate, even laugh at, the endless arguments: who is the sickest, who has the most juice, who gets to sit in the front seat, who gets to bat first, who can sleep with Noah, right down to the pros and cons of looking at girls’ underwear (Brooks is pro, Mollie is con).

But that’s all gone now. We’re back to two. The house is mighty quiet tonight. I can’t help feeling a little sad about that. But more than that, I feel very lucky for having those two extra kids for the past three weeks. Twenty-three days, to be exact.

Holy Moley, Mollie ~ April 20, 1989

 

David Heiller

My daughter, Malika, is good friends with Becky Lourey. There’s a 40 year gap in age between them, but they still have established a good friendship.

I like Becky for a lot of reasons that Mollie doesn’t understand. Her convictions, her caring, her enthusiasm, her family commitment, even her organizational skills. How can you not like someone who is so organized that she folds her family’s dirty laundry before washing it?

Mollie doesn’t understand those things, but she does understand a friendly face, moles and all.
Let me explain. It started at the Embassy Bar in Sturgeon Lake last fall. Becky

A mole-less Becky.

had a fundraiser there in preparation for her Minnesota House of Representative race with Doug Carlson. Becky, like a good politician, hugged Mollie, and talked to her. Mollie hugged back. She seemed to feel the energy, the glint in Becky’s eyes. Four-year-olds have a lot of energy, and glinty eyes too. Becky knows how to talk to kids, what with 11 kids of her own to practice on.

And Mollie liked Becky Lourey for another reason—her moles. Mollie touched the one on Becky’s forehead, and the one on her cheek. Becky let her too, and explained what moles are, if anyone really knows what moles are.

I don’t know why Mollie liked the moles so much, but I have a hunch that they were special because they were something she didn’t have, and therefore something she wanted.

Mollie didn’t forget Becky after that. Often when we would drive past the Embassy Bar, she would say, “There’s Becky’s house!”

But Becky showed up at a party three weeks ago with no moles in sight. Mollie took notice, and took offense. Becky explained that the mole on her forehead had swelled up, and started to hurt. Her doctor advised taking it out, along with the one on her cheek and several others farther south. Mollie didn’t buy that. Becky finally took her aside and asked that she be forgiven for taking off the moles. Mollie agreed. Becky asked, “Do you still love me?” and Mollie said yes. She has a kind heart for a four-year-old.

But the next day I wasn’t so sure. As we drove past the Embassy Bar and Mollie made her remark about Becky’s home, I asked her if she’d had a nice visit with Becky.

“She took my moles off, too,” Mollie claimed. “Hurts my cheeks and I got blood.”

“I don’t see blood,” I said.

^“No, yesterday I went to the doctor,” she insisted. “One day the doctor took off my moles and then threw them in the garbage. I didn’t like them take off.”

“Do you still like Becky?” I asked.

Mollie nodded. “But if she takes any moles off, I won’t like her anymore,” she said.

That answered my question, sort of, and I have since dropped the subject. No point in making a mountain out of a mole hill. But I hope Mollie can overcome her prejudice of the mole-free Becky Lourey. They’ve got too much in common, too much of a budding friendship. Then maybe Mollie can even run for political office, and be an Outstanding Minnesota Woman too.

~drh

The next week we received a hand written note complete with a drawing for Malika. It completes this tale. Becky has had many more losses that are too difficult to bear, as have we. Malika and Becky remained close over the years, Malika considering Becky her mentor. Here is the note from Becky to little Mollie:

~Dear Mollie~

I hear that you miss my moles. I do too! One day last week, I held a little child and when he, reached his hand out toward my face, I thought he was going to touch my mole, and then I remembered that it was not there_. My face is not as much fun for children as it used to be

This picture is supposed to be me and I Put the moles on with a sticky paper so you can take them off and put -them on until you are really ready for them to be gone. (Here is where Becky added a lovely self portrait)

I thought that I would tell you a sad story that explains why I feel okay about losing my moles. There, are some things we might not want to lose, but we can stand to lose them. And then there are some things that when we lose them, we miss all of our lives. It is important to remember the difference, so that we can get over losing the things we like but don’t really need.

Once we had a little son who died because his heart wasn’t made right and so it couldn’t work right. Forever and forever I will miss him. And so I know that the moles aren’t as important, and I can let them go.

I bet you can think of things that you would never ever want to lose, and,then think of things that you could get along without if you lost them.

I can stand to lose my moles, but I sure couldn’t, stand to lose your friendship, Mollie.

love, BECKY

Thoughts on a weekend alone ~ April 21, 1994

David Heiller

So how was your weekend alone? my brother-in-law asked on Sunday. You could almost hear his eyebrows going up and down like Groucho Marx at the other end of the phone line.

“It was fine.” I answered.

“Just fine?” he asked with surprise. He has two kids of his own. If he ever shipped them both off for a weekend, you can darn well bet he’d do better than fine.

So I’ll explain the fine weekend without rais­ing too many eyebrows.

We had dinner at the best restaurant in Duluth, Taste of Saigon. We bought candy at a candy store, and went to a movie, The Paper. It was the late show, but there were no kids at home so we didn’t worry about that. It was a carefree night with Cindy.

But it was strange going home to an empty house, not having to bring the babysitter home. The next morning, it was strange not hearing Noah’s radio. He usually forgets to turn it off at night. And no cartoons on Saturday morning—very strange.

I’d like to say we forgot about the kids, but that would be forgetting about your hands or your legs. You don’t think about them much, but if they are not there, you notice it.

I spent Saturday and Sunday at work doing photos and ads for “A Day In The Life Of Nor­thern Pine County,” a special section in this week’s paper. Cindy called on Saturday morning and asked what my plans were for that evening. I suggested we transplant tomato seedlings. “Well, I guess that would be all right,” she said. But her voice said, Gee, how romantic.

She had other plans. She made shrimp and pasta and parsnips fried in butter. I opened a bottle of champagne. We lit a candle. After din­ner we turned on the TV and watched Nancy Griffith sing. That’s something we wouldn’t normally do on a Saturday night. Not with dirty dishes still on the table.

It was much better than transplanting tomatoes.

We had a glimpse of life without children last weekend. It brought a strange mixture of freedom, loneliness, and worry. They’ve been, gone before, but never at the same time, never for three days. I wondered how they were doing if they were behaving, being polite, doing things we tried to teach them.

I wondered how they were going to turn out when they grew up and left home. I wondered if they would come home and visit. I wondered if they would be good children.

That made me think about what kind of son I was.

When they came home Sunday night, I spent time in each of their rooms. I didn’t have much to say. I just wanted to be near them, to watch them, to hear them tell of their weekends.

Sometimes you can see time slipping away, and you want to stop the clock. That’s how I felt. Both our kids are good kids. They are at a good age. We have a happy life, a happy home. It’s spring. Baseball has started. Soon the garden will be planted.

No, we had a fine weekend without the kids. It made me think about what a fine life Cindy and I have with them too.

Thanks to the rain ~ May 19, 1994

by David Heiller

It rained all day Saturday, a light mist of a rain. Some people probably cussed at it. But from the garden it made me glad. That’s where I spent most of the day, shoveling, raking, tilling. My T-shirt stuck to my back like, well, like a wet T-shirt. My gloves got coated with mud. So did my boots, and the rake and fork and tiller. We were all one soggy mess.

But the rain felt good, all six-tenths of an inch.

Kids love the rain.

We weren’t exactly in a drought. It had snowed eight inches just 17 days earlier. But the potatoes and lettuce and peas needed a drink. So did the corn and alfalfa. So did the roadsides along Highway 23, where train sparks have sent firemen a-scurrying and trees a-dying.

So did the perennials that Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson gave me last fall, forget-me-nots and delphiniums, primrose and daisies, and a bunch of others that I can’t even identify. Their leaves sprinted out of the ground with the rain.

We heard it start in the middle of the night. Cindy woke me up at 4:30 a.m. to say, “Listen, it’s raining.” There’s nothing better than lying in bed next to your lover and listening to a gentle rain fall on the roof over your head.

The rain didn’t stop our children. Noah was out on the driveway with his trucks and cars, wearing my rain coat and making grader noises and explosions for when he blew up the graders and trucks.

Malika came out onto the deck and skipped rope. “I did 23 backwards,” she called out to me in the garden.

“Great!” I answered.

They played with determination. Noah rode his bike over to Malika and said something, probably about guns and dirt bikes. Mollie lifted her chin and skipped on. Nothing beats skipping rope to an eight-year-old girl.

Rain doesn’t stop anything. The leaves on the trees seem to grow before your eyes, a bright and delicate green. The peas that you barely saw poking out of the dusty garden inch upward out of now-black earth. The farm fields that have just been seeded look ready to spring to life.

Oh rain! Oh joy!

Birds swoop and sing in the rain, feasting on mosquitoes, which in turn are feasting on me. Unfortunately, the rain brings bugs to life too. Orioles and hummingbirds politely take turns at their sugar water bar, while goldfinches and rose breasted grosbeaks gobble down sunflower seeds at theirs.

My thoughts turned to the Boundary Waters, how pretty that is in the rain, the pine trees and moss on the rocks and gray water full of rain drops and life. I’m heading that way with three friends this week, for the seventh straight year.

The rain made me think of those three friends, and of fishing for northerns in the Kawishiwi River. I thought of that big one Dave had on three years ago, how Jim missed it with the net when it made a pass at the canoe. Then it spit out the hook in Dave’s face like a guy that just hit a three run homer.

The rain makes me think of people like Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson, how nice they were to share their garden plants and their knowledge with me.

The sun came out on Sunday. My rainy day thoughts came to an end. I was glad for the sunshine. But it’s nice to give thanks for the rain too.

Life is short and sweet ~ May 2, 1996

David Heiller

Cindy and I went to the woods on Sunday evening, April 28, with the intention of pulling our 53 maple taps. I carried a hammer along for the purpose.

We figured this late in the season, the buds must be full of sap. When that happens, the sap turns a tannish color and becomes “bud sap.” That means it’s time to pull the taps, because bud sap is bitter and makes poor syrup.

But when we got to the woods, the buckets were full of clear sap, and instead pulling 53 taps, we gathered about 53 gallons of sap.

Those cold nights we had last week, the ones that everyone was complaining about, kept the maples pumping sap. Every cloud has a silver lining.

David understood the sweetness of life.

Part of my territory in the sugar bush is located near a spring, and that spring was full of frogs on Sunday night. Peepers, and they were living up to their name. They were so loud it almost hurt my ears. But it was a glorious sound to hear, especially when I thought of that same ground just a month ago, when we tapped the trees, covered with two feet of snow

It made me think of how fast spring comes along, and how fast things change. It seemed like almost overnight the snow in the woods was gone and the garden was bare and the parsnips were frying in the skillet.

Parsnips are one of my favorite vegetables. You plant them in the spring, then weed them and thin them, and then you forget about them. Some people dig them up in the fall, but Alvin Jensen told me to leave them all winter, and they taste even better in the spring, and he’s right.

Hedda cooked spring parsnips
 for Red, making life sweet.

They seem sweeter in the spring. Maybe the cold weather does that. There’s probably a scientific reason, just like there is a scientific explanation for being able to take 35 gallons of sap from a tree and boil it down into a gallon of something that is too good for words to describe.

They both border on miraculous to me. How could those parsnips stay fresh in the ground during the coldest winter on record? How did they handle that February 3 day when neighbor John Filtz had minus 56 on his thermometer?

Then again maybe we are so anxious to taste something fresh from the garden that we just think the parsnips are sweeter.

It doesn’t really matter. It’s fun to eat them, and fun to give them away. Red Hansen came in for some. He likes to have Hertha boil them, then fry them in butter and put brown sugar on them. Red is on a low-fat, low-sugar diet, but that doesn’t stop him from enjoying his parsnips.

David and Noah after breakfast.

Leona Schultz came in for her bag full too. She doesn’t bother boiling them. She just cuts the up the long way and fries them. She used to boil them first, but she saw all that good sweet juice laying in the bottom of the pot and thought it was too precious to waste, so she just fries them straight.

We were sitting at coffee break on Monday afternoon, and Cindy Jensen was talking about the upcoming graduation of her daughter Katie. Hazel Serritslev couldn’t believe Katie was graduating already. Neither could Lynn’s Storrar. Neither could Cindy Jensen!

They all knew in their minds that Katie was graduating. But all of a sudden it didn’t see possible. All of a sudden it had come so fast, too fast.

Malika and Mackenzie with David,
enjoying some sweetness.

I think about that when I look at our two kids Noah and Malika. They are growing out of shoes and clothes almost every other month. They are like the tomato plants in our living room, that seem to grow an inch a day.

Malika asked me on Sunday to jump on the trampoline with her. I was busy, but I did. Later Noah asked to play a little football with me. I stopped my gardening and did that too.

There was a time in my life when I might have said no. But those times are becoming less frequent. I can see them growing up too fast. Like the parsnips and maple syrup that remind me that life is short and sweet.

A great trip, with a great ending ~ April 18, 2002

David Heiller

The best part of the trip came at the end, when “Dave” and I paddled down the Kettle River last Saturday morning.

(In case you don’t read Dear Abby, when a name is in quotations, it’s not their real name, although I’ve often wondered if people don’t put the person’s real name in the quotes, just to be funny.)

“Dave” took care of the logistics, as usual. “We’ll put the two canoes in your truck, and then drive my van to the bridge at 46,” he told me when I pulled into his driveway at 9:30. The idea was to then drive my truck to a spot up-stream, park the truck, paddle downstream about eight miles to County Road 46, then get in his van with his canoe and go back for the truck. I would pick up my canoe on the way home.

And that’s what happened, mostly.

The Kettle River had never looked finer to me than that morning. Cold, deep, and in a hurry. A river in flood is like a magnet to me.

We slipped the canoes over huge slabs of shore ice and into the water. It quickly whisked us downstream.

David and "Dave"

There were rapids almost non-stop. These aren’t dangerous rapids like you’ll find 25 miles to the south at Banning State Park. You probably wouldn’t drown if you capsized in these. But there is still a cheap thrill in bouncing over the waves and dodging rocks.

I learned the rock-dodging part the hard way. Not more than five minutes after we started, my 17-foot Aluma-craft and I were perched on top of a huge boulder. Normally that rock would be a foot above water, but on this day it was three inches under the surface.

Dave gave me a look of sympathy as he slid past. He is an excellent canoeist. I crawled to the front of the canoe and rocked the canoe back into the current.

We didn’t talk much. The roar of the rapids prevented that. Dave pointed out two otters in the water ahead of us. I couldn’t see them. My eyes are temporarily bad as I await a laser surgery. But I heard one come up and quickly go back under, about a foot from the front of my canoe.

Dave saw deer too, which he diligently pointed out to me and I diligently didn’t see. But in a way that didn’t matter. What mattered was being on the river, in the sun, moving, exploring, and feeling alive.

The trip had another challenge besides the rocks. A strong south wind was blowing up the valley, and if you didn’t slice it just right, it would grab the nose of the canoe and shove you toward shore. I’m saying “you,” but it was really “me.” It never happened to “Dave.” Did I mention what a good paddler he is? “We’re going this way,” he said once with good-natured sarcasm as the wind forced me to shore.

Another time the wind turned me completely around, so I drifted downstream backwards, and looked where I had been. Hey, that’s a good thing to do sometimes.

After we passed under the Highway 27 bridge, the shore looked familiar. Just six weeks earlier Dave and I had skied down this stretch. It was a good feeling, seeing some landmarks, and knowing that we were getting close to home.

That last stretch was wider and deeper, with fewer rapids. It wasn’t as exciting. But it held one remarkable scene of beauty, where a water-falls slid off a high, quartz-filled ledge. It was the kind of beauty that you don’t see every day, or every year. It made me sit up and gawk and smile.

We reached the bridge on County Road 46, where Dave’s van was parked. Several hours had passed. We were tired and ready to get on with our days.

That’s when Dave swore and said, “I forgot my keys.”

He had left them in the glove compartment of my truck!

We laughed—what else can you do—then Dave said “I guess I’ll have to walk and get a spare key.” His house was about three miles away. “Do you want to come with?”

“No, I think I’ll take a nap,” I replied. And that’s just what I did. It was a great end to a great canoe trip. For me at least.

The river showed us wonder and power ~ April 10, 1997

David Heiller

Ice piled up against the Kettle River Bridge on County Road 46 a week ago, and when it let go, it was a sight to behold.

A crowd of people gathered for the event on Thursday evening, April 3. My wife, Cindy, and son, Noah, and I were lucky to be among them.

Ice is fascinating.

I had seen the people on my way home from work at 5:30. They were standing on the bridge, pointing at the river, which I thought was pretty unusual. Being a reporter, I wanted to stop and see what was going on. But I didn’t. None of my business, I thought.

Then at supper, Noah told me that the river was filled with ice, and it was really something. He had seen it from his school bus window. He’s always noticing things from the bus, like dead animals and lost lumber. Things he knows I’d like to investigate.

“That’s what the people were looking at,” I said. So we cleaned off the table and went back to the bridge and joined them.

About a dozen people were there. The bridge pilings had stopped some big sheets of ice, and all the ice up river, as far as you could see to the north, had backed up against it. You could have walked across the river on the ice, if you felt suicidal. On the south side of the bridge the water was clear and flowing.

We talked with some of the folks there, all the while watching the ice, looking for movement.

Then it happened. A bit of ice broke free on the west side. A tree started swaying 100 yards away, as ice jostled by. Then Frank Larson put down his binoculars and pointed upstream.

Janie Johnson took this picture of the Kettle River
breaking up on February 23, 2017.
I am so appreciative of her sharing it with me!

A river of ice was moving downstream like a huge snake, alive and unstoppable. “She’s going now, several people said at the same time.

Ice battled ice, grinding and crushing at a hundred different places, pushed on by the swift current of the river. The big sheets of ice at the bridge lost their grip and broke and slid through the pilings, and the river of ice was on the move.

For the next 20 minutes, ice floated under the river. No, float isn’t the right word. Float is too gentle. That ice was about as gentle as a bull. A jillion pieces, some huge, some tiny, bank to bank, all charged downstream.

The motionless ice field that looked so benign a few minutes ago was now a tremendous and deadly force. It was like a giant lava flow of ice, carrying trees and branches and rocks.

It clobbered the bridge with heavy thuds. The bridge shook. One woman bolted toward the end of the bridge, thinking the bridge wasn’t safe.

We stood there gasping with stupid grins on our faces. A car drove by and someone tried to wave it down to stop and look at the river. The two ladies in the car looked at us like we were crazy and drove on. They don’t know what they missed.

Looking at the ice moving underneath me, I felt for all the world like the river was motionless and the bridge and I were moving upstream. You couldn’t help but feel dizzy and a little seasick.

Norman Larson said he had seen an ice dam break like this a couple times before, and Frank Larson had seen it once. They’ve lived near the river their entire lives. It was a rare natural phenomenon to witness.

I felt lucky to see that ice dam go out last week. It’s something I’ll never forget. I’ll never look at ice on the Kettle River the same way. It reminded me of the wonder and raw power of Mother Nature.

People in western Minnesota have seen that power all too closely in recent days. Whole towns have had to be evacuated due to flooding. A blizzard, record floods, and record cold all hit at the same time last weekend, and this after α winter of record snow. We have nothing to complain about here.

The blessed end of the syrup season ~ April 15, 1993

David Heiller

People in our neck of the woods woke up Easter morning to about five inches of wet snow. It clung to pine tree branches like plaster, and coated the grassy church parking lot like lard.

Folks who normally have to be pushed into going to church had to be pushed away from church, wheels a-spinning. Folks like us.

Malika and Mama hauling the sap, bucket at a time.

The snow came at a lucky time for our family. We had just finished boiling our last gallon of maple syrup on Saturday. That was about the time the tractor quit working too. I had hauled in the last 40 gallons of sap on Friday evening, and it quit Saturday morning, right in the mid­dle of an idle. I guess it wasn’t an idle threat.

With no tractor, and with five inches of sloppy snow, I don’t know how we would have brought in the last batch of sap. We were lucky, or maybe more. Sometimes you wonder.

We ended up boiling down about 360 gallons of sap for our nine gallons of syrup. That’s just right for our family. But that’s a relative term.

For example, Joy Naylor, a waitress at Partridge Cafe, was telling me about their maple syrup operation southwest of Bruno. During the height of the run this year, around April 6, they had 1,600 gallons of sap WAITING to be boiled down, while they were cooking down 250 gal­lons. They couldn’t keep up, it was flowing so fast.

Joy processes eight gallons of syrup at a time. This is after a long day of waiting on schmucks like me. Don’t tell me people don’t work like they used to.

The Naylors had about 400 taps out, and en­ded up with about 45 gallons of syrup. I asked Joy what they did with it. They give a lot away, sell some, and use the rest up. “We have a big family,” she said with a laugh. So yes, that’s a relative term.

Noah and his buddy, Jake.
David always had chores for them 
to do, and they always found 
ways to have fun anyway.

Noah and his friend, Jake, helped me take out our 42 humble taps on Saturday, before the snow hit. They had a claw hammer and a knapsack and managed to pull out at least five taps. Their laughter and high, excited voices carried through the trees like a spring breeze, and that more than made up for any tap quotas that I had in mind for them.

Children work at their own pace in the spring. Their hearts are more into clubhouses and creeks. Noah stayed overnight at Matt’s house recently. When Matt’s dad went to wake them up for breakfast, he found an empty bed. They had gotten up at 6:00 on a Sunday morning to go outside and play in Matt’s fort.

Cindy wanted to take a sauna on Sunday night. I wasn’t going to join her, until I stoked up the fire and smelled spilled maple sap evaporating from the floor and benches. So we sat and sweated together, and breathed in that sweet smell one last time, and cooled off on the steps, arm-in-arm, overlooking the snowy yard and the sap stove and a tractor that won’t start. We felt lucky on this Easter Sunday, blessed with good fortune, a good family, good friends.

Blessed. Maybe the Virgin Mary had bad directions and visited our field in Birch Creek township instead of that one in Kettle River, where 3,500 people showed up on Sunday.

Gee, we could tap a lot of trees with 3,000 people helping. (I’m joking, I’m joking.