I did not observe the seagulls’ return in person. I rely on Our Northern Correspondent to post it on Facebook or sometimes she has texted me or whatever. Today was the day. We are getting reports of migratory bird sightings here on the Planet too: red-wing blackbirds and damn-I-can’t-think-of-the-name-it’s-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue! Geese are scouting out their nests at the ponds at Cubelandia and the swans are back at Swan Corners. Winter is breaking, although I’m sure Old Man Winter still has a few snowballs to throw at us.

I am not at the moomincabin and I can’t feature staying there at this time of year. The place is not insulated and a lot of the pipes are outside. After the Polar Vortex winter, we got up there to open the place on Memorial Day weekend and despite the fact that we had followed the procedure for draining the pipes when closing the place the fall before, a pipe had broken. The GG spent a frigid afternoon fixing the broken pipe, high winds screaming off of Gitchee Gumee and tunneling under the cabin where he was working. This would have been an expensive fix if we’d had to hire a plumber and the GG does not get anywhere near enough credit for the maintenance/repair work he does at the moomincabin. Just sayin’.

When I was a young child, my parents tried a couple times to have a Sunday dinner (old-fashioned noon after-church dinner) at the moomincabin. We could not drive in back in those days. The road didn’t get plowed all winter. We parked up at Luigi’s and the parents pulled us down the road on a toboggan. They built a faaaar in our old wood stove and The Comm cooked a chicken dinner in the oven (or maybe heated up a pre-cooked chicken dinner). It was fun the first time. It was apparently not all that cold and we frolicked in the snow and walked amongst the ice hummocks on the shore. The second time it was colder than blue blazes and no one had a good time. I still remember my feet being so cold they hurt. Alas, I don’t remember us ever doing that again…

A few years back, some folks actually suggested that we close the moomincabin on *Halloween* weekend. Okaaaay. Did those folks have any CLUE what Old Man Winter can throw at the yooperland during the month of October (or even September sometimes)? Um, no. I mean if anyone lived within a couple hours of the place, it might be possible to respond with agility to changing weather conditions and get up there just in time to close the place before The Big Chill. But three of us are five hours away and the other two are a plane ride (or two or three) away. Nope. Not happening. But I am ALWAYS open to discussion (and always have been). Common sense anyone? Jeebus…

In their retirement, the grandparents, whose main residence was a short 15 minute hop to Sault Ste. Siberia, used to stay at the moomincabin until they saw a snowflake or two. That meant they usually made it to early October. When that first snoflake came down, they high-tailed it back to town, to what Lizard Breath once called “Grandma’s other house, the real house, where she lives some of the days”. Out of the mouths of babes.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2018 at 6:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.