Copper Country Living

Otter River, Michigan My husband has been trying for years to get me to go fishing with him on the Otter River. I really have no interest in fishing, so I usually turn him down. However, every time I ask him to join me at an event that requires a shirt with buttons, he says I owe him a fishing trip. My number of trips owed is quite large, as this summer was my first time on the river. I have so little interest in fishing that I didn't even bring a fishing pole with me, but I did like the idea of tagging along and spending the afternoon outdoors with my husband. Hubby in the river We had a gorgeous day as far as the weather was concerned. It was about 70 degrees and sunny, one of very few such days each year. It was a decent trek into the woods before scooting down the steep and wooded embankment into the river. We weren't in the water more than 30 seconds and Hubby had already caught a fish, but it was too small to keep. Water was only knee deep most the way, but varied between

I realized today that my last post was in February. February! Six months ago. I've been missing from the blog for a handful of reasons, some personal and some technical. In the early spring, shortly after my last post, I had some personal things that kept me distracted and uninterested in blogging. Since I do this as a hobby and not a living, it fell too low on the priority list to get much attention at the time. Just as the distractions were cleared away, the technical problems cropped up. In May my computer died. Really died. Hard drive corrupted, lost all my photos and files. My amazing computer guy tried to fix it, but after a month and a half of no progress he admitted defeat. He spent some more time building me a custom machine for my needs and budget and I'm very happy with the result. I've even accepted the loss of all my pictures in stride. It was pictures of the kids' first christmases and birthdays and stuff like that- all gone as if my house had burned down

Yesterday was the first warm sunny day we've had here in the Keweenaw in awhile. Most of us took a moment to bask in the glow of sunlight (I went to the beach to listen to the waves), but we can't live only for the sunny days. We need to know how to cope with the gloomy days too- because there's not a single person who doesn't have them. It's going to rain and snow sometimes. This time of year, the cabin fever blues (aka seasonal depression from lack of sunlight) is common around here. One of my friends made a comment recently that last winter she was depressed and really only enjoyed the handful of days she spent on vacation in the south. This winter she's been trying to get out and enjoy the snow, embrace the simple joys like a good cup of coffee, and live for each day- not just the sunny ones. She's right, we can't only deal with our feelings on good days. We have to process bad emotions too. The idea of feeling our emotions fully is rarely talked abo

This past week our chimney caught fire. The fire department had to be summoned to put it out. I was standing in our driveway, wearing my boots without socks, our toddler without mittens, the baby with her snow bunting I managed to grab as we hurried out the door. For the less than five minutes it took the volunteer fire department to arrive, I stood helpless watching the metal chimney glowing bright orange atop the house... fearing the whole time it was about to spread to the roof and I'd watch everything I own in the world go up in flames. I wouldn't even own socks. Our house didn't burn to the ground. It didn't suffer any damage at all. We got really lucky. The firemen showed up after those five minutes, put out the chimney fire, vented the smoke out of my house, and inspected the chimney enough to tell us it had suffered some damage (and to get a pro to come look at it). There was no water damage, no physical damage, no smoke damage. Just some dust to vacuum up- not