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2013 Box Score: Winnie the Pooh Spanks Clevenger Apiaries to Even the Series

This post comes from the Clevengers beekeeping activity in the Spider Lake area.

 

Late last summer, we believe that all of our beehives died, which was relatively common across the country.   We thus left a couple of boxes over winter in the unlikely case that the queen and some workers survived.   We typically take down the electric fence in the fall once the bears hibernate and put them back up in the spring before the bears rouse.  Given that our retirement was delayed from April until June, we did not get there in time to set up the fence.   Note the following chronology of events:

2011:  

         Winnie the Pooh attempts to invade the hives, but is stopped by the electric fence.

 

   Box Score:    Clevenger Apiaries    1

                          Winnie the Pooh      0 

2012:

Winnie keeps a keen eye on the hives all summer, but neither side attacks

 

Box Score:   Clevenger Apiaries   0

               Winnie the Pooh      0

 

 

 

 

 

2013:

Clevenger Apiaries gets spanked for not getting the electric

fence up in time.

 

 Winnie “licks the dinner plate”

as no honey, honeycomb,

larvae, etc. are left.

 

Box Score:    Winnie the Pooh     1

                       Clevenger Apiaries  0

 

 

We intend to start up the hives again in 2014 and will keep you appraised of the events.

All the best

Clevenger Apiaries

 

Quiet Lakes Profile: John Leighton, the “World’s Most Interesting Man"

Given the incredibly rich heritage and culture on our lakes, this is the first of a series of profiles on our amazing residents, with our inaugural profile on John Leighton.



John and Sue Leighton are members of the Quiet Lakes Association and live on the north side of Teal Lake off of Upper A and Boersma.  While Sue’s numerous interests are significant, and we hope to publish them at a later date, today’s profile is on John.   For those of us who know John well, we call him the “World’s Most Interesting Man” because it seems there’s nothing he hasn’t done.  For example:

·         Age 5:   John had just taken a kindergarten class on “pioneers” and decided that he wanted to be a pioneer.  So, he proceeded to take a tarp from the garage at the family cabin, and told his folks he was going to camp out for a while.  Later that night as darkness arrived, his folks and their friends were taking bets on how long he’d be out when they saw a light approaching.   As the bets begin to pay off, John informs them he was only coming back for some toilet paper and then went back out for a few nights.  Never bet against John Leighton…………

·         Age 9:   John decided that he wanted to go to the family cabin one Saturday.   He thus packed up his bike and planned to ride the 60 miles alone from Minneapolis.   Although he got lost and found himself in Brooklyn Center and 10 miles out of the way, he successfully navigated himself back on track and arrived in time for dinner.

 

·         Age 12: John acquired his first sailboat which he raced in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin in the Inland Lakes’ Yacht Association regattas; capturing several championship trophies.  John also bought his first canoe. His parents would drop him off at Lake Mille Lacs where he would canoe down the Rum River; camping out overnight.

·         Age 15:   John and his brother, age 12, decided to canoe the Boundary Waters for a few weeks since John had received his license to drive a car a week earlier.   A few days into the trip, their canoe was swamped and they lost all their supplies.   Thus, they had to live off the land for 10 days eating fish, grouse, and rabbits until they found some campers to help re-provision them.

·         Age 17:   John and his brother, age 14, canoed over 1,400 miles to Hudson Bay over a 7 week period through unmapped wilderness.

·         20’s:   After graduating from the William Mitchell College of Law and marrying his college sweetheart, Sue, they had three wonderful daughters.  John actively engaged in the real estate business and practice of law in the Twin Cities.    Meanwhile, John played soccer for a German team in the Minnesota State League.

 

 

·         30’s:    John was spear fishing off the coast of Washington at a depth of 80 feet when he speared a lingcod.    Unfortunately, the lingcod dragged him into a kelp bed tangling them both in kelp and spear tether.  John had not noticed that his tank had been leaking air from a split o-ring. Tangled, John breathed the last breath of air. Rather than losing the fish, John simply held his breath for a few minutes, untangled, and slowly guided the lingcod to the surface by grabbing both ends of the spear protruding through the fish, pointing upward and letting the fish do the work; careful to exhale and rise no faster than the smallest bubbles.

 

John built a fishing boat and fished gill nets under a commercial license off the north shore of Lake Superior. He never sold a fish; he gave them all to residents along the shore. He was simply interested in how commercial fishing was done. John was also an avid hunter; running pointing dogs on upland game. He has guided hunters, and has judged hunt trials such as the National Pheasant Championship.

·         40’s:   John and Sue kept a 26 foot sailboat moored in the Bayfield area and did extensive sailing and navigating of Lake Superior.   They encountered too many storms to think about: they were once hit by lightning which knocked out all electronics and put 54 holes through the hull; they once had a tornado pass within 100 yards.

 

       Every year for two weeks to a month John and his cousin sailed parts of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska; sometimes racing, sometimes living off the sea. 

 

See the picture at left where John is holding a Pudget Sound King Crab in one hand and an Abalone in the other.   On one occassion their navigation system faulted, thus resulting in them running aground on a sand bar approximately 20 miles from Alaska (see below).   With 20 foot vertical tidal movements daily, they were forced to request assistance from the Coast Guard.

 

 

 

John has run over 50 marathons, and over 50 races in excess of 50 miles including 10 mountain races of 100 miles. John has run the Western States 100 from Squaw Valley to Auburn 5 times, and he has run the 100-mile run at over 10,000 feet in Leadville, Colorado. John has climbed many of the 14’ers of Colorado where he was caught in electric storms various times.

John set up a complete woodworking shop in his basement where he designed and built much of the cabinetry and furniture for his home. He especially liked working with French Provincial design.

·         50’s:   John has skied the Birkie 27 times and has skied every Worldloppet race in Europe; earning the status of Worldloppet Master Skier.  In 1999, John and Sue purchased their cabin on Teal Lake because of the world class ski trails in the Hayward/Cable area. The Fat Tire Race on the Birkie Trail introduced John to mountain biking.

·         60’s:   After moving to Teal Lake John fell in love with mountain biking and has dedicated himself to building single track biking trails, mainly in the areas just north of the Quiet Lakes between 206 and County Road M, i.e., the Wilson Lake, Patsy Lake, Rock Lake and Namakagon Trails. These trails (see picture at left) recently won the International Mountain Biking Association’s “EPIC Trail Designation” for quality, the only trail with such designation in the Midwest.  John was the Minnesota State Mountain Bike Champion in the “50 & Over” category for four straight years.

 

  

John is a published poet, with his current book of poetry, Paradise View Collected Poems, on sale at Redbery Books in Cable. John has also written an instructional booklet entitled “Finding the Rhythm of the Trail” wherein he compares mountain biking to dancing and being “at one with the bike”.  This booklet is available on the CAMBA web site.

 

 

 

 

 

       Today:    John continues to build bike trails, is currently an active member of the board of directors for both the Birkie Foundation and CAMBA (Chequamegon Area Mountain Biking Association) and is an avid gardener (see his wonderful gardens at left).   After any storm, you can always see John heading for the forest with his chainsaw in his backpack to clear the thirty five miles of trail for which he is trail steward.

 

 

 

John’s greatest concern today is staying in shape so he can keep up with his five grandchildren. You may have seen him dive with them off a tower he built on the bow of his pontoon boat last summer.

 

 

 

 

And of all the memories briefly and incompletely catalogued here, John’s most significant and rewarding adventure was his marriage to Sue, to which he provides this poem:

When You Are Older:  for Sue

When you are older than your years and keep nodding by the fire,

Take down my book and slowly read, and dream,

And make a joke about how my poems need some censorship

How many of them loved your moments graced

And loved your beauty with love old or new

Not one wrong wish for faceless face value

Nor sorrows of your ever-changing face

Then bending down beside the glowing embers

Murmur, a little sadly, how love led us both, together, to the watershed

Dividing what is past but remembered

 2013, John Leighton

 

In summary, lot’s of us are still trying to keep up with John Leighton!!!

Fawns on Upper A

Note the following experience of Dan and Pat Kolner last Friday night:

 

On our way to fish fry this Friday evening, we happened upon newborn twin fawns, one laying on the shoulder of the road and other attempting to cross but collapsing in the middle of Upper A when its wobbly legs could carry it no further. After stopping to wave around a car traveling traveling in the opposite direction, a decision had to be made. While physically moving the fawn was not our first choice, laying on Upper A on a Friday evening would certainly have resulted in an unfortunate result, so I opted to move the fawn to the side of the road where it joined its sibling. Upon returning to the scene after dinner, both fawns were gone and had presumably joined their mother back in the woods.

Please be careful out there, drive slow and keep your eyes open !