New Maps at Jay Cooke State Park

I was excited to see they have posted new maps at Jay Cooke State Park. Currently the Winter Map is up (trails change slightly seasonally), but as you can see in the photo, it appears there are new Summer Maps as well (tucked away until next spring).

Its nice to see official fatbike trails in the park. Even though the map indicates you can access the trail loop from the main headquarters lot it might be best to go in off of Leimer Rd to avoid wheeling/carrying a bike through the congestion that can occur on the Swinging Bridge.

Last week I got in a couple of rides at Jay Cooke on the "backside" of the park off of Hwy 23 (Spruce Loop and High Trail). May keep that up until the snow flies/they start grooming trails as it is pretty easy to get to from Duluth.

Winter Map (zoom in for details)

Fat bike trail designation

Today I was in the park for a easy run on a loop comprised of the Summer, Bearchase, Lost Lake and Silver Creek Trails. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day; perfect for a leisurely paced run including a few stops to clean debris off the trail, take in the sites and inspect the new maps. 

Winter seems to have arrived!

Our first big snowstorm on October 27th. Caught a few of our trees with leaves still on. And us with our garden not cleaned up yet (or garlic planted). 

View from our front porch

Firearms deer opener resulted in a nice buck finding it's way to our larder courtesy of my brother-in-law. This guy didn't have an impressive set of antlers, but took three of us to load into the pick-up. Thankfully we have indoor cold storage available as I am not sure the bears and other varmints are bedded down yet. 

Despite a little warming, snow is still present on November 7th. And then we got more snow on Wednesday and Friday.

On October 31st I brewed my first batch of kombucha using starter tea and scoby given to me by a co-worker. On the 7th I transferred the tea into a secondary fermentation vessel and added a half pound of cranberries and apples and a few ounces of sliced ginger.

Using a siphon to transfer from primary to secondary fermentation vessel. 

Cranberries, macintosh apples and sliced ginger

fruit added to kombucha

Our flock of chickadees has returned and are busy cleaning out the feeder and scolding me if I get too close and obstruct their feeding schedule.

Black capped chickadee waiting it's turn at the feeder

In addition to chickadees I have noticed: white breasted and red breasted nuthatches; cardinals; juncos; redpolls; and an yet to be identified sparrow-like bird. 

Today I removed the fruit from my kombucha and poured it off into quart jars. I am going to leave it out another day or so as it is still a bit sweet and not too fizzy. But I like the subtle flavor already. 

cranberries, apples and some freshly formed scoby

Three quarts of cranberry - apple - ginger kombucha

Air travel + music/podcasts are great for getting a lot of knitting done. Stonecrop Stole is making good progress and the other day I added the second skein of Kauni EQ.

All this cold weather and snow has made for good fat biking. Exploring the western part of Skyline Boulevard on my Framed Wolftrax.