There’s nothing better for my soul than an early winter morning in a UP forest, especially with dogs. These beautiful Gordon Setters are my sister-in-law Debbie’s hunting dogs, Riley and Bogie.
Each year, we join family at deer camp on the backroads between Ishpeming and Republic, four miles past where the blacktop ends.
Plumbing at deer camp consists of a hand pump in the kitchen and an outhouse. Heat is a wood stove. A generator provides the luxury of electricity in daytime hours. Washing up takes place in a sauna about a 100 feet from the camp.
Every day, I take a long walk on the trails, often with the dogs. My rescue dog Saige is the small shepherd mix just ahead of Bogie on the trail.
The sun comes up late on December mornings, so getting out early isn’t hard to do. These pictures were taken around 9 am on December 24th, when parts of the sky were still tinged with pink.
At some point in 2018, I mentioned to both of my sisters-in-law (Debbie and Tanya) that I love gravy and didn’t have a proper gravy boat. Fast forward to Christmas Eve: problem solved!
A wealth of gravy boats for gallons of the stuff
The UPside 