June 8
“Are you sure about clearing Ken to return to work, Dr. James?” Jim looked doubtful. “It’s only been two weeks since he was stabbed.”
“I’m not clearing him for active duty, Colonel,” Dr. James said, looking alarmed. “I only told him it was okay to start moving around. It’s my understanding that Ken and Karen want to move into town and that would allow him to do desk duty. He needs another two or three weeks of low activity.”
“Oh I see,” Jim snickered. “Your patient is getting bored.”
“Do you have enough paperwork to keep him busy and sitting?” I asked.
“I think that between the three of us, we’ll have him wanting to go home early every day!” Tom laughed.
We used the now empty Haul Your Own and a few volunteers to take Ken and Karen’s few belongings from their house down the road over to the house on the lake they had selected.
JOURNAL ENTRY: June 9
It appears that knowing Harold would be staying to help with the community garden has revitalized everyone’s interest. That plus the warmer temperatures. The clouds are still a dirty gray and there’s little actual sunshine, though what there is has warmed the soil considerably.
I’ve been enjoying my time in the garden, especially now that a few of the early seeds have started sprouting. We’ll be having fresh radishes next week, and soon I hope to see the lettuces growing. How I miss my salads. I need to come up with some way of growing lettuce throughout the winter.
~~~
“Allex,” Keith Kay said when he stopped by again, “there is something strange going on with the lake, not that there’s anything anyone can do about it. I thought you should know: the water is rising.” He definitely had my attention. “Last time Carron and I were out fishing, we made a pile of rocks at the edge, by the new water line. The water is up now by about an inch. Maybe that new dam you told us about is starting to work.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. We set six flat rocks at the edge, out of the water, and then piled more on top in a pyramid. The flat rocks are now underwater.”
“This is good news, Keith, thanks! I will be sure to let the mayor and the colonel know.”
This really was very good news, especially for Lake Michigan.
*
“I think we should set our own gauge to measure the lake,” Tom said when I told them.
“I agree. That way we can keep track too, and I think we should mark it somehow to make sure no one is moving it as a prank,” Jim said.
We found a four foot piece of a two by four in the big barn. Remembering how I used to measure snow out in the woods, I drew a line at the one foot mark where we would sink it into the rocky lake bed and then a heavy line every inch. Then I printed a 2 at the two inch line, and a 4 and a 6 at those lines.
“Just six inches? Why not all the way up?” Tom said.
“I can do that. After six inches though, there should be no doubt the water is rising. Besides, it will take a long time for it to get that high. The lake is fed by countless streams, creeks, and artesian wells, and refilling will be a slow process. It’s been estimated that the retention/replacement time would be almost two hundred years! Thankfully they won’t be trying to completely replace the entire lake. Still, it should rise only two and a half feet every year, or two and a half inches per month. At that rate it will take over thirty years for Lake Superior to regain the eighty feet lost.”
The three of us drove down to end of Eagle Beach where the water edge was closest for access. We moved rocks and dug a hole in the sandy bottom. Once the two by four was in place, Jim packed it down and we piled rocks around it up to the one foot marker I had made. On the back of the new marker I wrote today’s date, as a reminder of when we started watching.
*
After the cocktail party we hosted for Harold Wolfe, who had agreed to stay on, the three of us had the rest of the gravlax for ourselves. Tonight I made more Nori rolls for our dinner. I remembered the day I bought two dozen packages of the dried seaweed sheets for storage, and had thought I was being really paranoid going overboard in my buying. I’m glad I did now. Even though these will last a while, I still need to think about what I can replace them with. Nori rolls are one of the few ways I truly enjoy eating rice.
Jim expertly used chopsticks to mop up the last of the soy sauce from a tiny bowl with his remaining Nori roll. “That was superb, Allex, and a great way to celebrate the refilling of Lake Superior!”
“I just hope that in thirty years someone remembers about the river,” I commented.
“What do you mean?” Tom asked.
“The St. Mary’s River was the main regulating drain for Superior spilling over into Lake Huron, and it was completely blocked during the earthquake in December. The Whitefish River was a secondary outlet. If it stays dammed, Superior will over fill, flooding out anyone who still lives on the shore, like Moose Creek.”