Musings

Woods_n_water wander

Flashy bee

Over in the Refuge, we found this bee. I don’t know much about insect types, but this merged yellow-and-orange striped tinting of this bumble? bee, doesn’t seem familiar.

Rose hips

Also on the wildlife walk, we found rose hips. No rose feet, however. And, no, we didn’t collect any. National property regs, you know.

Mouth Hurricane creek

I don’t think we’ve ever skipped visiting the mouth of Hurricane Creek when we’ve been up that way. We found that the present configuration has a long sand spit channeling the brownish river water to the west before the actual merge with Lake Superior. [No lampreys attached to rocks—that I could see—this time, unlike in July.]

Greenstone

Look at this bright green stone! Seems out of place among the browns and greys! For a moment, I even wondered if it was a plant! Not a plant-plant, but a joke-fake-plant. Skeptical me!

Name?

Curated bushel tub

What would you call this? I thought tub, or metal bushel not-quite-basket. Two actually. The upper is what might be termed a heritage piece, as it is rusted through. Good for carrying corn husks or similar. Otherwise, it’s more of an informal colander.

Light, color, shapes, season

Autumn light

There was a device/technology interlude this morning at the neighbors’. I provided moral support as I whizzed through the last chapter and a half and epilogue of Mary Beard’s “SPQR.” When I got to the epilogue, I felt yellow-gold and looked up and saw the sun angle made magic through this high window.

Maple color emerging

Later, the Guru took Droney for a run. We could see what we had a taste of from the ground: the maple is turning, top down.

Chores and flors

New mown

This is new mown not new moon. We did outdoor chores today, which principally meant hacking back vegetation—e.g., grass mowing, weed pulling, shrub trimming.

Sweetpeas

Some of the sweet peas are still blooming. There’s a house on the way to Newberry that has been abandoned for something like thirty years and no one mows around it—and the peas are still going great guns (much more than here), with a good variety of pinks, even toward pale, pale pink.

Skew the pronunciation of the title’s last word to the Spanish, and it’ll rhyme.

Autumnal

Lavender aster type

Ah, autumn flowers…Goo_ing suggests that this is a late purple aster. Looks like an aster. Color can accurately be called purple. And it’s late in the season. So, on the surface, I’ll take “late purple aster…” plus the photos match—heehee.

Flutterby

Sorry to those who are not fans of fluttery creatures. I could not tell what was up with this one (fluttering but “stuck” to the plant)…however, I did manage to get a frame of the wings (reasonably) “in focus,” not an easy task!

Stay warm; it’s getting chilly out!

Good times

Sunny gitchee

We voyaged mostly east and a bit north for good times, and they were had by all! Sun-lit Gitchee was lovely. Then it clouded up again and…the wind gradually picked up…

Sunset gitchee

…and the sun began to fade and we had to extract ourselves from great fun and head back to the central UP. Thanks, everybody!

Rallying

Cabbage family

Raininess that began overnight extended through most of the morning; when the dripping stopped I headed over to The Garden, and harvested a few bits courtesy of the Gardener. Treats!

Leaf battered seaons ender

In the afternoon, steaminess descended as it warmed up a bit (a bit more, actually; it was never chilly), and I found a leaf fighting the changing season. And a leaf miner.

Farm moments

Groundfogmorning

We had a ground-fog morning—still, with heavy dew. So, so pretty.

Boletus

Later, I was out and found this Boletus—breakfast-lunch-and-dinner for a slug. I came by again not five minutes later, and the slug had moved on. Full, I surmised.

This place has been called a farm my whole life, but it hasn’t been a farm of any sort in decades. I supposed the last bit of farming that happened on the property was when the field in the first photo wasn’t full of weeds (the yellow bloomers are goldenrod; some of the yellowish leaves are milkweed—neither are cattle food), and was cut for hay. The last time had to have been in the 70s???

BTW, the most popular Boletus is the edulus species, known as porcini to Italians. Love Boletus—no gills.

Small critter stories

Goldenrod

In the fields and open areas, the predominant bloomer during this phase of the season is the goldenrod. Sooooo many times it sports these galls…I forget which insect has deposited the next generation in the stem, and the plant makes the gall around the eggs/whatever.

Foam beach

Yesterday’s wind made beach foam!

I wondered if it left us discombobulated leeches, too…only found two small ones…maybe the cycle of life means mostly/only small ones/new crop…. TMI, I’m guessing.

Thank you, Magic Man

Well house view

Turns out that if you take one very smart guy, add a multimeter (not as sexy as a smart phone, but much more useful in some situations), you are on your way to getting the water running again. Oh, and about 20 bucks worth of parts.

This view is from the well house up in the grove. The structure is deep so that it doesn’t freeze at the bottom, so the water system isn’t damaged and the water can flow all winter. Even though we don’t use it then. I have no idea when this well was drilled (I assume, not dug), nor why here, but I guess the county has that info somewhere.

Overnight, we used the water that was in the tank above the pump and the long line down to the house, so we were okay…until the fix. By the magic fixit man, the Guru.