Friday, 21 August 2020
I think I’ve done this before in this “space”: my hypothesized taxonomy, this time for fungi.
The first would be “wet” fungi, and this would be “dry” fungi. Although it looks like there are a few “wet” fungi encroaching on the decorative, “dry” fungi.
Okay, hypothesis is muddy, and therefore: nope.
Thursday, 20 August 2020
I think of Cincinnati as the place where we have to slow down…either on I-75 or by taking an evasive route because the traffic flow on the Interstate is hosed. That is: greater and metro Cincinnati. This time problems were downhill into town and across the I-75 bridge over the Ohio, so we checked out some of the old timey infrastructure along our alternate route. We had a good time on the grey roads!
Back on the Interstate zoom zoom, we encountered this…in Tennessee?. Some miles along, we found cattle transporters with moo-capable cattle, yet this specimen was the most unusual.
We arrived in ATL under changeable skies. Spotty rain inbound…and of course rain during part of the unloading. Of course. We are home and all is well. Yay!
Wednesday, 19 August 2020
Fortified: by a fort.
Invigorated: by socially distant socializing with a long-time friend over cocktails.
Enriched: by a wide expanse of beauty.
Tuesday, 18 August 2020
How many times have I walked past this arrangement on the neighbors’ deck (where we have distance-socialized all summer), and only today I noticed it? My excuse: the light was perfect right then. Truth: I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings.
Look at how this flower cluster captured the now-dry grass-tops. Flowers are maybe two feet above the ground surface. Musta happened when they were both green and growing.
Monday, 17 August 2020
First sweet pea pods I’ve seen in 2020….
Apples coming down, and smelling like yellow jacket heaven. Or cider, depending on your point of view.
Sunday, 16 August 2020
We felt the need for an outing today—a gen-u-wine Sunday drive. We stopped first at these charcoal kilns (at least, they’re for charcoal if I remember correctly). The smelting facilities were up on Lake Superior, but they established industrial-sized charcoal-making stations at some distance—this one is just a few miles north of Lake Michigan. And on private land, so I looked from the road.
And the Guru looked from above. The overhead drone shot shows the foundations of buildings that surrounded the kilns, and makes the complex look tiny rather than imposing. The arches in the shot above are probably 10 feet across.
Since we were close to Lake Michigan, we went down to Seul Choix lighthouse, although we didn’t go in. I wonder what the lighthouse staff would have thought if you could go back in time and show them GPS navigation….
And finally: Lake Michigan. This view is to the ENE, which is tricky on the north shore.
Saturday, 15 August 2020
I was outside doing an outdoor chore (rhyme!), and noticed this grey cloud to the north-northwest. Sure enough, ten minutes later it was over us. Ten minutes after that, it had moved on to the east.
And ten minutes more, we had some sprinkles (not enough to dampen the ringfort, but, hey, rain is rain).
Friday, 14 August 2020
We took a mid-day jaunt to enjoy the (newly rejuvenated) AC in the pickup during the heat of the day, in a generally southerly direction. Do that far enough and you encounter: Lake Michigan.
With small beach-wash zones of aging zebra mussel shells. Invasive species, oh yeah.
We poked around an eventually covered some miles on Batty Doe Lake Road. We thought the side road to the lake looked rather private, so we never saw the lake, but we spent some miles on the road including crossing a huge puddle that was larger than it was deep (we checked with long sticks), and with a good stony bottom rather than much—so: crossable, we judged, and the stalwart pickup (with street tires) crawled through without problem. Yay!
We don’t know when the road was named and could only speculate on what “batty” meant when the name was chosen. Crazy? Loony? (Wrong species). Just strange? (Like chronic wasting disease?) Yeah, we batted around a few ideas; perhaps all were batty.
Some stretches of Batty Doe Lake Road connected active limestone quarries. Limestone dust is almost white, and rather dramatic. We were lucky we encountered no mining vehicle convoys that would have intensely dusted us. Or any other vehicles.
And almost home, we watched this osprey with a fish balanced on a high branch, just looking around. We only saw it because our out-for-a-walk neighbor had spotted it, and we saw her in that looking-up/phone-up photography pose that points to Something of Interest. My theory is that the catching and flying took rather a lot of energy, and we caught the osprey in the resting-before-eating phase. [Without a cocktail, is such a pause still eligible to be called cocktail hour?]
Thursday, 13 August 2020
Not far from here is a house that has an incorporated train car. No one even visits the house anymore (don’t know the back story, but I’m guessing aging owner(s), plus this year’s special complication: Covid19), although someone local does mow the lawn. Anyway: train car house.
This is in the corner of a field that has been fenced off from the rest of the field with a small orchard. I’m guessing old chicken house, but maybe it was geese or turkeys. In any case, the building and the fruit trees seem no longer maintained/used.
Wednesday, 12 August 2020
We took a drive up on the plains to throw off a building affliction of cabin-fever (hahaha). The plants have filled in so much since I began visiting decades (cough cough) ago.
We encountered pretty full campgrounds by Lake Superior, including many tenters, and goodly crowds at all parking lots we went by with foot access to the beach. That’s far more people than we saw in the early summer when the same campgrounds were almost empty; granted: some were closed at that time.
We checked out blueberry plants by the Fox River (Hemingway was here, or dreamed he was here), and, as we’ve been told: lotsa no-berries. And here: no berries. Consistency in the wild crop.
On our return, we took the wildlife drive at Seney Refuge…pretty quiet as far as other human visitors…in contrast to up by the Lake. We did spot several swans, all dirty headed/necked from the tannic waters of the refuge impoundments. Also a few Canada geese. A pair of Sandhills. Assorted ducks. A large tern with a gaudy orange beak (Caspian?). A loon we were photographing and binocularizing called as we watched; nice touch, buddy!