Musings

I did a huge inhale and gloried in the scent of the few blooms on this persistent specimen as an antidote to my deep confusion over the escalating horrible mess in the Levant.

Posted at 9:48 PM | Comments Off on Counteraction

Stunned bee on redolent ginger lily.

Shoes on high, too high to smell.

Sun-dried autumnal fennel blooms. No scent; too desiccated.

Posted at 6:30 PM | Comments Off on Trio

I hadn’t seen this update before. I love the steps-then-dance addition to the hopscotch grid.

I also updated my phone and watch. Now, two of the most common things I do on my watch each take an additional step/tap. You can imagine how thrilled I am (NOT).

Posted at 7:24 PM | Comments Off on Updates

I propose that this is an excellent example of Halloween yard-decoration angst.

Posted at 7:09 PM | Comments Off on Face plant

Before the day’s Main Event, we took a wander to see the most prominent local topographic situation—the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Here on the south/west bank, there are few driving access points because it’s a gigantic floodplain, very flat and marshy until it was drained. Here’s the Mississippi just below the confluence.

And here’s the Missouri just above the confluence. We had (and you have) to imagine the roily meeting of the flows from the two huge drainages.

Here’s the focal point for the Main Event religious rites. We all enjoyed the tone the Lady Rabbi took combining the necessary Hebrew with English explanations. Lovely and moving. One point she made was that we change and marriages change and we find ways to do that changing together—I thought that was wise and rarely mentioned.

After the ceremony we adjourned upstairs for cocktails and tasty appetizers, and the sunset gave us all a lovely glow. Soon, we went downstairs for a fabulous sit-down dinner. Then the third band, the dance band, got going, and so did the crowd. The most unusual and best thought-out-gift was, tadah, flip-flops for those who wanted to shed their fancy shoes and really dance. Boy, did we dance. I think the Proud Mary lasted almost fifteen glorious minutes. Woohoo!

Fun wedding, great couple, lovely sentiments, and and and.

Posted at 11:36 PM | Comments Off on Main and other events

We arose to dense fog. By the time we came across these wind turbines, just the up-tips were obscured.

Part of our route was along the present interstate incarnation of Route 66, and we found lovely displays in a rest area that included many metal logos.

The crowning event was socializing with a bride and groom and their loved ones at a pre-wedding barbecue at a brewery. Great combination! The B&G are both scientists, geneticists in fact. Perfect cupcake decoration, ¿no?

These three images are just a sample of the variety in our interesting experiences this day.

Posted at 10:42 PM | Comments Off on Variety all day

Autumnal subsistance agriculture activity day…we made cider, which is unfermented, fresh apple juice. We all agreed that this was the most cider we had made at one time, at almost nineteen gallons.

We used this machine. Here’s where the apples are loaded. Not shown is prior apple collecting and washing. Also not shown is cleaning all the containers, and this mill.

Cranking the handle chips the apples. Gravity is crucial to depositing the chips in the bin inside a heavy-duty filter cloth.

Then, more cranking to squeeze the juice out of the chipped apples.

We created several wheelbarrow loads of compressed, dry apple chips.

The last major step is filtering the cider. This involves multiple washings of the filter cloth, as it gets clogged.

* Note that this is very different than yesterday’s Apple processing.

Posted at 7:01 PM | Comments Off on Apple processing*

On the calendar, a visit to the small-and-wonderful local library to meet the State Librarian of Michigan. Unfortunately, he had to cancel last night: Covid. Maybe it’s just as well that we didn’t join the crowd that would have included three school classes…and possibly get exposed to Covid ourselves. However, we did get new library books.

I’m concerned about this new Covid, and will dig out my N-95 for future face-to-face activities. And avoid gatherings.

Later, the overcast became drippy rain while the car recharged. Drops and dust make art.

Posted at 5:16 PM | Comments Off on Covid concern

As to today’s military vehicle sightings: we saw flatbeds in sand camo paint, empty…the reverse of yesterday.

And we found a whole dashboard’s worth of rubber duckies and their friends. It did perk up Ohio.

Much farther up the road, we got a good view from the north shore of Lake Michigan. If we could see around the curvature of the earth, we’d have a very distant view of Chicago (more or less).

And we have arrived! Very dry, so dry that the lilac leaves are hanging limp, and the grass is mostly brown.

Posted at 9:01 PM | Comments Off on More road report

We’ve seen military convoys now and then on the move on Interstate right-of-ways here and there, now and then. Today was the first time either of us could remember tanks on flatbeds that were not also military vehicles. It’s another thing our military is outsourcing, perhaps, skeptical me suggests, because outsourcing money comes from a different pile than straight military that’s easier to recharge (or get the votes to recharge).

Posted at 7:15 PM | Comments Off on Tank you