Wednesday, 9 July 2025
Just before dark, thunder boomed and moisture descended. This photo was from the earliest moments of The Arrival.
I’m not in a desert by any means, yet this event made me think about Gary Nabhan’s slim volume The Desert Smells Like Rain (1982). The title is from an observation by a Tohono O’odham child, a native of the Sonoran Desert, as I recall. [Link to read more about the O’odham by the O’odham.]
Saturday, 28 June 2025
We had maybe eight cars in front of us at the toll booth. We could see the northbound traffic going on and on. The back up started at the very top of the brige, and by the density of traffic we saw south of there, it backed up further within just a short time. Soooo glad we were southbound.
But why so much traffique? Model change-over?
This Ohio slow-down must have just happened before we got to it. I saw one vehicle and one person (neither looking damaged, although the car was pointed north and had a soft rear tire, oops) standing outside it talking to cops and firefighters. I wasn’t rubber-necking, though, mind you. 😉
Note the general haziness in the bridge picture (high, thin smoke?), and the pretty darned clear sky in the second photo…further south in Ohio, after dark, we came upon wet pavement, and these drippy roses in a rest area (obv: evidence of rain).
That’s it. I’m going to avail myself of the easy upload using my phone hotspot…such efficiency! 😎
We’ve been seeing lots of fireworks as we continue south toward KY…several towns were having strawberry festivals, but not in Dayton or Cincinnati. Curious. 🤩
Thursday, 19 June 2025
We found the darkest purple lilacs I remember ever seeing, which we found on the Seul Choix lighthouse grounds.
There’s the light, with the keeper’s home to the left. [Apologies for the exaggerated keystoning.]
It’s on a point that projects out in the M of HOMES.
Contrast that with “our” lake. That’s a round rock (perhaps/probably rounded by humans, and thus an artifact) atop a binnacle. Because of this weighty binnacle that was on/near our beach, that word was part of the vocabulary of the kids who grew up in my generation on this property, and probably would not otherwise have been familiar with the term. Now, why there was a binnacle of this scale here, I do not know, because it’s way too large for a ship/boat on this lake, but not for one a HOMES lake.
Saturday, 7 June 2025
Perhaps my last lupin shot of the year…I thought this ombre specimen unusual, with the almost purple low blooms graduating to light pink at the top.
Proof of exodus: The Bridge. Note heavy overcast, which I call smoke-AZ. AZ not as in Arizona, but a riff on, you guessed it, hazy. BTW, these were the first of several groups of motorcyclists we saw—Saturday outings, I’m guessing.
Here’s redecoration underway, a redo of the picnic tables and grills, it looks like, at a rest area.
We spotted this rigged pickup at another rest area. I do not think it’s set up for making street view photos for Google or similar. I think it’s for (video) camera work…but wildlife spotting, looking into a vehicle it’s leading or following, or, hmmm, generic influencer imagery, perhaps.
Enough. We’re trying to escape from Ohio.
Thursday, 5 June 2025
Last night was quiet, and with all the moisture after the rain, the situation was perfect for the sun to make ground fog. Lovely.
Before the sun got up very high, I took various tools and buckets and drove the car to the other end of the swamp to do some hogweed extraction from the ditch. I’m convinced this is where the ones in our field came from. I did a similar removal session several years back, but I hadn’t realized how big the survivors have gotten. I removed all that looked like they’d make seeds this year. Several were too embedded in roots to extract their roots, so the “crop” will continue. I’ll try to get after them again before summer’s end.
Our big excitement was this evening, when we attended a murder mystery dinner theater play. It’s the first time I ate next to a dead guy—Mr. Cooper his name was. We had a great good time, and I even guessed the killer, although not the whole back story and motivation.
Wednesday, 4 June 2025
The rain overnight stopped by morning, leaving the lake three inches higher, the rain barrel full…
…and the orchard and field vegetation tipped over from the weight of the moisture. [BTW, this is the lupin cluster that a deer nipped the other day.]
We attended a hearing that began at 9am in a county courtroom, presided over by a judge who was over in Sault Ste. Marie (because, we heard, all the county’s judges owned land on our lake, or had loved ones who did, so had to recuse]. The topic was the county getting in compliance with state law about managing our lake levels. Most attendees were more concerned about the actual lake levels than the legal issues; many wanted the levels to be higher later in the fall to facilitate fishing by sportspeople using very large (IMHO, aka relatively deep draft) watercraft.
The upshot was: the county needs to get in compliance, which means the legal lake levels are the issue—and so the judge ruled (if I properly understood what happened).
By the end of the day, it was sunny and pleasant, but the air quality seemed reduced—distant views are somewhat obscured by moisture and/or smoke particles, or perhaps even the arrival of Saharan dust.
Saturday, 17 May 2025
Our neighborhood was a mecca today; it hosted Porchfest (music), with plenty of amps in use. This meant cars cruising for at least a three-mile radius looking for parking places in already choked streets–with the center of festing about two blocks from us.
We had to do an errand, so we got to “enjoy” all this congestion (cough cough). The 2.3 miles each way took almost an hour on a hot, muggy afternoon. Glad we had AC!
Thursday, 15 May 2025
We saw this sign when we were up north a few days back, and I just had to include it here. Danger lurks above in northern winters, ya’know.
Sunday, 11 May 2025
We saw the Looming Peach in SC, and definitely felt we were closing in on GA and home while miles were still ahead of us.
Coming into metro, we weathered a traffic jam, ho hum. We found our (OUR!) gardenias beginning to bloom, so: yay!
We missed an earthquake yesterday…hopefully, there aren’t more tremors coming. It’s 63°F and precipitating, so welcome home on the weather front, too.
