Musings

Chapel Lake, view west across south end.

Today’s adventure was a loop walk around Chapel Lake, in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The breeze was offshore and we could hear the wind in the canopy as we walked through the mostly maple woods. We saw two little snakes (snakelets?; possibly hatched this year?; one probably garter/garden; other unknown), no fur bearers, only a few other hiker/walkers, no campers, many chipmunks. Notable plant species include Doll’s Eyes and moosewood (no time to find links). We also saw Chapel Rock.

Posted at 7:29 PM | 2 Comments »

All week I’ve been watching the LBBs* working on the barberries. Since there still seems to be a bumper crop on the branches, I think they’re not particularly efficient.

* Little Brown Birds.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 1 Comment »

Part of today’s excitement involved a visit to a family farm—almost private petting zoo. Sheep. Llamas. In short: fiber creatures. Yes, the lady of the house is a spinner and weaver. Among other things.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 2 Comments »

After our late morning shopping expedition (miscellaneous hardware supplies), we took the long way back from Curtis, thereby circumnavigating* the lake. We stopped to photograph a field of near-harvest-ready sunflowers, and a pair of Sandhill cranes rose up from the far side of the field and flew over the sunflowers and our heads, vocalizing all the way! Exciting! [But mediocre photos.]

Our last photo stop was at the boat ramp/public access on a lovely curve of the Manistique River, where I greatly enjoyed capturing vegetative reflections in the relatively quiet river-surface.

Diary note: cleaned ashes out of wood stove (five trays) and outhouse bucket is now reloaded.

Late afternoon addendum: RIP Aunt NTM.

* Circumnavigate in the dictionary refers to travel aboard (a sailing) ship. Circumambulate means to circle something on foot. I don’t know of a word for traveling around something in a land vehicle.

Posted at 10:22 PM | 3 Comments »

This morning’s darkness yielded to overcast and drippy rain, but before 10 am all was sunny and glistening beneath a cloudless sky. Still, I was sucked into my mystery novel, although I kept getting up to do this and that: tuck more wood in the stove, rinse some split peas and get them onto a burner to boil then shift to atop the heat stove to simmer, check the orchard for wandering deer, try to figure out where that tiny mouse noise was coming from (north wall?) and thus where anti-mouse activities should focus, and just plain look around and grin. This is the morning for unstructured meanderings; there’s time enough ahead for removing cobwebs, mowing grass, painting window frames, checking the fencelines, and the like.

Throughout the day, the sun peeked in and out, and sprinkles came and went. By late-day, the sun made the skyline over the lake brilliant silver. When I went out to take pictures, I scared up two white-tails who probably felt like their territory had been invaded. The wood stove has kept us toasty with long-cut stove chunks and the leftover pea soup is tucked away in the fridge.

Posted at 7:35 PM | 1 Comment »

Due to a flurry of emails and calls, we missed today’s (away) volleyball matches, so this image is from Tuesday’s home game.

What critter would you pick to be your school’s mascot if the school was named Paideia? A python, of course! And if you’re really cool, you’ll present the python entwined with a π symbol (that’s the off-white in the photo).

Posted at 6:01 PM | Comments Off on Squeeze me!

Found this almost-drowned butterfly in the lake last week; I don’t think our rescue was enough for him/her to survive.

Under a grey sky, I might consider loon calls plangent, but probably not if it’s sunny.

Plangent

A loud, reverberating sound considered melancholy. (From the Latin word for lamenting.)

Posted at 9:01 AM | 1 Comment »

Pan from ATL Bot Garden

I understand that the US builds flood control barriers for what is at the time of construction (and that this assessment is not regularly adjusted is part of the problem) thought to be a “100-year” flood. Of course, that’s theoretical, but it is a label that provides perspective. I also understand that in Holland they build for 1000-year flood events.

HUGE difference.

Meanwhile, at one earthen levee along the Mississippi River:

Officials spent nearly six hours choking off the leak caused by a muskrat burrowing in the soft ground early Monday.*

Six hours, mind you. Now, I’m not the most knowledgeable at natural history, but a muskrat? This is not an unexpected species (Wikipedia has its range as across the continental US), and its habits are well-known. Will we soon be hearing that we taxpayers must ante up X-gajillion dollars because of ONE MUSKRAT?

This from an AP story in the NYTimes this afternoon, dateline Winfield, Missouri.

Posted at 4:23 PM | 2 Comments »

I forgot to mention this particular excitement from our Michigan adventure. Honey bees that had quietly colonized a gap between the chimney and the siding several years ago decided to swarm. Right by the garage door. Fortunately, our kindly neighbor is a beekeeper. He brought over a hive loaded with a comb to make it attractive to the scout bees, and we hoped they would find it and move in. They did! Unfortunately, he says only half of the original bunch will move to the new residence, so they aren’t gone from the house.

Like many people, I have a “junque” email address that I use when I’m forced to give one to an entity I never want to receive emails from. Today when I checked one of them (yeah, I have several*; yahoo gives them out for free!), I learned that Delta is trying to entice me aboard with the following:

You can now enjoy Leinenkugel’s award-winning Sunset Wheat beer onboard Delta flights.

I can remember when Leinies had a very local distribution. And I suspect that in the bad old days they didn’t make a Sunset Wheat flavor! Actually, I’d be far more tempted by decent food, but not enough to buy a ticket.

* The name of one riffs on the word basura, Spanish for garbage….

Posted at 5:34 PM | 3 Comments »

Lots going on today, but instead of recounting it (or part of it), here’s a picture from deep in the digital archives, from the first weeks I had my first digital camera (image number 00128, to be exact). Indeed, I think this was the first of what has become a (somewhat) long line of insect photos (many by accident).

Okay, I’m pretty fried; look at all those parens!

Posted at 9:10 PM | Comments Off on Stomping grounds…