Musings

Leaning in/out

This bunch is leaning toward the light. I feel like I’m doing that now, as the dark has arrived early…accompanied by thunder and precipitation…whatta surprise (remember yesterday).

Renaming I-75

Yesterday was a darned gorgeous day, clear skies, low AQI, moderate temps…we enjoyed it thoroughly…and got many chores wrangled. Nevertheless, we pulled out this morning, and rendezvoused with a dear, dear friend we haven’t seen in too, too long for lunch. We didn’t boat to the restaurant, but, as you can see, we could have! I did see a great blue heron flop in right behind a heron statue, not shown. We gabbed with BFF, and munched on lunch, and laughed and got caught up and remembered old times, too. Fabulous.

If the first photo was lunch view, this is pylon view…shot by my loverly spouse, thanks so much. And we rolled south, and rolled south some more. Observing the ditch-side vegetation in southern Michigan and into Ohio, and I submit a nickname for I-75: Teasel Alley. [Quick internet look-up: teasel is invasive in the USA…who could tell? 🤣 ]

Systemic interactions

The apples most exposed to the sun are beginning to color. They’re also gaining size, and squeezing each other…or something that causes the apples to drop sporadically.

The apples on the ground are like magnets for the deer, munch munch. They stand around as at a buffet, munch munch, so there’s, uh-hem, a downstream effect—watch your step.

QAL x 2

Many Queen Anne’s lace flowers look like this.

Others have a small dark center, which is, I believe, a colored floret amidst the sea of white.

QAL is not a native plant, although widely distributed here in North America. In fact, I believe it’s designated a noxious weed here in Michigan.

Oh, my. 🤣

Perception

Somehow, these harebells looked bluer in person, although I rather like the purple-pink cast.

Keeping the bluer shade in mind, know that I was going to make some sort of (weak) joke about blue and gold being overshadowed by green green green pretty much everywhere else. Thus, we can say “Spartans win!,” no?

Happy we’ve arrived

We stopped at a rest area with well-tended flower beds, and I took over a dozen shots. Looking through them, I realized all were of yellow or yellow-orange specimens, except for two rather desiccated white daisies. Am I part bee?

When we crossed the bridge, ever a hugely important landmark when connecting two immense peninsulas, the sky looked strange. I figured there were smoke particles in the mix with humid air, but never smelled it…which I’m happy about.

I took a lake-bath about 8pm, to sluice off the sweat and bring my temperature down after doing assorted cottage-opening chores in the heat and humidity. Now the temp’s dropped to 72° and it feels heavenly. The humidity is down to 82, but it’ll be picking up through the night, to decrease again when the sun arrives. After tomorrow’s heat (outrageous high of 90°F predicted), the highs are supposed to moderate. I sure hope so.

Progress

I always get a bit excited to see this long-view of the mountains, even though the powerlines-strung-with-orange-caution-balls disrupts the skyscape, as it signals that we’re leaving the Piedmont…in short: we’re On The Road!

Not pretty enough? Here’re some asters at dusk three states to the north.

Not a rose

Liriope bloom

I always found the common name for this, monkey grass, is jarring, but often I remember it better than the “real” name: liriope. Anyway, now’s its blooming season.

Well-watered

We endured one of those fast gulley-washers this afternoon; it lasted maybe three minutes, of total deluge.

Bee a cutie

Universal reason #8 for out-of-focus photo: very hot-and-muggy, so I didn’t hang around to take a proper photograph, and not merely a snap.

Okay, admit it: you smiled (or at least thought about it inside).