Tuesday, 26 August 2025
The temp and humidity were so lovely this morning we left the “kids” and walked in the park—nice sky, with a sheen of algae.
We even saw the great blue heron, here hunched on the platform for the inoperative oxygenation fountain.
Friday, 22 August 2025
The whole time I was growing up, Dad threatened to get sheep to manage the lawn so he could avoid mowing. That’s our MO today, except the crew is mostly goats and one billy-sheep.
Goats being goats, guess the favorite napping location. Unfortunately for him, he tipped the table over descending, so unless we take pity on him and right it, that’s the end of table-napping.
The Goat Guy who wrangles this crew says it’ll take them on the order of a week to chow down our ivy and kudzu and other nasty vegetation that sprang up after the trees were removed (remember that?). I guess that long turn-around time is why Dad never substituted sheep for the mower.
Saturday, 16 August 2025
8:45am. Let me draw your attention to the wave action product. I was surprised to find two sticks perpedicular to the waves, although one is parallel, which is what I remember seeing ?every? time. I arrived too late for the sunrise, but I could see the far shore more clearly than I have seen for days. Yay.
3:45pm. Another short shower. I raced around closing windows, but not too much as the temps were dropping from the oppressive 79°F, so I wanted to capture whatever cool the breezes brought.
Not much wind, but it came up and blew lightly in from the west. Change, to the south. Oops, switched again, to a bit from the north. See: the window closing dance.
After the storm drifted away, it actually felt cool. Cool: magic. [Still sticky, however.]
Thursday, 14 August 2025
IMHO, the sky shows that the AQI is at a reasonable level this morning. Yay.
At the beach, I discovered that our last day of rain brought down one of the dead birches. The trunk is remodeling the beach.
AQI was rising by evening time. Darn.
Sunday, 10 August 2025
Dusk with goldenrod, 9:13pm.
Sky over the lake to the east, 10:07pm.
South sky, 10:11pm.
Saturday, 9 August 2025
People in places with changeable weather often pay special attention to the changes. The striking red sunrise reflects the smokiness, although the AQI was below 50 for part of yesterday, today: higher. And hot, hot overnight, whew, so that the downstairs only got down to 78°F even at dawn. Sticky. And we smelled smoke off and on all morning.
Around two, rain came in ushered by a moderate wind, so we hustled about to close windows. Fortunately, the temp dropped so that by 6pm it was down to 70°F on the front porch (!!!). Thankfully, now it’s quite pleasant—the humidity is lurking around 82%, and the AQI has dropped to the low 50s.
Yup. Lots of weather variation….
Thursday, 7 August 2025
The before-the-sun sky seemed a bit clearer, yet still slightly obscured by the Sky-Smoke deity.
We took a wee drive north to see if the Lake Superior shore breeze would seem even clearer. It did, a bit.
Tuesday, 5 August 2025
No humans on the beach today, until I went for my late afternoon lake-bath. I’m guessing these are pelican tracks; they’ve been sighted, but not by me.
Great fun dining with the neighbors. Short Stuff created her own midden of mostly brown rice.
Monday, 4 August 2025
I took a morning stroll down to the beach, because: well, it’s there, and pretty, and interesting, and fine. En route, I found a flitting monarch, just where you’d expect it to be.
At the beach, by the dock, I was surprised to see this guy/gal. I’d seen only a few living ones, and the parts I’ve seen (for years?) have been of much smaller specimens. This one was perhaps 15cm, tail to tips of the claws…and those of lovely blue. You don’t see much blue in critters, no?
Sunday, 3 August 2025
I went for my lake-bath as the sun was dropping low, here behind the treeline. BTW, those stones were obscured by sand a week ago…the lake, she recreates the shore constantly.