Friday, 18 October 2024
Sunglow and shorefoam.
The ridge patterns that the waves make on the bottom…two zones are at right angles…never noticed that before so close together, almost intermeshed…seems so unlikely.
Yesterday, we watched a busy pileated pit this stump in two places. This is the larger, deeper excavation. Fueling up for winter, surely….
Wednesday, 16 October 2024
What a clear night to watch the moon, a bit blown out and enhanced by my phone’s algorithms.
Monday, 14 October 2024
There’s a bit of politics behind it, but the lake levels are dropping (by removing boards in the dam) to prepare for the ice season followed by the spring melt.
Just off our beach, odd bits of sandbars are surfacing, like this island(let). I was spellbound by the diamond pattern generated by the wave series coming from different directions on the far side of the emerging landform.
Perhaps riffles are technically only created by interruptions in flowing water, like creeks and rivers, but I keep thinking of this as a riffle.
Sunday, 13 October 2024
See those menacing clouds just above the horizon? They are down at the Lake Michigan shore. We heard that the rain they produced came down hard and sideways. Here: nothing, not a drop.
Saturday, 12 October 2024
We were out last night hoping to bask in the northern lights. Since I turn into a pumpkin pretty early, we missed the lights (they’re more likely at “bar closing time”)—the moon beamed gloriously.
Look at the stars!
The view to the north—more stars! BTW, the lights in the lower left are our cottage.
Catching the sunrise is much more my speed…meaning I’m more of a morning person.
Hard to improve on this.
Thursday, 10 October 2024
My pre-coffee outing was to gauge the first frost. There was just a teeny bit on the ground, but the roofs sported a goodly amount—I’d call it a light frost. See that lower right unfrosted area? That’s above where our pillows are…it shows a serious lack of insulation!
Today’s headliner was a hike to the shore of Lake Superior…partly along the North Country Trail.
The lake was placid, much calmer than the other day.
See? That rock is the east edge of the Pictured Rocks.
On a more macro level, look at these grey fungi!
And these orange hued ones.
My-o-my did we return to the cottage (an hour-plus drive) all creaky. And hungry…ah, leftovers!
Wednesday, 9 October 2024
When I was first walking on the beach this morning, this bunch took off and looped around and around, finally returning to this same spot. Feeding? Also, I don’t know what they are…white like gulls, but smaller.
In lieu of the many dawn shots I’ve been posting, here’s a just-after shot…as in just after moonrise and just after sunset. It’s a super-wide angle image, not a pano…obviously, the sun set further to the “right” relative to this framing.
Tuesday, 8 October 2024
Low sun angles produce lovely aesthetics. Here the rhubarb leaves are exquisitely backlit, and the quarter-inch-mesh protective screen cage looks begemmed. Squint and you may be able to see the maple seeds caught in the top squares, with the seeds up and the blades down.
This morning, the lake was almost still, creating accurate reflections.
I spotted active snails on the lake bottom, leaving their trails as they plow through the sand. Two are in the upper left quadrant, and one is in the lower right
Monday, 7 October 2024
I walked around the point to catch the sunrise. I checked the timing on my device, and was ready several minutes ahead of what-I-could-see sunrise. The orange went on and on across the horizon—farther than I thought it could extend!
After coffee, we headed up to our favorite jumping off point at the mouth of Hurricane Creek. I’ve never seen it where there wasn’t a sand bar across the mouth diverting the flow one way or the other.
The rollers kept coming in, and made constant white noise, or super-white noise, something always noticeable.
We walked the Au Sable Point Lighthouse trail mid-summer and it was hot and the museum was open. Not hot today! And the only workers we saw were cutting back woody shrubs and trimming trees.
The timing worked that we returned to Grand Marais and had burgers from this food truck that’s parked by the bay. We’ve seen it for years, but the timing never worked for us to eat. Fabulous burgers and hothothot fries; yum.
Sunday, 6 October 2024
I went down to walk the beach this morning when I thought it would be sunny. I was wrong, but got to see a soaring bald eagle. This was just after reading how hard hit their population is across the upper Midwest by avian flu. [Unspoken question: will our denizen(s) return next year?]
I walked all the way around the point to the end of our property. This is our almost-bay from the opposite direction from the post two days back.
The water and ice levels have been way too high (there’s a dam just below the mouth of the lake) for decades, undermining trees and washing away the shoreline. The level is now lower than I remember it in decades, the result of a reassessment that should have been done…oh, decades ago. The trade-off to the damage we have along our shore is that the speedboats with huge motors don’t hit the bottom on this essentially shallow lake.
Trees are ever-so-persistent, however, and become sculptures while staying alive.