Friday, 13 October 2023
Here’s the Mother Lake. Such a dramatic and energizing place to visit, to stop and watch and breathe and listen.
See, you’re already feeling its effects.
This stretch of the North Country Trail is east of the mouth of Hurricane River (flowing into Lake Superior, of course). There’s plenty of fall color and plenty of green. I expected more leaves to be down, although I’m very happy to see them still attached.
Thursday, 12 October 2023
Two days ago we got an impulse to go north. We left in a light rain, and this was the edge of the weather mass. All sunshine after this.
I don’t usually show license plates, but this one begged to be included here.
The new phone/camera clearly takes better shots than the old equipment.
See, just look at today’s sunset (even after downsampling for this post).
OTRA = on the road again
Tuesday, 10 October 2023
I got totally distracted from whatever lame idea I had about a topic today by trying to ID this. Pretty sure it’s an Aesculus, but I can’t figure out which one. Genus has to be close enough!
Tuesday, 3 October 2023
This spider is working the angles. Not only has it made a funnel, it put the web in a cactus to up the danger-danger. Me—I kept my distance, and just accumulated digits from afar.
Saturday, 30 September 2023
Before the day’s Main Event, we took a wander to see the most prominent local topographic situation—the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Here on the south/west bank, there are few driving access points because it’s a gigantic floodplain, very flat and marshy until it was drained. Here’s the Mississippi just below the confluence.
And here’s the Missouri just above the confluence. We had (and you have) to imagine the roily meeting of the flows from the two huge drainages.
Here’s the focal point for the Main Event religious rites. We all enjoyed the tone the Lady Rabbi took combining the necessary Hebrew with English explanations. Lovely and moving. One point she made was that we change and marriages change and we find ways to do that changing together—I thought that was wise and rarely mentioned.
After the ceremony we adjourned upstairs for cocktails and tasty appetizers, and the sunset gave us all a lovely glow. Soon, we went downstairs for a fabulous sit-down dinner. Then the third band, the dance band, got going, and so did the crowd. The most unusual and best thought-out-gift was, tadah, flip-flops for those who wanted to shed their fancy shoes and really dance. Boy, did we dance. I think the Proud Mary lasted almost fifteen glorious minutes. Woohoo!
Fun wedding, great couple, lovely sentiments, and and and.
Tuesday, 26 September 2023
Here’s my second photo with the Guru’s new phone. The wide framing is better than the first one’s zoomier perspective. That’s the moon, BTW. I will study the documentation to see if I could adjust this or that and get it to capture the shape of the bright moon properly.
Friday, 22 September 2023
Waiting for the sun to rise. Note fallen apple limb; smells like cider out there. Didn’t go down to the lake to see how spectacular the sunrise was; I could see orange through the trees, so I think it was rather sensational.
Waiting for the UPS guy to bring the Guru his new phone…and watching the moon. He arrived about ten minutes after I took this; we were not quite in despair. Yay!
Tuesday, 19 September 2023
I went out very early this morning, before the fog burned off at all, and before the light increased beyond a hint.
That’s because last night we received a text from ATL friends that they were in Manistique! Were we nearby, they asked. Why, yes! So we arranged to meet them there for b’fast, and so it was. Since they were on a clockwise loop around Lake Michigan, from/to Chicago, we persuaded them to stop by the cottage afterward. Of course, I’d say the highlight was that we took them down to the lake/our beach before sending them on their way to cross The Bridge and head south. They’re doing 200mi/day, very civilized; that pace leaves time for exploring.
Monday, 18 September 2023
As the light increased, looming cloud-cover muted the beauty and I knew the ground fog would not appear. Yet, it was very still, no breeze, so I went to the lake before coffee (again) to see the mirror-lake.
The stillness began over a day ago, so that my new tracks and my old tracks co-existed. That is rare—that no waves erase tracks at the water’s edge in days. [You can’t see it, but the lake is just out of this image, left.]
The rest of the day I was in the cottage or doing outdoor chores nearby or in the field. The ferns by the door a fading, and I clipped some brown fronds, but left others that were merely brownING, as I often find the full pruning saddening…it means autumn and our exit is looming.
Sunday, 17 September 2023
Before I had a chance to fire off the coffee maker, I saw the fog gathering.
I spotted this spider web and looked for more. How could there be none? Yet I saw no more.
I followed the quiet to the beach, and saw the color changing in the sky, but no fog on the water.
Come afternoon, I ventured across the road to the Hunter-Gatherer-Fisher-Farmer’s garden for a bouquet of lettuce. Opening the gate, I spotted this colony of Cladonia cristatella, so lovely with their dramatic red caps ornamenting the top bar.