Thursday, 8 June 2023
Grass, lupines, and apple trees—these are obvious. The grass is bent because of wind…which is visible in videos from the same drone expedition, but you have to use your “seeing” brain to find it here.
We’re back in a cool phase again—lovely. I see rain will visit Saturday through Tuesday. We need it badly; I do hope it does arrive, and it gives us a thorough soaking.
Tuesday, 6 June 2023
Nothing looks quite like the swamps (local term; specialists may use another term, I dunno) of these parts. Perhaps no open water, like this example. Cattail swards. Skinny pines etching the sky. Calls of ravens or crows, sometimes both, with small twinkle-toned birds flitting here and there.
Saturday, 3 June 2023
Smoke north of us in Canada (in Ontario, pretty sure) has been reported for days, along with fires much farther out west and out east in our northern neighbor’s territory. That smoke finally arrived today, traveling on a gentle north wind. It smelled like a distant garbage fire…and fortunately faint. We also could see a very light haze.
By this evening, the wind had shifted to coming from the south, and the smoke smell was more ephemeral. The haze, however, seems to have intensified.
Despite such environmental conditions, and the dry dry soil, the lupines really busted out today.
Friday, 2 June 2023
There’s a hole in the boat! Well, yeah: catamaran…by definition a vessel with twin, symmetrical, parallel hulls. Less draft and less resistance plus greater stability than a monohull.
This one docks in Munising, and takes tourists along the Lake Superior shore to view the Pictured Rocks—multi-colored sandstone cliffs with blue and blue-green waters lapping at their knees (as it were).
We didn’t take a boat tour today (our mission was farther along in Marquette (new watchband)); perhaps we will sometime soon.
Wednesday, 31 May 2023
Which is better? Lupines against the sky?
Or, lupines with moon?
I’m going with: both are lovely.
Tuesday, 30 May 2023
Both of us were in the mood to take a break from chores-about-the-property, and I got texting to friends…and when the dust settled we took off eastbound to see them and to do errands. First stop was lunch at a small burger place—with car-hops!—where we could watch a very local ferry zooming back and forth from mainland to island (both Michigan territories) and back. [Note phone check before driving away.]
It’s not quite that simple, as the route, short as it is, crosses an international shipping route. Here’s a Great Lakes freighter upbound toward the Sault Locks. It’s the John G. Munson (made of steel and self-loading; built 1952; 102′ mid-section added 1975–76; owned by Canadian National Railway Co.; IMO: 5173670), if you can’t read the name. Out of Duluth, and most certainly headed back there. [Apologies for cutting off a sliver of the stern.]
We did our other errands and headed for our fun fun socializing stop. We chatted about a huge range of topics, including what this shrub is. iNaturalist (free app; recommended!) says Amalanchier species, commonly known as serviceberry and sugarplum…and many other names. Happy agreement among us with the app ID.
On our return leg, we made a quick end-of-road stop to look across the shipping channel that the Munson will soon pass through. The other side is another country, Canada. Did I know this?—that scholars have coalesced around the hypothesis that Canada is a corruption of the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, which means village or settlement. Town and country, yup, so efficient, our neighbors to the north….
And just like that, we returned to the cottage, unloaded and stashed all our new possessions, and settled back into our normal evening routine…albeit no longer with any new “Succession” episodes in our future. Oh, Shiv.
Sunday, 28 May 2023
I’ve found the apple-blossom display so stunning I have been distracted from finding other beauty. Today, ah, well, the progression of time is obvious. I saw the first petals falling like supple, oversized snowflakes. It’s trite, perhaps, yet an honest summation.
Saturday, 27 May 2023
We took an early evening stroll, and spotted both the East and West Herds. That’s what I’m calling them. White-tailed deer. This is the East Herd, numbering at least eleven. This specimen did a version of King of the Hill, although it may be a Queen or Princess; I do not have gender info. Posing, anyway.
Returning to our property, we found the first blooming lupine of the season—by that I mean with color, as there are buds everywhere. I think the earliest ones last year were in this same spot. Don’t know why…better exposure doesn’t work…perhaps to do with local soil conditions and moisture? Dunno.
Friday, 26 May 2023
I missed the sunset stroll window. Still, I found a gorgeous subsequent-sky. And a hum of mosquitoes. You might think the drone was gnats or some other species, but, nope, skeeters…biters.
So, I kept moving, and headed for the lake, hoping for a bit of anti-flying-insect breeze, and discovered it’s a quiet night so far.
Tomorrow morning, as a result of the quiet, if I am up early, I may see dew cloud amazement in our field.
Sunday, 21 May 2023
Looks like it might be a dead lake, but there’s a fine fishy…in the algae (pronounce fishy and algae to rhyme, plz). S/he’s toward the back, a horizontal grey shape with a dark shadow.