Musings

This yesterday-photo better illustrates the lake level than one from today would. Today has been breezy and variable, with 8-inch rain—as in drops eight inches apart…meaning enough to note but not enough to make any difference to the vegetation or even a measuring device. Note that there is beach, or enough sand exposed to be called beach, for the first time in, what?, two decades or more? I forget.

In my youth (yes…), the beach at the point (this view; this point) was sometimes twenty feet wide. You might be thinking “climate change” and that probably is not wrong, but more, it is the result of the lake outflow being far more heavily restricted, which has the effect of raising the lake levels. For years, it has been much higher, like on the order or two feet, than in the past. This means increased erosion, among other things.

Our lake is shallow, historically usually less than eight-to-ten feet across much of the basin (which is on the order of three by six miles), so people with their big speed boats, that is: MUCH bigger than the rowboats that we used to use, have been much happier with the greater depth, while…blah blah blah. I’m for the historic levels, but I’m probably in the minority of landowners with lakefront property.

Posted at 8:33 PM | Comments Off on Rant about water, various

Ya leave for two nights and the critters and varmints and infestations set in. Aphids are sucking the juices out of (a minority, I admit) the lupines. Arrgh; it’s tough to be a human molding the world. [Hello, Anthropocene.]

Posted at 8:43 PM | Comments Off on Just that fast

With our fine cuppsa-joe in hand, we strolled across the Fox River bridge rather early in the morn, meeting these googly-eyed statues of two of the four fox-sons of Papa Charlemagne. The St. Charles (Illinois) Chamber of Commerce website tells the story of Charlemagne’s command to his offspring to take care of the EuroAmerican settlers of the valley. I find it a fanciful and strange tale.

Upriver a short way, we came across this statue, also with rather paternalistic words, although I rather liked the figure’s presence.

We continued up the riverwalk to the older train trestle (green), now with a walking bridge nestled alongside (brown). Our friends said long ago when they were children, the daring among them might cross on the trestle…this was long before the river was cleaned up and the walking trails developed. And condos built and development and resurgence…and gee, it’s great someone spent tax dollars to clean up the river….

In the afternoon, we attended a fine party and BBQ, and still later, we caught the smoke-altered sunset en route to our overnight location in Wisconsin. A great time was had by all.

Posted at 10:43 PM | Comments Off on Quite a day

Saw lots of green growing plants outside the car windows today, row crops to forests, with several kettle moraines for good measure. Here’s a yucca from the garden we ended up in.

Posted at 11:07 PM | Comments Off on Ate too much Chinese food

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.

Posted at 8:29 PM | Comments Off on Green elements

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.

Posted at 9:57 PM | Comments Off on Ecotonic

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.

Posted at 8:50 PM | Comments Off on Wind shifts

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.

Posted at 9:23 PM | Comments Off on Lake tour potential

Which is better? Lupines against the sky?

Or, lupines with moon?

I’m going with: both are lovely.

Posted at 9:36 PM | Comments Off on Figuring angles

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.

Posted at 8:22 PM | Comments Off on Shipping and sugarplums