Musings

I was up early, and decided the moon needed to be captured, in that digital way we do these days. If you can see an irregularity to the left of the trail above the grass, it is a deer, ears and face peeking through the tallest stems.

To accompany my “moon shot,” I walked around the other side of the cottage and caught the sky-color to the NNE. This was moments after 6am.

I went back around the cottage, and my grass-obscured amigo/amiga had come out to meet/greet me….

Okay, enough tall tales of moon-above and inquisitive deer, here’s the beach at 9am, all glistening in the early-day sun.

We closed out our holiday with a lovely potluck, great food and fabulous socializing. Once again, odds are I won’t stay awake for the fireworks to start (approaching 10pm?).

A sidenote: while we were chatting with a loooooong-time friend ensconced in a National Forest in Oregon at the end of a trail (but high enough to have cell service) about 7:45pm, two spotted fawns and a doe wandered by, and went down the path you see in the morning deer shots…. Full circle?

Posted at 9:01 PM | Comments Off on Celebrating being HERE

No, this thistle isn’t that tall; I just thought I’d try an up-angle, with the sky as background. Nice cloud patterns.

Here’s the view toward sunrise, but in mid-afternoon. You can see the tint of the sand etc. in the water, churned up by the waves.

The best you can say is illuminating, although not particularly interesting.

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Sunrise. Still humid, hence the haze.

Surprise fish at the shore. Don’t know what kind; not leech!

Illustration of growing apples and apple green, highlighted by the low morning light.

Posted at 7:30 PM | Comments Off on Early beach visit

Did that title catch your eye? What I mean is that the humidity and murkiness evident first thing in the morning (here), and obscuring the far shore, heralded in a hot, moist day, good for reading and low-key activities all afternoon. And sipping ice water…that kind of day-drinking.

My morning beach tour became a leech-hunting expedition. I found the Garish Green Sand Shovel mostly buried in the uppper-beach sand on my first tour. It’s perfect for leech-tossing. The storminess of previous days sent lots of the boneless critters toward the beach, where I pitched them onto the beach, then tossed them to the off-beach vegetation. I returned a bit later to get a second harvest, as I found so many on the first visit. I think the total was two dozen. No lie.

Posted at 5:59 PM | Comments Off on Day drinking

Potluck tonight. All good, as usual, with an outstanding tart cherry pie for dessert. Superlative.

The meal was followed by a peek at the stunning sunset.

Posted at 9:10 PM | 1 Comment »

My, the lake was quiet this morning.

I even saw large bird tracks on the sand bottom. My bet is sandhill crane tracks.

Posted at 9:23 PM | Comments Off on Pacific, but not the Pacific

My theory is it’s just one crazy deer. A deer ate the trillium by the NW corner of the cottage. A deer ate the tops of the ferns in front of the cottage. A deer ate two of my in-bloom peonies (yesterday). A deer ate the tops of some of the lupines. None of this happened in any of the years I’ve been here. What gives? I think it’s one deer, and that animal is strange/barmy.

Not wanting to lose any more peonies, I used some of the branches we’ve cut out of the apple trees to make a kraal of sorts to protect a plant, not livestock, but you get the idea.

Posted at 8:49 PM | Comments Off on Construction project

Lighthouse sequence. The structure is on the end of a breakwater at the mouth of the Manistique River. It is 35 ft tall and made of steel. It was first lit in 1916, and automated in 1969. Safety first.

Wide angle.

Wide, with red osier dogwood in foreground.

Not so wide, with sign and seagull (or tern or whatever it is; we always called them gulls).

We encountered wet roads, then rain, on our return drive; however, no rain fell here at the cottage, sadly.

Posted at 7:57 PM | Comments Off on Various truths

The field before sun-crest.

The field after sun-crest.

Ferns in the woods.

Ferns by the cottage.

Chives, picked for tonight’s stew. [The flowers are for show; those stems are not tender enough to eat any more.]

Posted at 8:41 PM | Comments Off on Marking time

You can look at the early sun…

…and you can turn around and see what it’s lighting up.

Here’s late-day low-angle sun backlighting a rhubarb leaf.

It’s only right to celebrate the sun on the longest day of the year.

Posted at 9:12 PM | Comments Off on Sun-shines