Beginning of December
Thursday, 1 December 2022
Here’s another beach that has a prominent place in my memory…this one facing east near Punta Cormorant, Floreana Island, Galápagos.
Musings
Last of November
Wednesday, 30 November 2022
Sometime in the night, we woke up to realize that the power was out, I think because the smoke detector blipped. [The outage only lasted about two minutes, I was able to determine by looking at the stove clock much later.] I soon fell back asleep and sometime before I awakened and got up and headed for the coffee-maker, I had a dream that I remember little about except that I was standing on a sand beach next to Lake Superior. This beach is at the mouth of the Au Train River, last May. Look at that sky!
Illogical
Sunday, 6 November 2022
Despite the color to these leaves, at night, moonlit, they look rather like snow might have accumulated, when my brain is sleepy.
Small dents pending?
Tuesday, 1 November 2022
We decided to early vote today. We cruised our polling place aka our library branch, and the line was short, perhaps five people waiting to get their IDs accepted. Thus, we only had a few minutes to watch—and hear—the acorn rain from these oaks along the back edge of the property, as we stood outside.
Rain predicted for tomorrow
Saturday, 29 October 2022
We played hooky from our responsibilities and chores, and went leaf peeping. Here’s the view to the piedmont as we climbed into the mountains…many leaves intact, some green, some not.
We looped around through the mountains and stopped at a cemetery on Angel Drive. Touching address. Dramatic, colorful plastic flowers on most graves. Abundant fluffy leaves.
We climbed up to Winding Stair Gap. Fewer leaves at elevation. Beautiful and sunny. This was the highest we got.
Reaching for…(not perfection)
Sunday, 23 October 2022
The motel that brought us to this spot: in need of updating. Their problem: the “bones”/structure of the property: unalterably lacking. Yet…the view: wow.
Credit to the management for tending to what they can.
Here, the valley-mountain topography offers a beautiful morning-moment that we don’t see in the UP or at home. A supremely unimpressive motel, and a terrific Appalachian morning-view.
Light along the way
Saturday, 22 October 2022
With the exception of a delightful interlude in A-Squared, we have been logging mile….
…iterspersed with rest area stops. During those I found a few dramatic sunlight moments. Or semi-dramatic. These were both in Ohio.
Floral organics
Thursday, 20 October 2022
Single best visual find in months: the icy cap on these wee mushroom caps. What texture! What subtlety! What ephemera!
This, on the other hand, is mostly a color mosaic. I’m amazed how many leaves are still on the tree, and still colorful, with that blanket of the fallen foliar fragments.
Swamp changes
Wednesday, 19 October 2022
We’ve gotten a fair amount of rain and snow over the last two days, yet the precip hasn’t been constant. Still, the water level in the swamp is up markedly.
In other swamp news, the tamaracks are turning golden. They are deciduous conifers and have needles, or plant parts that look like needles. They aren’t as large as leaves, so they produce a cloud of color around the trees.
We shall see
Monday, 17 October 2022
This has been one of my favorite shots this year to get at the progression of the autumn leaf color changes. There’s so much less green than five days ago, and the leaves are blown onto the road.
And this is the lake from the beach, always a go-to shot for me. It often portrays/offers a kind of peace, I think, despite cold raindrops (not really rain, just drops—and not mist).
Yesterday afternoon, I started a fire in the wood stove (which, it turns out, is a coal model, by Kenmore), and with no good keeper wood (only damp pine), I loaded it and left it to burn itself out even before we went to bed. I think the temperature indoors reached almost ninety big F degrees, and the walls and floor were thoroughly warmed. Even with outdoor temps in the upper thirties overnight, the indoor temp only dropped to sixty-six by the stove by the time I got up (late, about 7:15). Today, we’ve used our small electric heater, and are comfy.
Sunshine visited us several times (vaguely present in first photo), and rain drops blew around periodically—an unsettled fall day. We’re looking at closing up the cottage and leaving on Friday. In the meantime, snow is predicted overnight although we’ll see if it gets cold enough at elevation; otherwise it’ll be rain, as it has been during the daytime.