Musings

Such a pleasure to take a walk in the woods. No blacktop. No zooming vehicles. Just a chipmunk cacophony on the forest floor, and wind susuration overhead.

Quite a festival of fungi on rotting logs and here and there on the…forest floor. The tiny, bright orange spheres were my faves; alas, no photos.

We had what I think of as two options leaving the trail head. We could go the Mosquito way, or we could pick the Chapel route. You can also mix it up, I guess. We selected the Chapel circuit.

Here: Chapel Beach.

Chapel Rock (with the tree growing out of it and the hole; this is only the pinnacle-crown).

The top of Chapel Falls, with the water disappearing down, down, down. I think it’s north-flowing enough that it’s almost always in shadow.

And Chapel Lake. With touches of fall color.

Posted at 8:39 PM | Comments Off on Chapel-ing without prayers

This angle is just east of north, and I sure didn’t expect to see dawn pinks that direction. Had to put my rubber boots on and mosey out to capture it. With clothes line and posts.

We spent most of the afternoon at an extended social “hour” enjoying sun and shadow alternately on the neighbors’ deck and near-constant laughing and stories. Attendees were the same as at last night’s dinner.

A guest looked over the end of the deck in the autumn-fading ferns, and spotted this beast. It looks rather like a strange and distorted morel, however it is too white and the top is separate from the stem, and the stem is holey. It is a kind of stinkhorn. Ten minutes after picking this was abundantly evident. Even flies zoomed in. And the specimen was summarily delivered to the compost pile.

Posted at 6:58 PM | Comments Off on (Don’t) squish me

I tried to make a transportation theme for the day, and it could have worked except for this photo. And I had to include it because: proof of sun…when I walked this morning. Still: breezy and cold-ish, but some sun. Oh, yay.

Sometime after noon, or I guess 1pm, we decided that the afternoon probably would have windy, cold-ish, and no sun, so we’d head to A Small City for errands, groceries, and…a bite to eat. We discussed the options, west, southwest, and east, and their pros and cons, and decided on east: that is, Sault Ste. Marie.

For our final stop, a burger, we headed to Clyde’s, duh. Closed for the season. Oh, no. But we did get to see a school bus on the Sugar Island Ferry adjacent to Clyde’s parking lot…through heavy fog.

However, this summer, Newberry friends extolled the virtues of West Pier, which they prefer to Clyde’s. And it was open! For two more whole days! Lucky us—our first visit could happen. Excellent burgers, but no bison version, which is what we order at Clyde’s. This is how you broaden your horizons, folks.

And from West Pier, we had a great view of The Bridge to a Foreign Land, although traffic counts are miniscule with the border closed to all non-essential traffic. Also, we listened to the CBC as we left SSM, and heard all about their nationwide average of 80% of adults fully vaxxed, yet also too-full hospitals in rural areas in Alberta and Saskatchewan (if I remember correctly). However, a large stadium is expected to be packed for a hockey match this weekend. So, Canadians also…well, I’ll just stop there.

Posted at 8:09 PM | 1 Comment »

Thought I’d offer a visual to go with the reference yesterday to an artesian well; here it is—I returned today. And when I was there it was lightly spitting rain. That let up fast and the sun came and went all day, although my device indicates that it will fall into the high 40s tonight. That’s almost 20°F cooler than last night. Have to go switch to the heavy quilt. Again.

Posted at 7:11 PM | Comments Off on Follow up

I felt like walking more than usual when I started out this morning, and made my goal an artesian well over on the next mile-road. Which means I got a drink and turned around. Wonderful.

The farmer had this pond made so he could pasture cattle instead of grow hay on these fields, way back when I was in elementary school. No cattle; back to hay. And nature is infilling the pond. As you’d expect. [Same farmer, however; he’s gotta be in his mid- to late-80s.]

Posted at 6:27 PM | Comments Off on About five miles

My that’s some gorgeous moonlight!

And I do believe I see clues to how my phone-cam does its low-light magic…given the the green dot-cluster to the left, and the red highlighting on the foreground plants.

Still, what a fabulous moon!

Posted at 8:46 PM | Comments Off on Lookee eastward

Just north of Clare (MI) on US-127, the road goes up a hill, or what’s a hill in these parts. I think it’s a glacial something, moraine perhaps. Anyway, this is it. If you were riding a bicycle, you would certainly notice this hill. North of it the country is rolling and the soils are different, and thus so is the vegetation. My mother always called this the North Country Hill, and her voice had such seriousness, that I always imagined it to be capitalized.

This set us up to get to The Bridge, and the local drive-in, Clyde’s, where we got a late lunch/early dinner of bison burgers. Mmmm.

Did the most urgent cleaning and unpacking, and walked down to the lake to catch the last of the sun on the trees on the point. Our point. It’s far less of a point than it used to be, a victim of much higher water levels and scrounging of the rocks that made it by neighbors. The rocks were below the water line, so there was nothing we could do.

Despite irregular setting of the apple blossoms and the negative effects of an earlier infestation of leaf-eating Lymantria dispar (used to be called gy- -psy moths), we do have some apples. I don’t think they’re on the “best” trees, but they will do. Great color.

Posted at 8:11 PM | 1 Comment »

From afar, I have been seeing construction vehicles on this stretch of the BeltLine for weeks, and today there were very few pedestrians around, so I went down to take a quick peek. That strange narrow addition to the wide sidewalk? That’s where many runners trod (although not this guy), to avoid the hard concrete…and it looks like they’re adding a strip of a bouncier surface…which is a bit late, but darned appropriate. The space to the left of the sign is allocated for the planned parallel streetcar line…which is coming no time soon, as near as I can tell.

We’re almost half-way through September, and the light is changing…and so’s the vegetation. Jessayin.

Posted at 9:34 PM | Comments Off on I’m perfunctory

Amplifications to old news…. Here’s the base of the Tree of Refuge from what became my adventure in Tuesday’s rain. I’ve added ovals to show where my feets were…. Those were the good ol’ days (hrrumph)….

And here’s some fresh hickory nut shell and hull detritus. Fast shot so no new material fell on me.

Posted at 8:54 PM | Comments Off on Tree details

I got out early-ish this morning because stunning levels of heat and humidity were predicted by 10am. And I found a waning gibbous moon. I only know the moon phase because of my fancy watch/fitness device.

Posted at 6:51 PM | Comments Off on Lunar view