Sunday, 6 June 2021
Around here, these are known as both mayflies and fish flies (Hexagenia limbata). This is the first one I’ve seen this year, and well after May has exited. They typically hatch en masse, so where are this one’s relatives and friends?
Saturday, 5 June 2021
First drama was a population explosion, overnight mind you, of tiny gnats…which meant the spiders got busy, and the porch was decorated with web-caught and un-caught gnats.
Second drama was a lowering sky to the southwest…which meant it slid past us to the south, but it wasn’t clear whether it would follow that usual pattern or not for quite a while. As I was out walking.
The third dramatic event was that we attended a live music event! Meet AnnMarie Rowland, singer, song-writer, story-teller, and writing teacher. Covid struck and separated the Michigan native from her love, a Canadian. Now, all is well. She got a special exemption to travel to Ontario late last summer, and they got married, and now she can easily border-cross. As she said, “Sixty years old, and I HAD to get married!”
Friday, 4 June 2021
Another foggy, dewy morning, with wisps generated by the arrival of Mr. Sun. This is a few minutes later, when the fog tendrils had disappeared, and the sun highlighted the dew-outlined spider webs across the field. Lovely effect.
We left the compound, and headed up to the mouth of Hurricane Creek. At present, it’s flowing straight into Lake Superior, with its tannic taint clearly evident in the crystal clear lacustrine waters.
We walked the 1.5 miles along the Norse Country Trail* to the Au Sable lighthouse.
On the way back, I detoured to look at this shipwreck. Those are large iron rods that held the wooden beams together protruding above the water.
I also spotted a few of these gorgeous endangered pink lady’s slippers (Cypripedium acaule). They’re orchids and
In order to survive and reproduce, pink lady’s slipper interacts with a fungus in the soil from the Rhizoctonia genus. Generally, orchid seeds do not have food supplies inside them like most other kinds of seeds. Pink lady’s slipper seeds require threads of the fungus to break open the seed and attach them to it. The fungus will pass on food and nutrients to the pink lady’s slipper seed. When the lady’s slipper plant is older and producing most of its own nutrients, the fungus will extract nutrients from the orchid roots. This mutually beneficial relationship between the orchid and the fungus is known as “symbiosis” and is typical of almost all orchid species. [USFS link]
This one had me stumped. I don’t remember seeing it or looking it up before. It’s Polygaloides paucifolia, commonly called gaywings. Given that its range is eastern North America from Georgia north to the Hudson Bay and inland as far as Minnesota in the USA, I should be familiar with it. So, have I forgotten? 😎
* Why is this stuck in my head? Of course, it’s really NORTH Country Trail. No Viking hikers sighted.
Monday, 31 May 2021
I’m calling it a moon walk. To a swamp and back.
Then, we ventured over toward Canada (border still closed), and watched this upbound freighter motor along. The landmass to the right is Canada. The closer island to the left is USA territory, or more truthfully, birdlandia.
The freighter has made the turn to head for the open waters of Lake Superior, and the sky shows many rain streaks. It eventually reached us, and we retreated indoors. With our whine.
So much fun to see long-time friends again, and to give and receive hugs. We laughed and told stories like always and my heart is well warmed.
Sunday, 30 May 2021
I know these as horsetails. Plant scientists call them Equisetum. As kids, we used to pull them apart at the joints. We had no idea that the dark bands are (technically) scale leaves. Or that the horsetails reproduce by spores.
I think this is a branched Equisetum growing with forget-me-nots. Charming textural combination, no?
Saturday, 29 May 2021
The other day I swept the house. If you’re thinking of moving furniture and the motor noise of a vacuum cleaner, you have the wrong idea. No, I swept the building exterior, that is, the cobwebs and what they’ve caught away from the eaves and windows and sidings…a quite different activity. And now I see I need to do it again. We have a lot of gnats (which do NOT bite or sting, thankfully), and their little gossamer bodies get caught in the webs.
While the above is clearly lupin, I don’t know what this is. I found it on the edge of a wet ditch (essentially a swamp environment). I was too confident that I could ID it from the blooms. Nope. I’ll have to go back and look for the vegetation.
Thursday, 27 May 2021
We are back in northern Michigan early spring—frost overnight, and probably tonight, too. Apple blooms look okay (so far).
Offshore breeze means quiet waters (here).
Herd of deer by tree. If you can discern two dark shapes just a bit closer to me than the deer—those are a pair of sandhills…I’ve been hearing them and previous years I’ve seen them in this field…good to find them here again.
Tuesday, 25 May 2021
I know this as forget-me-not. [Internet search….] Taxonomically, they are the Myosotis genus. I think this is M. sylvatica, and native to Europe, however frequently I find it around here. Probably another escapee from the great-grandmother garden. Like the lupins.
Totally different scale; could be a farm complex on the prairie during the green season. But, no; up here by the sub-tundra, under a threatening sky that only produced a few drops of rain and no storm.
Sunday, 23 May 2021
Our beach isn’t the only one vastly remodeled for spring 2021. This is the mouth of the Au Train River, which flows into Lake Superior. This year the mouth is farther west than I’ve ever seen it. The water cut deeply into the bank I’m standing on, which usually slopes down to a beach zone bordering the water. No longer. In fact, the park people built a new path farther west than they ever had had one, as the old ones end in an abrupt and dangerous drop into the water. On the other hand, the lake level is not as high as it has tended to be. On the other other hand, the fire danger is HIGH because it is dry dry dry.
Saturday, 22 May 2021
Leaves are still emerging by the pond.
The marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris) are blooming in the swamp.
The lilacs are just opening in the stand that shields the outhouse.
The lupins are just beginning to show color in the orchard.
The Canada geese are unsettled and still flying north in Vs.
This venerable cedar shows damage from the spring ice break-up, which coincided with two days of strong (like 40-mph) winds that drove giant ice “cubes” way up above our beach, like I’ve never seen before. Trillium is for scale.