Thursday, 15 October 2020
Early on, we had sun and plenty of blue in the skies. [I had hope.]
Not for long.
Indeed, when I walked mid-day, I experienced wan sunshine, constant wind, a few droplets now and then—constant changeup. In a further mystery, I had wind in my face going west and going north…pleasant (relatively speaking) that the return leg was southbound.
First photo: normal lens; second: wide (aka very wide).
Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Oh, my, was I excited when I got up and there was no wind blowing. And the sun came out. Double yay!
By afternoon, however, the sun left and the wind returned.
By the end of my walk, the wind remained and the sun toyed with my emotions.
And now, Gentle Reader, the sky is grey and we hear thunder. Thank you, Upper Peninsula Weather, for keeping me alert.
Monday, 12 October 2020
Around here, we have fields and forest plots and swamps…and…beauty. These colors are a tad distorted, an improvement on the grey day we lived through. But, also a real truth. The leaf colors are changing.
I tromped up the hill by this farm, walking fast (ish), trudge, trudge—pushing my pace, and this odd sound, dogs growl-barking, penetrated my stride-based concentration. I moved my mental focus to the sounds, and…hmm, ohh, ahh, what dogs? No dogs…. Oh, and I figured it out: the spinning windvane, fighting the breeze to generate its own gyrating metal grating tune, greeeech, aaach (over and over, with slight variations)—no dogs, only metal-on-metal creaking, screetching drama.
Sunday, 11 October 2020
Arose this morning to outdoor temps so low we had frost on the roof, although not on the grass (…small favors). We are clearly in autumn, yet winter is making a reminder-bid.
Had laid a fire in the wood stove (really a coal stove repurposed) last evening, so fired it up when I came downstairs. Soon the place was warm, and I’ve kept a small fire going all day. We’ve been toasty!
Afoot during my afternoon walk, these two didn’t notice me for quite a while; I was downwind and not moving much. I was interested that the fawn saw me first and jumped, which mom noticed, then looked around to see why. And they both turned tail and leapt back to the field on the right, where a half-dozen of their buds were grazing.
Friday, 9 October 2020
When I realized that deer families are single moms with fawns, I also realized that these Mama/Papa/fawn yard ornament groups are marketed to people who know no better. Or don’t care: they’re CUUUUUUte!
This trio is so old, and must have inhabited this or another sheltered environ for so long, that they have accumulated sizable lichen colonies. Poetic?
The color in the treeline in the distance was far more stunning than here; I couldn’t get the program to make them pop (meaning: I don’t know what I’m doing).
Thursday, 8 October 2020
For today’s big outdoor adventure we walked through a woods…
…by a creek…burble, burble…
And popped out of the wilderness to see A Big, Huge Lake!
Sooooo gorgeous. The water was so clear. Along the shore, it was beige-ish through the blue water tint, then further out: trending to aqua…then almost midnight blue way out where it’s deep. Fantastic color graduation. With breaking waves. And SSSSUUUUUNNNNNshine!
Then, we retraced our route to return to the trailhead; no loop possible (without walking an impossible gajillion miles).
Tuesday, 6 October 2020
Sometime during the night the wind went silent and I found the change almost eerie. For today, almost entirely sunshine! Yay!
Nurdles are lentil-sized plastic buttons that manufacturers buy to transform into bottle and other shapes to hold their products. An estimated 53 BILLION end up in the ocean every YEAR. Critters think they’re food, and you know there is nothing good about that.
If you can’t find it in yourself to worry about nurdle pollution, think about the plastic bits that are torn and worn away from the whipping action of weed-eaters.
Back to a positive note: sunny day! ☀️
Nurdle photo-story by Annaliese Nurnberg and Gianmarco Maraviglia, “‘Mermaid Tears’: A photographer documents one of the most dangerous marine pollutants,” in the Washington Post, dated 5 October.
Monday, 5 October 2020
Please do not say we were avoiding chores. We say we were getting out of the house and doing a bit of City Shopping. We got take-out lunch from the Lockview, including broiled whitefish for meeee. Mmmmm. We drove to a nearby parking spot where we had a view of the downstream end of the locks. There was no traffic up- or down-bound.
It wasn’t as dark as it looks here, just low late sunlight. And wind. Gusty wind. I walked into a couple of gusts where I had to really work to keep my pace even. Not scary gusts, but: still. [Lady Mallard scared me taking off again. This has been happening for what? Two weeks? She needs to fly south, I keep thinking.]
Sunday, 4 October 2020
With Covid raging, presidential hi-jinks, and enabler shenanigans, let’s focus on sunlight! We had it all day! Soooo wonderful.
The first photo is mid-day light streaming into the living room. This one is nearing sunset. Such warm colors! So calming. And this is good.
Saturday, 3 October 2020
Walking around the orchard these days, there’s an uneven chorus of dull, rather quiet thuds. Apples falling.
I don’t remember Dad telling me about this tree, but since the deer are avoiding the drops, I’m guessing this is a pollinator—so: for the pollen and not the apples. I guess the pollinator trees are somewhat like the drones in an ant colony. Somewhat.
There’s a poetically named Lake of the Clouds west of here; this is Lake under the Clouds. There wasn’t much sunshine today, but we had constant cloud-cover (shown here), and even some rain.