Saturday, 28 September 2019
Lighthouse from afar.
Approaching.
Very backlit.
Yes, it’s very red.
Bonus shot: sunset sky reflected in Manistique River at Mead Creek.
A small sample of this water winter wonderland. Without the winter. For now.
Friday, 27 September 2019
Today was murky, rainy, sometimes breezy all darned day. And last night, too. Definitely this photo is from yesterday….
VOD means video-on-demand (I’m told); thus, this is SOD: sunshine…—does that work?
Wednesday, 25 September 2019
This is an upper window from the only remaining old house in Laketon.
This crossing was the center of a community called Danaher. No old structures remain based on cursory examination from this road. The low ground beyond the railroad is the Tahquamenon Swamp. The railroad runs along the south side of the swamp for quite a ways, at least ~20 miles from east of Newberry to west of Danaher. It doesn’t get much use nowadays, but I remember Mom discussing the complex train ticket to get from northern Ohio to the McMillan station (just east of Laketon). I assume she (or whomever did that trip…her father?) sent a telegram to indicate someone needed to meet her at the station? Such a trip would have included a ferry crossing of the straits…either on foot or on a RR carriage. Much I don’t know….
No flower today. I tried to get a low, low shot to tell if this is a bolete. No such luck. Still, I think it is. Something’s been eating it from the top…insects?
Tuesday, 24 September 2019
Ah, fog in the orchard…
As we drove (we left early), it became fog just about everywhere that was low.
However, when we left the trailhead and moseyed through the woods, no fog.
Chapel Falls. This is just the top from above. Video captures it best…[pan; water-roar].
Previous years we might have called this loop Biting-Insects Trail. Today it was Fun Guy Trail. I am sparing you the other sixty-seven types of Fun Guys we photographed.
Legendary Grand Portal. Yes, the rock has caved in. Still stupendous. Sometime I may see it from the water.
However, I will not do it as a paddle boarder. Kayaker, perhaps. From a commercial tour boat, perhaps.
The Botanist had several plants he singled out in the shoreline habitat. Basswood was one. Extremely large and distinctive leaves.
Also note: 30K steps, 11.6 miles of oft rooty and muddy trail (with gorgeous views).
I’m withholding comment on the doings in DC; we seem to be starting a new chapter, as the saying goes.
Monday, 23 September 2019
Chicory blossom. Chicory roots are processed (roasted? ground?) and used to make a coffee-like drink.
Both this Queen Anne’s lace and the chicory are not native to North America, but are now naturalized. Root also edible. This is closely related to carrots.
Squint at the dots in the field right and rear of the low, green outbuilding. I think six adult deer and one youngster—our local herd….
Subsequently, it cleared and became sunny for the late afternoon…yay!
Sunday, 22 September 2019
One year when I was a kid, we arrived for our summer stint at the cottage and the landscape on the edge of the neighbors’ field had changed to include a new pond. I suspect it was to improve drainage in the field and water cattle. Very soon, cattails lined the pond. Now the declivity lacks open water. Such is the way of ecological succession. MaNachur does not want a pond here.
Yes, rainy day…all day…drip drip. When I was a kid (again…(thank you for your patience)), the road grader came and scraped the gravel/fill so that the road had no puddles. The road had a discernible central spine/crown, and the road flowed laterally into the ditches, then down the ditches. Now the paradigm seems to be to make the road flat, which means the water flows down the side of the graveled area, like this, and never reaches the ditch. This makes the ditches a cosmetic spacer, and a waste of good agricultural land.
Is there a hypothesis here that an all-day rain, spattering on the porch roof, reminds me of my childhood? However, no triple-deck games of war have begun, so maybe just a touch of nostalgia and not an overwhelming metamorphosis.
Friday, 20 September 2019
Last night was warm and strangely still, perfect conditions for mistiness to descend with the arrival of MrSun, first to the north where I usually photo, and then, later, in a second appearance of ground fog, to the south, shown here.
I am pondering what the googly, triple-eyed iPhone 11 Pro would do with this view…would it temper the murkiness (rrr), or enhance it? Or?
[Perhaps science is called for: get that phone; find “phog;” take pictures. Examine results.]
Thursday, 19 September 2019
By the toes, I’m guessing: tree frog. But I think of tree frogs as green—my ignorance, I’m sure (and the amphibian ID book is at our first home, not here). I can use that rural CYA naming strategy, and call it a toad-frog?
That’s lush for a lichen. If I form a band (ha!), I’m thinking Lush Lichen will be on the short list for a name. Along with Illusion of Symmetry.
Wednesday, 18 September 2019
Yup. That was today’s expotition (intentional misspelling, in the style of KayakWoman). At the parking lot at the mouth of Hurricane River, we were cheered on by glorious clusters of mountain ash berries/fruit/redness.
We zipped on foot along the coast path a bit over a mile, then down these steps to…
…head along this beach to our destination. The lake is so high the remains are almost totally underwater (to my left and slightly ahead of me). Warm today, so not bad for getting into the waters of Gitchee Gumee, despite what you may be thinking. I did snorkel a loop out around the wooden ship-carcass, so can officially check “snorkel in Lake Superior” off my bucket list. [Turns out, I’d rather not have waves breaking on me when I’m snorkeling.]
Welcoming us home: this pair of sandhills, which prefer fields to the north of us, but sometimes visit our property—pretty sure it’s the same pair.
Tuesday, 17 September 2019
Foggy morning. That colorful vegetation in the foreground is lowly milkweed. It’s taking over the field. Not so good for field-ness.
The sun did come out, but not for long (and the sunporch made it almost to 72°F). I was out for a wander and went to check the lake and was on the dock looking along the “beach,” and see that black shape above the tree on the point? The eagle. Which I spotted with my eagle-eye. Heh.
Mullien with droplets.
Mushroom cluster. This rainy autumn/late summer means there a many “fun guys” pretty much everywhere.