Musings

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.

Posted at 4:35 PM | Comments Off on Comparisons

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.]

Posted at 8:26 PM | Comments Off on Contemplating ephemera

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.

Posted at 7:20 PM | Comments Off on Naming/not naming

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.

Posted at 5:55 PM | Comments Off on Snorkel a shipwreck

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.

Posted at 9:20 PM | 1 Comment »

Here’s the desiccating “riverbed” that was running with water yesterday in the same stretch of road. I have seen so many desert places across the world on GooEarth that look like this on a gigantic scale. I find the braided paths and subtle shadings mesmerizing.

I had seen the hole and the dirt smear before, but today I spotted the perpetrator, ehem, builder. My grandparents called them Chippies. [I don’t know if it had a double meaning to them.]

Somehow, when we inventoried menu possiblities, we ended up with a blond dinner. That’s cauliflower from the neighbor’s garden, plus scrambled eggs and quinoa. [It tasted good, perhaps better than it looks?] And a very colorful green lettuce salad with tomatoes (garden again) and wee rounds of chives.

Posted at 7:23 PM | Comments Off on Shades of beige

Can a morning be murkier? Rain. Mud. Looked like the sky wouldn’t clear for a week.

So we set off to assuage our need for some activity, and pfft, by just after noon: sunshine. We found flooded rivers and huge puddles down along the Lake Michigan shore. It took more than our latest rains for these floods! Decorative carts in Nahma were all in puddles—four of them! Nahma must have a year-around population of something like 300, so that’s an outsize effort.

Came across this small gang/rafter of turkeys…two hens on each side of the tom. The ladies split two to each ditch. He went with the ladies on the right. We motored slowly past and assume they reunited.

Eventually, we stopped at the Thompson fish hatchery. It was after the buildings were locked, but we could walk around, following the yellow fish road.

I don’t remember this machinery. They pump fresh water from a super deep well, then swap out trapped nitrogen for oxygen (they oxygenate the water). However the water smells of rotten eggs as it has a high sulfur content.

The one open water pool was the waste pond downhill from the hatchery. All the nutrients from the fish and excess food is removed here, before the water flows back into the wild. Big sheets and islands of algae.

Even a few “no fishing” fish. Speckled trout?

Posted at 6:42 PM | Comments Off on Water themed day

We haven’t stopped at Seney’s Boot Hill in years, so we did today. It was buffed up perhaps fifteen years ago, but nothing since, so it’s entering another genteel decline. Strange plastic items survive better than most of the wood.

We went on to the refuge, and it’s mushroom season…mushrooms and swans. And the usual marsh critters and plants.

Parent trumpeter swan in front of perhaps three-quarter grown swan/cygnet—when do the youths become swans?

I’m speculating: giant aphids?

Not sure what nibbled this mushroom down to the gills—I know turtles like them….

Speaking of turtles…painted turtle?

Posted at 7:24 PM | 1 Comment »

Arty foam on the beach. Note: this means there actually is beach. This is special after the super-high water earlier this season…that lasted for months.

See: beach.

We whiled away some time just watching the water, lapping waves, passing birds. The dock was terrifically scenic.

Posted at 7:51 PM | Comments Off on The Lake

I confused a passing runner as I got out of his way and stopped, so I could return to take this photo. But he was long gone by that time and didn’t know my maneuver was mostly to take a photo and not because he’d surprised me. [There’s a short story in this.]

There’ve been plant photos, but no flower pictures since the 17th. I’d say it’s time. [Not really a story.]

Proposed story moment: interrupted hobo bath. Cleaning on two fronts—water fountain and chemical—both in a limited way.

Posted at 7:18 PM | Comments Off on Story gems