Musings

We headed to Manistique to have a better grocery selection than are offered at nearer stores, and began our adventure with lunch, followed by a stroll on the boardwalk (mostly paved) along the Lake Michigan shore to look at the lighthouse. It’s rather stubby and unprepossessing; good thing it’s painted red.

And just to the left, moments after the photo above, I caught a gull taking flight. Look! No horizon in the background, and this was merely perhaps an angle of 40° different.

Next stop: groceries. I guess a version of the shopping-after-lunch plan was in the air, as we saw both parties that were eating when we arrived at the lunch place at the grocery place. Great minds? (Snort; I don’t think so, just restocking after a long holiday weekend.)

Back at the ranch, I got the grocs put up, then headed out to check on the lake and just wander about. The barberries next to the cottage are in bloom. Indeed, we watched a (smallish, dark) hummingbird busy with the flowers just yesterday.

I checked the lupin pair pictured yesterday, and the development is noticeable. This is about 30 hrs after the previous photo.

I just went out to close up the entry porch, and realized the buckets I put out to drain and dry now seem to be a convention. I used the buckets to water in the new top-dressing I added to the rhubarb in the bed I created last fall down at the stone house. The plants’re small, yet doing well, and all survived (a major coup).

Posted at 9:47 PM | No Comments »

Proof we had rain overnight….

Proof it wasn’t much. [The rain barrel stays indoors all winter…if I don’t forget—so this is MaNachur’s first deposit of 2025.]

First lupin buds I spotted…the rest are just vegetation for now.

Although the summer veg crop is not coming in yet, we went for a veggie-laden dinner…raw lettuce, tomatoes, and radishes, plus “semi-stir-fried” broccoli…with medallions of salt-n-peppa pork tenderloin. [Lousy photo quality, but the eatin’ was good!]

Posted at 10:30 PM | No Comments »

We drove in rain a ways, then just on wet roads, but we only had heavy overcast when we crossed the bridge. Note in the lower left, just over the railing—blue skies!

And even sunshine at the cottage! (…although now there’s a light overcast again…and a low of 41°F predicted overnight—yowzah!) BTW, my weather-and-more app indicates we have a day length of something like 70 minutes longer than we did where we were yesterday morning. Sure enough: it’s plenty light out even now, as I post.

The lake level is pretty high, at least according to my memory, which goes back to the 60s, heh-heh. We have been notified of a meeting early in June about agreeing on target lake levels winter and summer…wonder how contentious it’ll be….

Posted at 8:55 PM | 2 Comments »

A storm came through overnight, rainy and windy enough to wake me up. Yawn. So, enough, we thought; let’s get on the road. (Truth: trip was planned.) The storm festooned this north Georgia rest area with many tree leaflets, and this rock no longer carries its message.

In contrast, crossing the Ohio River, we saw plenty of signage. Yup, north on I-75, that was us—and we’ll motor more tomorrow to the usual location near the northern end of this interstate.

Posted at 10:49 PM | No Comments »

What is the statement of the day based on this image, I was thinking a few minutes ago. Hmm.

A bee crawls through a milkweed quite without effort? Too simplistic.

Orange and green are my new favorite color pairing? Yeesh, who would believe that.

Garden life is captivating? I’ll take that.

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Our neighborhood was a mecca today; it hosted Porchfest (music), with plenty of amps in use. This meant cars cruising for at least a three-mile radius looking for parking places in already choked streets–with the center of festing about two blocks from us.

We had to do an errand, so we got to “enjoy” all this congestion (cough cough). The 2.3 miles each way took almost an hour on a hot, muggy afternoon. Glad we had AC!

Posted at 10:04 PM | No Comments »

As I did several months ago, JCB recently received a juror summons. He was in group 3, so we thought he might have to appear, and was to call in last night to find out if he had to show up downtown today. No groups were called, he found out, and he got to sleep in.

I was gonna try something about “barking up the wrong tree,” but…pfft, I couldn’t make it sing, rock, or rumble in any pleasant way.

Posted at 8:18 PM | No Comments »

We saw the Looming Peach in SC, and definitely felt we were closing in on GA and home while miles were still ahead of us.

Coming into metro, we weathered a traffic jam, ho hum. We found our (OUR!) gardenias beginning to bloom, so: yay!

We missed an earthquake yesterday…hopefully, there aren’t more tremors coming. It’s 63°F and precipitating, so welcome home on the weather front, too.

Posted at 8:41 PM | No Comments »

We braved Boston traffic to visit the Big Dig. Here’s the tunnel entrance. The tunnel is named for Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Jr.

Here’s the bridge after the tunnel, named for Leonard P. Zakim and crossing the Charles River. Both the bridge and tunnel opened in 2003, northbound in late March and southbound in late December.

We stopped at the Canterbury Rest Area in NH. This clearly must be functional.

This, however, is art. I don’t know what the wood/tree is, and neither did the attendant.

Several miles later, we went through Franconia notch. The clouds sat on the highway, and we had no cell service. I have no idea how I’d make a phone-booth call these day. The oddest thing about the notch highway: it was interstate but only one lane each way, not from construction—that’s how it’s made. Neither of us could remember being on one- not two-lane interstate anywhere.

After lunch up the street, we walked around part of St Johnsbury. Here’s the depot, now a welcome center.

They’ve kept the Boston & Maine seats.

We made a quick stop at John’s college radio station, now an independent entity as the college is…well, defunct. John says he’s slept in this room. On the left out of this frame, was a photograph of a friend of John’s who is recently deceased, with some kind words honoring him. John was quite excited because he took the photo and also printed it.

Our B&B is an old farmhouse, renovated, on top of a hill. We were welcomed by goats and the proprietress. This goat has a horn and a stub.

See our fabulous room-with-a-view. very comfy and I can hear the peepers even though the windows are closed. It’s all of 57°F out.

Posted at 10:15 PM | No Comments »

Pope’s dead; RIP. Let’s do spring cleaning. [Actually, the cleaning was planned late last week.] BTW, knee pads make floor cleaning much less painful.

Posted at 9:10 PM | Comments Off on De-poped? Un-poped?