Monday, 3 June 2024
This row of aged maples look like sentinels, protecting the garden. I like the visual vertical repetition of their trunks with the fence posts. The fence is necessary to discourage raccoons and deer, plus rabbits and skunks.
In today’s news, we did an assortment of chores, including mowing (by the Mowing Man) and making more rhubarb sauce (moi).
Title is the genus of each plant species mentioned.
Sunday, 2 June 2024
I got up before the sun (thank you, flicker, busy at 5:45am), and found the ground fog posing elegantly in the field, pierced by lupins.
Mid-morning, this phalanx of Canada geese flew over, right over, so I got to watch their shadows pass by on the grass around me.
Mid-afternoon, I picked rhubarb, then processed it to make what the old cookbooks call rhubarb sauce. Simmer ½ inch (or so) chunks of rhubarb in a bit of water until they break up (ten-ish minutes). Let the mixture cool some, then stir in enough sugar (or honey) to cut the tartness to the desired level. The heat will melt the sugar. Cool all the way and enjoy, plain or over ice cream (for example).
Lakeview dining, with the best company. Isn’t that the most colorful rhubarb sauce you’ve ever seen?
Saturday, 1 June 2024
Studying the calendar, I realized we’re 42% of the way through 2024, yet I’m still trying to internalize that it is indeed 2024.
See that lupin to the right of center with the tipped over inflorescence? That’s rather like me, still trying to get with the program.
Friday, 31 May 2024
This is a late post because the server was down when I began to write. Happily, it’s up Saturday morning.
Yesterday we saw a doe with a wee spotted fawn, no more than a very few days old. We spotted them walking down the mowed lane between trees in the orchard. She stopped to browse and for Little One to nurse. Soon, she moved on, and stepped into the tall grass, far taller than LO. LO preferred to stay in the mowed lane. Drama ensued. Eventually, she enticed LO into the tall grass with another feeding opportunity. Then, the doe moved on, and…repeat.
Wednesday, 29 May 2024
Today is day three of my lake baths. It is so pleasant to wash my hair in the soft water of the lake, although the water temps remain chilly*. The grass keeps growing and growing, so I mowed a “tunnel” to the steps down the bluff to the beach.
We have a mulching mower, so it doesn’t spit the cut grass out a side-flap. Instead it counts on gravity for the bits to fall beneath the machine; however, with grass above knee-high, like this, it creates what I call grass boluses that are very capable of jamming the blade and stopping the motor. Over and over. I persisted, and now there’s a two-mower-swath-wide path.
On my way to take the above photo, I realized the late-day light coming through this clump of lupin made it a-glow (if I bent down to get a low angle).
* Speaking of chilly, tonight’s low is supposed to be in the upper 30s. It’s already in the mid-50s, so I believe it!
Also, sing title to “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” the Chim-chimney phrase….
Tuesday, 28 May 2024
One of the through story-lines of our time here is grass. It surrounds us and gets mowed, trimmed, and cut. Over and over. I try to focus on the lupins.
Monday, 27 May 2024
We had rain overnight and most of the daylight hours, on and on…so we rolled with it and had a low-key day, with a mid-afternoon trip to the nearest groc-shopping hub. As we crested Dollarville Hill, the view north across the Tahquamenon Swamp was so obscured we could only see the south edge. A rain-everywhere situation does indeed bring obscurity.
Now that evening’s here, the sky is overcast and everywhere outside is wet. Cool temps are predicted for tomorrow—sounds like it’ll be a good work day….
Sunday, 26 May 2024
Although the afternoon was overcast, enough heat was generated by the pallid morning sun that I took my first lake-bath. The water was cool and I didn’t linger, yet I was glad I splash-splashed and washed my hair.
Friday, 24 May 2024
These fisher-folk trolling on the lake reminded me of many paintings, like a Winslow Homer piece, although I think he did sea settings, not a lake like this.
This apple was just so beautiful I had to include a shot of it. Friends kept it through the winter wrapped in newspaper in a crate with many other apples in a cool spot. Some made it, some didn’t. This one is spectacular, and as firm and luscious as it was when it was put into storage.
Thursday, 23 May 2024
We gazed at the bridge before crossing…unusual for us…usually we just stay on I-75 moving north without stopping.
We found the cottage in a sea of green, meaning mowing is at the top of the chores list when I, perhaps naively, assumed we’d get a few days of respite before it reached calf-height. Nope. Move-in was without drama, just the way we like it.
Ornithological omens at arrival: a spruce hen crossed the road in front of us as we drove out of the swamp just north of our property; when I went down to the lake, the first bird I saw was a loon.