Musings

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….

Posted at 7:57 PM | Comments Off on Green greenery

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.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Plant success

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….

Posted at 8:42 PM | Comments Off on Enforced relaxation

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.

Posted at 8:42 PM | Comments Off on Clean clean

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.

Posted at 7:55 PM | Comments Off on Evocative

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.

Posted at 10:11 PM | 1 Comment »

Northbound this time of the year in North America is a journey back in spring. In southern Michigan we found our first lilacs in bloom, this small type with a confusing shape to the plant and an unmistakable scent…our first lilacs of 2024.

We also spotted our first Great Lake of the year. We are so fortunate have a room on the beach facing Lake Huron—this is our view. The beach is infested with some sort of beach flies (not mayflies), if you trust my identification. The seagulls are flocking to the insects, so there’s more drama than the waves crashing on land.

Posted at 9:52 PM | Comments Off on Firsts

Tomorrow is election day, and I thought up this post before I “hit a wall,” and went to bed early. Without posting. Without watching the Rachel–Fani interview.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Delayed post

In early Covid, the Apple store moved to an exterior location in Lenox mall, not far north of our house. We visited there because the Guru’s new iPad (with a fabulous screen), began just rebooting without rebooting, with an Apple logo, then the waiting circle; repeat. Not good. Anyway, a Genius determined that the system software needed to be reinstalled, meaning that after we returned home the Guru started over with repopulating the device with his digital world. Fortunately, the machine seems to be fine…just some software stutter-glitch. [If I have it right.] Oh, the staircase? The sterile, angular, cold staircase? It’s in the interior of the two-story Apple store, invisible to people in the store. Mostly Apple customers leave the store and take the escalator in the hallway outside the store to change levels. Since the rest of the store features clear glass, even along the balcony wall of the second story, this walled-off stairway is additionally strange. Must be a fire code requirement to have the staircase.

Posted at 9:56 PM | Comments Off on Stark stair

I’ve been mapping the distribution of Bronze Age mounds in modern central Turkey, and thinking about the (human) population density, and the agriculture and distribution system it took to feed those people. This is the era of the Hittites (not what they called themselves). I’ve been vastly ignorant of Hittite history, which perhaps is just as well, as there have been several breakthroughs in recent research that has changed our ideas about their political economy to some extent.

Posted at 10:29 PM | Comments Off on __ on the past