Musings

My theory is it’s just one crazy deer. A deer ate the trillium by the NW corner of the cottage. A deer ate the tops of the ferns in front of the cottage. A deer ate two of my in-bloom peonies (yesterday). A deer ate the tops of some of the lupines. None of this happened in any of the years I’ve been here. What gives? I think it’s one deer, and that animal is strange/barmy.

Not wanting to lose any more peonies, I used some of the branches we’ve cut out of the apple trees to make a kraal of sorts to protect a plant, not livestock, but you get the idea.

Posted at 8:49 PM | Comments Off on Construction project

Lighthouse sequence. The structure is on the end of a breakwater at the mouth of the Manistique River. It is 35 ft tall and made of steel. It was first lit in 1916, and automated in 1969. Safety first.

Wide angle.

Wide, with red osier dogwood in foreground.

Not so wide, with sign and seagull (or tern or whatever it is; we always called them gulls).

We encountered wet roads, then rain, on our return drive; however, no rain fell here at the cottage, sadly.

Posted at 7:57 PM | Comments Off on Various truths

I offer another attempt at capturing subtleties of the rising sun—less successful, yet with some unexpected details.

In the afternoon, I undertook a chore using a tool borrowed from our kind neighbor. I used it to prune wayward branches higher than I could reach from the ground. It has an extending handle, and the business end has a saw and a slicing mechanism activated by a rope, both VERY sharp and VERY effective. [Note that the plug-in hybrid is being charged…there’s no electricity in the garage, hence the temporary location by the cottage.]

Posted at 8:50 PM | Comments Off on Working on new skills

My sweetie took me out to lunch at our favorite place in Manistique. I like it because I can order a whitefish dinner (with salad bar that includes…tahdah…pickled beets…yum) and The Guru likes it because he can order an all-day omelette.

We lunched out because the morning weather was overcast and damp, and not good for mowing, which is almost always (and in this case) Job#1 upon cottage arrival. As the afternoon went on, the wind dried the grass (mostly), and the sun came out—yay. And we mowed about half of the grass—not the total grass, but the grass that we mow. …honoring (AKA bowing to) the tyranny of mowing….

Posted at 8:18 PM | Comments Off on Avoiding, then…

Clouds #1.

Clouds #2.

Overcast at the bridge, but not threatening as it appears.

Jetsam.

Approaching sunset.

Posted at 10:01 PM | Comments Off on We drove…we arrived

Early-ish, I braved the dew-wet grass to capture an image of the sentinels; however, the shadow makes them less interesting.

Here’s another group, far better lit.

I thought I was seeing tiny dew drops when I took this, but maybe it was just lupine hairs, now that I examine them enlarged.

Ordinarily, I would post an image of The Bridge on this travel day, but I’m mixing it up and posting one of the view south from what my family called The North Country Hill. It’s just north of Clare, and I assume it’s glacial, perhaps a moraine. Without the contrast of passing through the rolling hills to the north, it doesn’t look like much. Bridge photo next time?

Posted at 7:44 PM | 2 Comments »

First light (ish).

First apple petals blown off the trees in large numbers.

First color showing on lupines.

First bath in the lake. I visited the fishes.

First ferns all the way unfurled.

Posted at 9:18 PM | Comments Off on Firsts

Morning sun with apple leaves.

Black hole of fern.

Apple blossom cluster (in late-day sun).

Work, interrupted.

Posted at 7:37 PM | Comments Off on A day

We made it! We found daffies looking at the lake…

…and ramps and fiddleheads in the woods…

…along with the earliest trilliums…. All a wonderful balm for my soul.

I tried for an artsy shot of the cabin-to-lake view, and flubbed. You can see the rain barrel is not yet in position, and there are many untackled chores you can’t see (thankfully), many of which eventually got eliminated from the to-do list. We are so happy to be here and the sun warmed the front porch enough that we sat there between waves of chore-ing and to dine tonight, just soaking in the bird calls and the aura of agreeableness.

Posted at 9:31 PM | 2 Comments »

If you know this statue, you know two things. One is that the accompanying golden mare has been missing for several years; there’s no information about what happened. The other is that the golden foal is at the entering-Kentucky-northbound-on-I-75 rest area. Yes, we are northbound!

Posted at 9:17 PM | Comments Off on Nay and yay (ish)