Musings

We assembled at 2:30 to get the boat lift in for the winter. [As in away from the crushing force of ice.] It’s been out at the end of the dock all summer, making fishing and outings easier, while the boat is protected from being tossed by the waves when not in use. We brought in the dock the other day. Today, the lift was an island needing removal. We put the wheels and axles in a canoe, and reattached them to the lift-frame (more complicated than it sounds), then pushed it to shore. There, we assembled (or D did) a cable, and an ATV did most of the pulling (out of the frame to the left). Here you see us lifting the frame so it smoothly pops up from the lake-edge, and, voila, it became simply a matter of parking. Oh, yay. All finished by 2:30. Then, two actively feeding ducks arrived, focused where the lift had been, perhaps finding a surfeit of tasty bits stirred up by our feet during the lift removal.

Posted at 6:59 PM | Comments Off on Work party

Here’s the north side of the roof of the playhouse, replete with moss infestation. There is no, repeat no, moss on the south side. Trying to decide whether I should sweep away all moss colonies, as I have done previously. Is it bad for “roof-i-ness,” or should I respect the moss life-force?

Posted at 9:05 PM | Comments Off on What to do

Is this not an exceptional representation of the concept of alternatives, of options, of possibilities and choices. Which spigot? Which hose? Which color?

Posted at 9:30 PM | Comments Off on And (not shown): which plants

The rain barrel collects drips for hours and hours after precipitation stops, which makes such enticing patterns.

Other drops in other places look like gems, here decorating barberry leaves.

Posted at 9:03 PM | Comments Off on Drip drop

Kinda felt like today would be too…muggy for much outdoor work, or really much activity at all. So, we opted for an air-conditioned ride to Serious Grocery Shopping, or a UP approximation thereof. Eventually the overcast burned off and the sky became stunningly clear, with very white poufy clouds.

Because we rarely shop at this emporium, we did some aisle-wandering to find all items on our list. Somehow (as in: Someone Else wanted Oreos), we wandered past the Pepperidge Farm cookie section, and I discovered my recollection of the varieties offered is way, way out of date. [That’s a good thing?] I note the geographic distance between the locations referred to by these two names. Not being a particular fan of either coconut or milk chocolate, I easily gravitate to the Mackinac version. Also, at 8.6 oz vs 7.2 oz, whatta bargain.

Posted at 4:53 PM | 1 Comment »

The humidity still haunts us when we begin outdoor chores in the morning, although less so before the sun gets strong. My shirt was wet through after twenty-five minutes of stump-grubbing. By mid-afternoon when I headed to the beach for a lake-bath (see above), I saw the clouds changing, and now it’s raining, so: 100% humidification.

Posted at 9:17 PM | Comments Off on Sky check

I did this and that today, and in between read a few pages of “The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books,” by Edward Wilson-Lee (2018). It’s about the library that the second son of Christopher Columbus amassed, larded with detailed stories about the father, of course. I kept having to check on Wikipedia pages to get more context than Wilson-Lee offered. I was especially curious about the geography of central-northern Spain, which wasn’t Spain then. And map pages do load slowly here in the hinterlands.

Posted at 8:26 PM | Comments Off on Ah, well

With our early spring and late summer timings of our visits, we caught the beginning of lilacs and lupines, and the end of the sweet peas. And apple season! We had our first of the year last night, and it was sweet and fine (albeit slightly mealy, but it was a mealy kind that I forget the name of). No insects, either! Yay.

Posted at 6:26 PM | Comments Off on Portions of the seasons

This afternoon, after the rain that started overnight stopped…

…I took a walk down to the beach as an antidote to the nauseating reporting by David Enrich in WashPo, “How a Corporate Law Firm Led a Political Revolution”…

…which discusses in detail how the law firm Jones Day inserted their (conservative) choices into the judiciary across the country, including into the Supreme Court.

Lest you think this was a side-effect and not a deliberate plan, note this quote from Rob Luther, one of Don McGahn’s assistants in the White House Counsel’s Office, soon after he left government service and joined Jones Day: “We did it! We reshaped the judiciary! We changed the country!”

Posted at 5:21 PM | Comments Off on Antidote attempt

It, indeed, was a foggy morn, but there was more than that going on. Here’s the earliest light. Just magical. My eye found more pink in the sky than this shows. If you like pink.

This was at the beach mid- to late-afternoon. I think this is a native mint/mint family. Love the flower-collar at the leaf junctions. [Kindly substitute the botanical terms, if you know/care about them.]

Posted at 9:02 PM | Comments Off on Visual complexities in my day