Musings

Over the last few days we’ve south-shifted our latitude, driving mile after mile, leaving winter-is-pending. This means we’ve moved back to late summer.

And the evidence suggests it’s been a bit rainy. Fungi loves a bit of moisture. And some warmth…saw a prediction of 81°F high today On My New Watch. From Wea-Channel data/sponsor.

That’s a big change from frost on the pumpkins, roof, grass, and possibly deer napping overnight curled up in the orchard at our previous latitude. High of 75°F predicted for tomorrow…guess I should walk earlier rather than later, no?…for more temperate exercise conditions.

Posted at 8:53 PM | Comments Off on Mushroom mountain-ettes

We arose to frost on the grass (many places), as well as our roof…a sign of increasing overnight cold temps.

During the morning we had intermittent sunshine, and managed to get another round of hatch-battening completed on the “garden”—enough for the winter.

The meteorology report indicated rain in the 1 o’clock hour…and, indeed, it was raining by 2pm. And still is.

I haven’t seen flocks of Canada geese overhead for days…and I assume that means they are far to our south. So, being somewhat smart, we, too, have turned our thoughts toward our final days here and closing the place for the winter. We’ll be sad to go, to leave our friends here, and to leave the beauty of this area. We’ll not be so sad to leave rubbish weather off and on, day after day.

I had not anticipated this, but the temp now is about 39°F, and my watch-borne weather app indicates 48°F at midnight and 45°F at 3am. That doesn’t fit the typical “increasing cold overnight” model—however, we’ll take it!

Posted at 4:48 PM | 1 Comment »

Early on, we had sun and plenty of blue in the skies. [I had hope.]

Not for long.

Indeed, when I walked mid-day, I experienced wan sunshine, constant wind, a few droplets now and then—constant changeup. In a further mystery, I had wind in my face going west and going north…pleasant (relatively speaking) that the return leg was southbound.

First photo: normal lens; second: wide (aka very wide).

Posted at 6:14 PM | Comments Off on Leaf color lovely, despite weather

Today was all over the place, in weather and in activities.

Taking advantage of the morning’s relative wonderfulness, I knocked back some of the weeds/grass encroaching on the rhubarb (red stem; has mostly died back for the winter), and in the process discovered many small hollyhocks…that didn’t flower. I can’t remember, but this may be it for these…hopefully there are more seeds in the soil. These plants have been nurtured first by my great-grandmother, then my father, then my cousin, then my neighbor. I’m the one who is doing a poor job of keeping them going….

Perhaps, given my track record, I shouldn’t be undertaking this experiment. We have feral mint all over the place, but it isn’t the mint I like (spearmint, I think). I took two small sprigs off a plant in someone’s yard in ATL, then brought them up here without smashing the life out of them in transit. Then, neighbor mentioned above kept them while we were between visits (got them to root, then potted them—she’s a sweetheart!), and got them large and healthy. Finally, they are in the ground. The tops’ll die back over the winter, and hopefully re-sprout come spring warmth. Fingers crossed. Mint is pretty darned hardy.

In the afternoon, came the rain. Rain on the new-planted mint!

We made a brief escape during the worst of the rain, and picked up the weekly paper (comes out Wednesdays), then drove the driving tour at the Refuge as the rain quit. Saw swans, geese, ducks, perhaps grebes, not sure about loons. And colorful leaves. And gorgeous skies.

Posted at 6:07 PM | Comments Off on It was a day!

Oh, my, was I excited when I got up and there was no wind blowing. And the sun came out. Double yay!

By afternoon, however, the sun left and the wind returned.

By the end of my walk, the wind remained and the sun toyed with my emotions.

And now, Gentle Reader, the sky is grey and we hear thunder. Thank you, Upper Peninsula Weather, for keeping me alert.

Posted at 5:30 PM | Comments Off on Surviving change

Another super-variable day (gauged by the weather). Began rather clear. Love the water-barrel view of the pending dawn.

Midday, I walked the swamp. The clouds look more threatening than they were.

And later, lots of blue. This view is up the trunk of a maple, showing the still green interior leaves, with a hint of the coating colors on the exterior.

I found this a disjointed day, feeling mostly either like a Friday or a Sunday, although it did feel like a Saturday for a bit, too.

Posted at 9:18 PM | Comments Off on Sky watch

Sometime during the night the wind went silent and I found the change almost eerie. For today, almost entirely sunshine! Yay!

Nurdles are lentil-sized plastic buttons that manufacturers buy to transform into bottle and other shapes to hold their products. An estimated 53 BILLION end up in the ocean every YEAR. Critters think they’re food, and you know there is nothing good about that.

If you can’t find it in yourself to worry about nurdle pollution, think about the plastic bits that are torn and worn away from the whipping action of weed-eaters.

Back to a positive note: sunny day! ☀️

Nurdle photo-story by Annaliese Nurnberg and Gianmarco Maraviglia, “‘Mermaid Tears’: A photographer documents one of the most dangerous marine pollutants,” in the Washington Post, dated 5 October.

Posted at 5:47 PM | Comments Off on New vocab: nurdle

Daylight began with piercing quiet and heavy ground-fog.

As the day progressed, overcast and intermittent precip alternated with streaks of sunshine—you can see one of the latter illuminating a sand dune in the distance.

Today’s big chore was heading to town for groceries and a raid of the hardware store. Instead of the direct road, 44 miles round trip, we took the long way, up to Lake Superior in a big loop—a detour that took us 111 miles. Well worth the miles of mud puddles and bumps on the unpaved stretch between Grand Marais (where I took the photo) and Deer Park. Great names, no?

I walked subsequently, toward the end of the daylight portion of the day, when it was windy and sunny and surprisingly pleasant, quite the opposite of the morning.

Now, as darkness closes in, it’s less windy and threatening rain. Soooo good to be indoors.

Posted at 6:21 PM | 1 Comment »

Wishing to give the new fitness device (misleadingly called a watch, which is accurate in that it does tell time, yet has a fuzziness similar to a smartphone—which is far more smart than phone) a tryout, I got out pretty darned early, and paced myself, ending up with a mostly sunny three miles. One darned gorgeous fencerow maple.

And a tree skeleton—an elm, I’m guessing. Rain most of the overnight hours, hence intermittent puddles and mud.

I worked very hard to turn this into moose tracks, but the overwhelming evidence of an adjacent cattle pasture and a vague recollection that moose tracks look like giant deer tracks, and thus are much narrower…forced me to accept the domestic nature of this evidence.

Although clouds were coming in, we went over to the refuge to drive the loop. We did see a few ducks, geese, and swans at a distance, but this dirty great blue heron (?) was the most interesting specimen we spotted. A quiet day for critters.

Dramatic maroon leaves on this small tree.

And the autumn mushrooms are about…or at least they strike me as a different assortment of species from the springtime crop. Or my dataset is skewed and, most likely of all, my observations are based on ignorance.

Posted at 5:03 PM | Comments Off on Fall colors, shapes

We managed to time our run to early-vote* to between rain bands. Sally, doncha know. Some rainfall was windy and would have been yucky to venture out in.

But it stayed wet even so, witness that magnificent droplet on a wee magenta-pink basil blossom.

* Not lucky that we had to vote because John Lewis died, and we need a representative to finish his term.

Posted at 8:50 PM | Comments Off on Lucky day