Thursday, 29 July 2021
The guy cutting the neighbor’s hay (not the neighbor, he’s in his 90s and now delegates this chore) must have a day job, as I only hear him in the field in the evenings. Like now.
The hay quality is pretty poor, but he must find it worth it, as it takes a pass to cut and windrow the hay, and another pass to bale it, plus driving about the field wrangling the bales—big, round ones, and taking them to…market?…to his cattle? That’s a fair amount of fuel.
Wednesday, 28 July 2021
Laundry day means laundry and gro-shopping, all in one speedy 35 minute window (plus drive time). These days all we do at the ’dro is wash ($5 per triple load; we did two), then bring the damp fabric piles home to hang out. [Yay for MaNachur’s dry cycle.] We don’t have much line, so we used convoluted algorithms for carefully doubling up the sheets (old country technique).
Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Bright this morning, but hazier as the day went on. I couldn’t tell if it was a “normal” weather pattern or the smoke.
Monday, 26 July 2021
Road sign, heh. A bird’s dust bath. Must have been darned energetic to clear away that much gravel.
I’ll throw this in. A double-wedge of illumination on the swamp ditch, plus artsy tree branches.
I can tell the sun’s moving away from full summer mode. The low angle light in the morning continues much later. Which I appreciate in my attempt to walk in shadow.
Sunday, 25 July 2021
In the interest of doing things differently once in a while, I took my walk this evening and enjoyed the protection of long shadows from the westing sun. I also scared up three groups of deer. This group—two does, two large fawns—crossed the road at a fast pace, digging into the moist sandy deposits along this stretch of road. The deer weren’t that large, and the depth is an indication of their speed.
Saturday, 24 July 2021
Rain rain rain…overnight and into the morning. Not a deluge, but enough that the ditches filled in the swamp, and water backed up onto the road in this low spot.
I think this is a trapper bridge, but maybe it’s a fisherperson bridge. In either case, it crosses the opposite ditch at another spot and it’s now almost submerged.
No rain predicted overnight; it’s a good thing. And to think, just the other day I was planning to save the dish water for outdoor plants unless it rained.
Friday, 23 July 2021
Overnight rain. This honeysuckle (probably non-native) is already fruiting.
Another view of the odd skies the smoke is producing. More rain expected after midnight.
Thursday, 22 July 2021
The story here: I spotted many “black”birds congregated in the top branches of this dead elm. But. I took so long fumbling with the phone to get the camera on and pointed, that many flew off to the left. Another time.
Here I attempted to capture the visual contrast of the darkness under the trees, and the light in the distance in an open meadow(?). I like that dark under zone, which really isn’t well illustrated here.
Update: The haze I reported on Monday is Rocky Mountain fire smoke, even though I couldn’t smell smoke (too high? too dissipated?). It was even hazier today. Still no smoke smell.
Wednesday, 21 July 2021
I’m proud of myself. I headed out to the deep morning shade to find and remove phototoxic cow parsnips. This one is old enough to bloom, and is on the neighbor’s side of the fence. I figure it likely spawned the ones on our side of the fence. Bye-bye, mama.
This evening, we took advantage of a free concert at the Erickson Center. This is most of the crowd, and I’d say it’s very large for the middle of almost-nowhere. [Don’t ask me about the cement pad—don’t know what it’s for; the band played from an elevated, roofed stage behind where I was standing.] Darned fine Celtic and Celtic-inspired music by a trio from the Marquette area.
Tuesday, 20 July 2021
This venerable maple is quite the host. The berry bushes, loaded with fruit are perhaps five feet above the ground. And I think that pileated had a mate (or offspring?) around the backside of the trunk, based on the abundant bird-chatter I overheard.