Sunday, 8 June 2025
Yesterday we left idyllic lake-side life, scented with Canadian wildfire smoke, to arrive in clear skies and no nearby open water.
We abandoned lilacs and lupin, and now breathe the sweet scent of gardenias. BTW, the temp here is 80°F, with the AC running, while up north it’s 62°F and my cousin has a fire in the fireplace.
Saturday, 7 June 2025
Perhaps my last lupin shot of the year…I thought this ombre specimen unusual, with the almost purple low blooms graduating to light pink at the top.
Proof of exodus: The Bridge. Note heavy overcast, which I call smoke-AZ. AZ not as in Arizona, but a riff on, you guessed it, hazy. BTW, these were the first of several groups of motorcyclists we saw—Saturday outings, I’m guessing.
Here’s redecoration underway, a redo of the picnic tables and grills, it looks like, at a rest area.
We spotted this rigged pickup at another rest area. I do not think it’s set up for making street view photos for Google or similar. I think it’s for (video) camera work…but wildlife spotting, looking into a vehicle it’s leading or following, or, hmmm, generic influencer imagery, perhaps.
Enough. We’re trying to escape from Ohio.
Friday, 6 June 2025
This is about the pink and the perspective. Sunshine would have been nice—too overcast for it early-ish this morning.
See…fishermen under overcast and (presumed smoke) haze.
Thursday, 5 June 2025
Last night was quiet, and with all the moisture after the rain, the situation was perfect for the sun to make ground fog. Lovely.
Before the sun got up very high, I took various tools and buckets and drove the car to the other end of the swamp to do some hogweed extraction from the ditch. I’m convinced this is where the ones in our field came from. I did a similar removal session several years back, but I hadn’t realized how big the survivors have gotten. I removed all that looked like they’d make seeds this year. Several were too embedded in roots to extract their roots, so the “crop” will continue. I’ll try to get after them again before summer’s end.
Our big excitement was this evening, when we attended a murder mystery dinner theater play. It’s the first time I ate next to a dead guy—Mr. Cooper his name was. We had a great good time, and I even guessed the killer, although not the whole back story and motivation.
Wednesday, 4 June 2025
The rain overnight stopped by morning, leaving the lake three inches higher, the rain barrel full…
…and the orchard and field vegetation tipped over from the weight of the moisture. [BTW, this is the lupin cluster that a deer nipped the other day.]
We attended a hearing that began at 9am in a county courtroom, presided over by a judge who was over in Sault Ste. Marie (because, we heard, all the county’s judges owned land on our lake, or had loved ones who did, so had to recuse]. The topic was the county getting in compliance with state law about managing our lake levels. Most attendees were more concerned about the actual lake levels than the legal issues; many wanted the levels to be higher later in the fall to facilitate fishing by sportspeople using very large (IMHO, aka relatively deep draft) watercraft.
The upshot was: the county needs to get in compliance, which means the legal lake levels are the issue—and so the judge ruled (if I properly understood what happened).
By the end of the day, it was sunny and pleasant, but the air quality seemed reduced—distant views are somewhat obscured by moisture and/or smoke particles, or perhaps even the arrival of Saharan dust.
Tuesday, 3 June 2025
The on-shore wind was pretty strong all day, kicking up waves.
Nevertheless, these dandies managed to hold their fluff-n-seeds, and keep them from sailing away.
Around 6:30pm rain rolled in. Now, the rain barrel is nearly full (after just having a skim of water on half the bottom), and it’ll be overflowing before midnight. This is very good, as things were getting far too dry.
Monday, 2 June 2025
I’ve been enjoying this small field of pussytoes, but the light is not helpful for photographing. At all; ever.
I worked on weed removal for a while, mostly thistles. Bye, y’all.
Sunday, 1 June 2025
I didn’t anticipate any more photos of the lupin pair that I’ve posted several times, until I saw them this morning en route to the beach this morning. Nipped in the bud. Or almost the bud. By deer, I’m sure.
Also deer-nibbled: apple branches that were low enough for the herbivores to reach in the winter starvation times.
At the beach, the water level has dropped since we arrived, but it’s still waaaaay too high IMHO.
Orchard view: petals are dropping, and leaves continue emerging, so that the petal-white is becoming overwhelmed. Still pretty, lovely, and wonderful, however.
Saturday, 31 May 2025
I did some outdoor chores this morning, which turned out to be a good decision because trace smokiness arrived in the afternoon, which meant I’d rather not be outside…so, instead I read some, and fidgeted with odds and ends of screen-and-internet activities.
Let me apologize for the run-on sentence/paragraph above with a morning photo of a gull and a pontoon boat offering visual interest in this lake view.
Friday, 30 May 2025
The lilacs are opening! The lilacs are opening!
The orchard has blooming clouds of apple blossoms!
The earlier photos show the strange overcast sky–partly due to smoke that blew in from Manitoba. It also rained for a few minutes, and the drops pasted apple petals to the rhubarb.
These are, I assume, survivors from my great-grandmother’s garden. They’re called Narcissus poeticus or poet’s daffodil, and are considered the first daffodil mentioned, way back in early Greek records. I did not know this until I burrowed into internet info.
By mid-afternoon, the Canadian smoke had abated and the sun came out. Hopefully, we won’t have smoke tomorrow….
BTW, here’s the lupin duo I’ve been tracking. As you can see, their brethern are also showing color, although most of the lupin in the orchard still have small or tiny flower-spikes.