Ha Ha, I Missed It!

Of all the holidays I never heard of, today is probably one I should have known. Apparently, it's National Take a Hike Day!

I did not take a hike. I did not even take a walk. I did cut some autumn olive and put away some more gardening stuff.

In honor of the National "Day," I am posting a video from my completion of the first NCT hike that you may not have seen. This was filmed by Petoskey News on August 5, 2010.



Of course, I finished the whole North Country Trail a second time in 2023. Some of you were there. Nobody made a video, but this is from the celebration at Timber Creek trailhead where I began and finished.



I guess I've taken a few hikes.

What I did do today was get a lot done on computer tasks and editing, and some house stuff.

See The Final Steps 2023 See The Party's Over, But It's OK- 2010

Bell Choir- November 2025

Bell Choir Sunday! This first one was pretty easy. Hymn of Grateful Praise, which is a medly of "For the Beauty of the Earth," and "All Things Bright and Beautiful."



Our second song was a lot harder, but we got it pretty good. This is "On Eagle's Wings," a moving and powerful song that was written in the 1970s and is based on Psalm 91, Exodus 19:4, Isaiah 40:31. I'll put the words after the video.



On Eagle's Wings by Michael Joncas

You who dwell in the shelter of the Lord,
Who abide in His shadow for life,
Say to the Lord, "My Refuge,
My Rock in Whom I trust."

Chorus:
And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,
Bear you on the breath of dawn,
Make you to shine like the sun,
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.

The snare of the fowler will never capture you,
And famine will bring you no fear;
Under His Wings your refuge,
His faithfulness your shield.

Chorus

You need not fear the terror of the night,
Nor the arrow that flies by day,
Though thousands fall about you,
Near you it shall not come.

Chorus

For to His angels He's given a command,
To guard you in all of your ways,
Upon their hands they will bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Chorus
And hold you in the palm of His Hand.

This may be Omer's favorite song.

And, of course, my new computer won't use the same video software and the new version is just awful. I managed to make it marginally functional. I'll have to try to figure something out another day.

I walked after church, came home, discovered I was tired. So, I made it pretty much a real rest day!

Miles hiked in 2025: 443.6

Ludington School Forest, various trails. 3.1 miles

See True Blue Gumby II

One Dang Autumn Olive Bites the Dust

Woo hoo! I finished cutting down that one big autumn olive I showed you the few remaining trunks of a few days ago. I raked the area where it had dropped all its leaves and killed any other vegetation.

I cut up the larger trunks for campfire wood. It's not the greatest. It's a soft wood like aspen. But I checked just to be sure it doesn't give off toxic smoke or anything. I wouldn't put it past this noxious plant. But it's ok to burn.

I treated all those cut stumps with the Tordon. Bright blue was just treated today. I put it on right while the cut is fresh. That blue-ish one on the left was treated a few days ago.

And what is my magical wand for getting at least this done? I bought a cordless pruner. Took me all summer to look at brands and decide what I wanted. This is Greenworks brand. It was purchased primarily because it's not too big for my hands. So far, I'm happy. The company makes over 100 tools that all take the same battery pack (so the inventory is expandable), and I got this on sale.

Now go back and look at the first picture again. See what's behind where this bush was? See what's beside where this bush was? More autumn olive.

In other news, I worked really hard today at necessary tasks- computer, editing, this yard stuff, kitchen cleanup. I hereby pat myself on the back.

See Before It Turns White

Beauty in the Details

We got another beautiful day! I had decided to use it to do my fall walk-through of the trail section I maintain. It was an easy amount of work. I had time to look for interesting details. This is the best.

I'm pretty sure this is a false chanterelle. Cute.

Still on the topic of mushrooms and fungus, this is some variety- I have no idea what- but see how it's growing in sort of a net pattern? The mycelium is under the bark and it puts up fruiting bodies in the softer cracks between the plates of the bark.

The bottomland hardwood swamp is completely dry. I've seldom seen it without any pools of water. This tree decided to become a terrarium. Probably Intermediate Wood Fern.

This just made me chuckle. It's an apartment building for some critters. I wonder who lives upstairs.

The trail work was easy. My section is in good shape. I only pulled a couple of small, downed trees off the path, clipped a little, and flipped away loose sticks.

Oh, a pic of my piece of trail? Sure.

And I did laundry and some editing.

Miles hiked in 2025: 440.5
NCT miles hiked in 2025: 244.8

North Country Trail, Lake and Mason Counties, Freesoil TH to Koenig Rd and back to Tyndall Rd. 3.5 miles.

See Work Day

The Indoor Plants

It's astonishing, but I can't think of anything interesting to blog about!

I edited, I did computer stuff, I shopped, I filled the veggie tray using my new chopper (it looks beautiful), but how many times would you readers find the same tray filled with the same vegetables interesting? I started to look up a little bit about the next generation in the genealogy, but as I suspected, there isn't much to find. I may have to get that DAR membership to learn much (which would be easy except for the dues because Granny and Mom were both members- so I don't have to start from scratch to prove anything). It was this generation's son-in-law who fought in the Revolution, and gives me the right to belong.

I played my game (but I MAY be able to be calmer about it.) They've added many layers of events because the really top-level players need things to do. So there's no way mid-level players, such as I, can explore all the lands. So I can just pick what I want to work on and try to meet my own goals.

It's fun. The current quest is to assemble a skeleton of the "Loch Dess" (not a typo) monster. You have to get some of the bones from an Inuit who was making oars of the ribs, a dog who wants to keep some of the bones, and a clown who is charging people to look at the skull. You have to go find the things these people and the dog want to trade for the bones. Along the way, there are rewards you can get, resources to collect, etc. And you have to keep your home station operating in order to have enough energy to do all this stuff.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure you really don't want to see a lot of screenshots of a game you aren't playing yourself.

How about the plants I'm nurturing in the house over the winter? Still not too exciting, but it's the best I can do today. I am attempting to keep a bunch of Coleus going. I brought in the 'Lemon Coral' sedum and the 'Sea Urchin' sedum. I have one sprig of 'Blue Elf' sedum, the wandering jew, a tiny aloe that manages to live but not thrive, and a whole bunch of the Aloe squarrosa which is a houseplant. I'm still trying to give several of those away if you are interested...

Remember the cleaning/sorting project I mentioned in September? Well, the point of that was to make space on a table where I can keep these plants for the winter. I think that space gets enough light to make them happy. And it doesn't matter if some water leaks onto the plastic cloth or the junky table underneath. In my dream world, I have one of those earth-sheltered greenhouses attached to my kitchen door by a breezeway, so I can keep plants and grow vegetables over the winter. Meanwhile, I have a rusty folding table and an old plastic tablecloth. It works.

Tomorrow is going to be nice again. I have a plan to do something more exciting than grocery shopping.

See Last Hurrah, Rock Garden 2025