A Mini-Adventure at Branstrom Park

Today was my day to have the stitches out of my mouth, requiring a trip to Muskegon. I couldn't waste the drive!

Well, I wanted to get another short Newaygo County trail to write about, so I went to Branstrom Park in Fremont. They are supposed to have a wooded two-mile hiking loop.

Yes, yes they do. The sign says it's well-marked. Hmm. Some of it is well marked. I had to stop someone right out of the parking lot and ask where the loop started. OK, got it. Then it was quite well marked. Until it wasn't. Or maybe it was. But the problem is that the park also has a disc golf course so there are trails all over the place. I managed to walk 2.5 miles, and I think I missed a section of the actual trail.

When I lost the trail and then came back to an intersection where I'd been before, I knew I'd gotten messed up.

I was using Avenza to track my route, which would allow me to find my way back even it I got really off. An awful lot of trails show up on Open Streets Map which is free with the Avenza download. But this one was not there. And I hadn't been able to find a map online (well, for free. AllTrails has it, but I'm not a member).

Anyway, after I lost the marked trail again, and came to another fork that was marked to the right, I chose left because I needed to get back to the car and on to the dentist. Found this cute little covered table.

Near the beginning are a couple of small bridges. The waterway is Daisy Brook Creek. I liked this rustic one, although the other was nice too. The pictures are a little dull. At this point in the day, it was completely cloudy. There were even rain showers on my way there.

Along the traills, I saw a few interesting things. This banded metamorphic rock is really nice. Not sure of the minerals.

This is Oriental Bittersweet. I didn't see a lot of it, thankfully, because it strangles trees and kills them. It's an invasive.

These awesome trees were hugging. The red is an oak (maybe scarlet or pin), and the yellow is a quaking aspen.

So, I got myself back to the car, but with having trouble finding the right parking lot and losing the trail twice, I had to call the dentist and tell them I'd be late. They were gracious.

The stitches are out, and they said it's healing really well. I have to wait until at least January before they can do an implant, so I have that long to decide if I really want it. I think I'm going to miss that tooth a lot, but I'll need to sell a lot of books and do some serious editing to pay for it.

Then... OH! One of my favorite things. I drove home on whatever back road I wanted. The sky cleared and it was a totally stunning day to be out for a rural drive in the fall. I have some pictures I definitly want to share, but they'll need to wait for another day. For today, I'll just share the Beaver Moon, coming up as I was writing this.

Now I have to do some kitchen stuff. And before I left this morning, I managed to fix a problem with my database. Great day!

I have to decide if I can use this hike and Old Grade in my news column. That was my plan, but neither trail is easy to follow. This one is nice in that it's only two miles, but has quite a bit of topography, so you can get some real exercise without a long hike.

Miles hiked in 2025: 429.4

Branstrom Park, Fremont, MI. various trails 2.5 miles

See Exploring Old Grade

Almost Full

 The moon wasn't full last night, but almost. Also, there were no clouds. Tonight, all is gray and snowy. So I bring you the almost full moon.

And, I decided to pretend I wasn't still recovering today. Don't worry, I didn't get nuts, but I tried to keep up a continual series of short bits of work and computer time and short rests.

I am tired, but it was pretty successful. However, now my eyes are overworked, so I guess I'll go lie down with an audiobook. Of course, almost all the things I'm really behind on require at least eyes, and 90% of those need screen time.

See Night and Day

Night and Day

I was lying in bed last night, not moving and yet sweating in the heat, and not sleeping due to all the neighborhood fireworks. I got up to get myself a snack and looked outside to see if I could at least see some of the fireworks since I had to listen to them. Nope. But look what I did see! This is a supermoon, but it's a day past full. Close enough. I do wish there wasn't a stupid wire between it and me, but. There is.

A supermoon occurs when the moon is full AND the moon is closest to earth in its orbit.

The hot night led right into a hot day. I managed to do about an hour's worth of work outside in the morning, but then I just couldn't stand it. I had errands to do anyway, so that was OK.

My car thermometer read 92 when I left my house. I had to go to downtown Ludington. Of course, the big lake moderates the temperature there. It was mid-seventies with a light breeze. That was certainly a delightful difference!

Each year, the edges of Ludington Avenue is lined with red, white, and blue petunias. They are planted with the goal of having them look fantastic for the Freedom Festival on the 4th of July. This year has been so dry that a bunch of the flowers died and had to be replanted. The volunteer crew doubled down and started watering them twice a day. This is quite a feat because it has to be done at times of low traffic. A small tanker drives the streets slowly, watering the plants. Perhaps they aren't mounded as full as some years, but they look pretty good. Service clubs and individuals volunteer to plant and weed the flowers.

Ludington in summer is all about the beach and the tourists. I really hate going into town. It's even hard to get out of my driveway, and we live six miles away. True to form, the line at House of Flavors for ice cream was half a block long. Drivers were honking and yelling at each other. And, the beach isn't even crowded yet.

This is my favorite picture. The sky was hazy... maybe I should have titled this the Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer. But the beach umbrella makes the shot. You can faintly see a couple of sailboats out past the lighthouse.

Whether you want to sing a Cole Porter song or prefer Nat King Cole, it is certainly summer. Post 4th of July, Ludington solidly enters its tourism phase. Since I had to go downtown, I tried to do all the errands there that I could think of. I hate going there at this time of year.

Places are starting to mark down their plants. Yeah! But there were also mundane needs like an inner tube for the wheelbarrow wheel. The free table at the library had a Ngaio Marsh book that I didn't own, so that's now mine.

After I got home, the temperature began to cool significantly. We may get rain tonight. But the cooler temps allowed me to get some plants in the garden. I've got both doors open with fans pulling in the cool air. I've already gotten the inside temperature several degrees lower. I'll keep this going until the bugs start to come in.

See Post Blue Moon

This and That and These and Shopping

 
I was just telling Sue, when she dropped off puzzles last week, that I hadn't seen a Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel in a couple of years. Of course you know what happened next. Sure enough! Here's one looking out for lunch. Since they only make holes in the yard, not in my house, their cuteness wins over any desire to find them new homes.



I told you I finished another puzzle. I really, really liked this one. It was very easy, but interesting to do. And it turns out it's a primitive painting of a real historical place. The Los Olivos RR (California), according to Wikipedia: "The southern terminus of the railroad was in front of Mattei's Tavern [the white building in the painting], where a stagecoach line continued over San Marcos Pass into Santa Barbara." I love the picture and the colors and the subject matter.



The super moon was visible! It's usually cloudy here.



I went grocery shopping. Eyeroll. And exchanging something at Home Depot, and getting a refund on a rotten head of lettuce, and getting better maps for my (hopefully) hike out of post office jail because they needed more postage. It was a day of ironic contrasts with small triumphs and matching disappointments. But, hey! I have maps, so nothing else matters, right? I've started seriously planning my big solo hike. This map set turned out to be just what I needed.

I got almost no sleep at all last night, and I finally gave up trying and got up to work on a project. Thus, bedtime may be early tonight.

See Look Who Woke Up

Just a Michigan Winter Day

 
Cold and gray here. Just a normal Michigan winter day. One nice thing is that you can always cool your feet with a quick trip to the compost bucket.


The gray sky opened up a tiny bit in the morning, showing pink linings



About noon, the SUN actually shone for maybe two minutes. And just at sunset we got a sun pillar.



It's one day away from the full moon, but with one more tiny break in the clouds I thought I should picture it. We might not see it tomorrow.



A friend from my hometown in New York is always posting beautiful sky pictures. Almost every day. Sigh... I had forgotten how gray our wonderful lake keeps the skies here in Michigan in the winter. Just gray.

In other news: I worked on North Country Quest in the morning and Accidentally Yours all afternoon. I am working on uploading the ebook, but still getting errors. Will keep working.

	See Along the Way
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Sky and Shy

 
I'll start with last night's sunset. These are always gorgeous over the lake, but I have a hill. The lake is seven miles away. Still, not shabby.



And the moon this week has been so bright. I wish the camera would capture the colors I could see. It wasn't quite dark yet, and the sky was a deep blue behind the clouds. If I knew how to use the camera settings better I probably could have gotten it.



This is the same woodchuck I showed you in May. She's still living by the house foundation. You can see she's getting pretty old, but not thin! And I dumped a bunch of stuff in the compost bin today, so that won't help her reduce.



In other news: I've been working on stuff for the Books Alive! event all day. Well, I did manage to write some this morning. That's not going to happen tomorrow. Lots of last-minute stuff to do.

	See One Cute Reason I Gave Up Gardening
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Loving the Mountains (and the Moon)

 
Marie lives practically at the base of the Catskill Mountains. These surround the Ashokan Reservoir. I may have a chance to get more pictures tomorrow.

This is High Point Mountain, at just over 3000 feet.



Just to its north is a series of peaks, left to right: Hanover, Balsam Cap, Friday, Cornell, and Wittenberg Mountains. The highest is Cornell Mountain at 3800 feet. I know lovers of the west look on these peaks with disdain, but I love them.



On an even smaller scale, the rocks by the grocery store parking lot are lovely covered in snow yesterday.



Today I was able to get a long shot to show how that tilted bed of stone lies right beside the road. More on how I reached this vantage point in a minute.



We ended the day with the just-past-full Super Snow Moon. Really bright. It's supposed to be the brightest full moon of 2019 because the moon is the closest to the Earth.



Most of the day was spent with another friend, Selma. We were planning to celebrate her 90th birthday with a lunch. Well, we did that, but we also took her to the eye doctor as she was having a fairly serious emergency. The office was on the 3rd floor, so there were some great views of the same peaks that can be seen from the Reservoir. Tomorrow, we are taking her to her regular specialist in New Jersey, because her eye needs immediate attention.

I was able to do some writing, and am REALLY close to finishing Chapter 12, "The Adventures of Alice in Central New York." I'm going to try to get that done before I fall asleep. See you tomorrow, probably with adventures from a New Jersey jaunt, but mostly seen from a car.

	See Into the Catskills
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Moon - Sun - Moon

 
Everyone has been posting pictures of last night's Super Blood Wolf Moon on Facebook. But I guess that won't stop me from adding my own version. Picture taken at 11:35 last night.



There was sunshine all day, even though it was cold. Started out at -6 degrees, but warmed up to 18 in the afternoon. Sun hung in there, and provided a molten gold sunset.



Just a couple of hours later, that old moon just showed up again, but golden this time.



In other news: I did get my act together. Finished writing a chapter, did errands mostly associated with getting the car ready for a long trip. Did other pre-trip necessities and preparations.

	See 2014 lunar eclipse
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Great Balls of Fire! Or Not

 
Great Balls of Fire! Literally and in an exclamatory sense. It's only mornings like this one when you can really look at that great ball of fire in the sky.



A few minutes later the red color was gone, but the scene was magical. This tree is nothing but an annoyance to mow around, except that I consider it my own private bonsai tree.


And the moon tonight was neither a ball, nor is it fiery, since it has no fire of its own. But I loved the blue sky.



In an exclamatory sense... Great balls of fire! There was no water last night when I went to bed. What the heck? We just had a new pump put on the well this past winter (at great expense). And, um... it's certainly not frozen this week. So I was not looking forward to getting in the well pit. I did check the breaker, which was fine. Laid awake agonizing over it all. So, this morning I dialed the pump man, and just thought I'd turn on the faucet while the call was going through. Water! Hung up, since I don't like talking to the pump man who is always annoyed with me.

I have no explanation for this. The well is not dry. It's 165 feet deep with 85 feet of water in it. It never ran dry when I was doing two loads of laundry a day and cooking for herds of people; I'm sure it's not in trouble with two of us who may do two loads of laundry a week and avoid cooking like the plague.

Someone suggested that new pumps have a thermal shut-off if they get too hot. This is my only guess.

	See Foggy Day- for same tree in afternoon fog
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Two More Spins

 
Yesterday and today-- two more spins around the axis

Last night's moon. I always like it when some foliage is silhouetted.



I was getting ready to post the moon picture alone when I realized that every bit of light outside was pink. Ran out to catch the sunset.



An almost unproductive day. Ho hum. Need to work on that tomorrow.

	See Color My World
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