Top Commenters - July, and Some Plans

Here is yesterday's beautiful sunset! They were saying we might get to see the Northern Lights, but I checked a couple of times before I went to bed with no luck, so had to settle for sunlight... but it isn't shabby!

I'm happy to report there were 53 different people who left messages in July, and a total of 286 separate comments (not counting my own responses to them).

The top 10 commenters for the past month are:
Ann's Snap & Edit (Ann- 32 comments)- Hey, I don't mind that Ann always has something to say, but doesn't this challenge someone to beat her some month?
Carmen's Chronicles (Carmen- 27 comments)- Carmen shares her life around San Francisco.
My Journey (rainfield61- 22 comments)- rainfield communes with small creatures and landscapes
String Too Short to Tie (David (vanilla)- 20 comments)- David is taking some time off from this blog, but is still visiting his friends
The Everyday Adventurer (Ratty- 19 comments)- detailed looks at the beauty around us- usually critters!
Secondary Roads (Chuck- 18 comments)- life in the slow lane- with his wonderful kitty, Midnight
Don't Unplug Your Hub (John- 14 comments)- a new reader, with an interesting life- check it out.
The Joys of Simple Life (Betchai- 12 comments) beautiful hikes in the western US- if you love mountains, go visit her
The Best Parts (Ferd- 11 comments)- he and Gail share their lives and birding adventures
Spinning Lovely Days (Ivy- 10 comments)- a mom and mom-to-be, but this is more than a mommy blog.

I really value all of you! The small banner in the sidebar for a month is just a tiny way to say thanks for sharing your thoughts.

And the plans? The annual North Country Trail Association conference is the coming weekend in Dayton. I'm meeting Marie in Ohio on Monday, and we will be hiking for three days toward the goal of finishing the Buckeye Trail. This won't be a very wild walk, but I'm sure there will be fun things to share. There always are!

I'm going to load some posts that will show up in case I don't get to do them while on the road. But I'm sure I'll have some chances to bring you "live coverage."

Beech Nut

I love the stately American Beech,Fagus grandifolia, but all the critters in the forest love it even more. It produces lots of beechnuts, which are often called mast. Many animals depend on food like this in the winter. Here's what the beech nuts look like when they appear on the tree.



The spiky shells split open when they fall to the ground and there is a three-part nut inside. I like the way they taste, but they can be bitter. They are better after the first frost. Supposedly you can grind them into flour or roast them for a coffee substitute, but I've never tried any of that.

Here's the husk, close up.



I'm getting ready to sneak off for a week- I'll tell you more tomorrow.

Ellen & Joan Have Another Excellent Adventure

Today was amazing! The morning started out cooler and the humidity backed off a little. Ellen and I decided to do something fun. I took my bike to her house, and we rode from there up Lakeshore Drive to the south side of the Ludington Channel. You can see the lighthouse on the right side of this picture. We are on the left side, and we walked out to the red and white beacon light. To get to the lighthouse via dry land requires about 10 miles!



I actually hadn't realized that you could walk the south breakwall, but Ellen knew, and I was glad to learn how to get to the path.



The picture above is a lot more tame than it might look. I had just stepped on to one of the big rip-rap rocks from the end of the pier. There were more beyond me- no big dropoff, although that is what it looks like.

Ellen was perfectly happy to stay on the level cement.



If you look in the top picture, you'll notice a sailboat just coming into the channel. The channel leads to things like the Marina, and where the carferries are berthed (I've showed you those before). It's also the mouth of the Pere Marquette River, which I mention and visit fairly often.

We saw these cuties on the breakwall. I'm really ignorant about sandpiper identification, but I think these are just our common spotted sandpiper.



No pictures of the rest of the trip. We stopped at a park on the ride back and ate our lunches, then rode to another park, closer to Ellen's house, and swam in the big lake. Wow!

I don't really have words to describe that. It was very windy by this time- flags were blowing out straight from the poles, and that was piling up some really big waves. They were SO much fun to ride and bounce in. The water was a lot cooler than the small lake I've been swimming in too. I actually got cooled down.

Then we finished the ride (fortunately the wind was now at our backs), and had ice tea before I needed to head for home. Total miles ridden- about 22. We spent five hours just having a blast, and it cost nothing except the gas for me to drive to Ellen's.

Sigh... on the way home I stopped at the computer shop and my laptop is D-E-A-D. No data lost, but I have to get a completely different one, and make the horrid leap to Windows 7. I have bad premonitions about it not running a lot of my software. But I'll try not to fret until I know. It's ordered. The rest of the day was so awesome that I can't even be too discouraged about the whole computer thing.

Meanwhile, I can only tolerate minimal computer time on the desktop.

	See Twin Queens of the Lakes

Teddyghan- Done!

The one good thing about not having my laptop computer is that I am forced to do other things in the evening. Things like finishing this project, perhaps in time for it to reach the Philippines before Ivy's baby is born. Maybe not...

Some of you may remember that in a contest hosted here in January, people submitted patterns for baby items, and Ivy, of Spinning Lovely Days chose the one she liked best. The winner was Ann of Ann's Snap and Edit.

But, I had laid it aside when the weather heated up... not a good plan when babies don't wait. So, Ivy, it's complete, and will be in the mail to you before the end of the week. Hope it doesn't take six weeks to get there! I think the baby is due in just about that long.



Sorry I'm not visiting as many of you as usual. The desktop is just too slow to make it all happen.

	See Does Anyone Remember This Project?

Yesterday's Storm

It was in interesting day. My laptop is in the repair shop- some sort of power issue, they think. Life sans laptop is interesting. I can't make myself sit at the desktop for the entire day and evening. Plus, it has issues of its own. However, I did manage to get it to recognize the USB port tonight. So, you get to see some pictures from just before the storm last night



The first two are the storm front that was just about to hit us. The view is toward the north.



Here's the really odd thing. The clouds were reflecting the light in such a way that the sky to the west was all dark, but the clouds in the east were all lit up. So we got to see sunset in the east! It was all very beautiful, and then we got a little rain.



The up side to being separated from the computer is that I've been working on things that don't need the computer. There are always things that need to be completed. I mowed some grass, and went for a swim. I've been swimming almost every day for the past couple of weeks. Today I just felt as if I could have kept swimming forever.