Little & Big Gems at Muskegon

 
There were just too many pictures from yesterday to use all at once, so I saved the fun stuff for today.

Bright yellow fungus. I don't think it's Witches' Butter... too structured. That looks more like globs. My best guess is Yellow Fairy Cups, Bisporella citrina. They usually grow on trees that have lost their bark. Check. They often fruit in the fall. Check. They can grow somewhat individually, but often in clusters of little cups without noticeable stalks. Check.



Also, a polypore, nothing special, maybe turkeytail without much banding. But the colors are nice.



Here's the best. Another dragonfly. Although the red meadowhawks are supposed to be really hard to identify in the field, and even though this isn't the best picture, I'm going to take a guess and say it's Yellow-legged Meadowhawk, Sympetrum vicinum. It was smaller than the other red meadowhawks I've pictured. The legs definitely aren't black. The others start with brown legs that mature to black, while this one starts with yellow legs that mature to reddish brown. It's a late-season dragonfly that often flocks in groups, and there were a whole lot of them in one place. They are known to be "confiding," meaning they will land on people. In fact this one sat on my hand for a few minutes so I really got a good look, but couldn't figure out how to take a picture with only my left hand.



I just liked this. There were several similar trees, but this was the best. For some reason, the bark peeled leaving a sort of crown near the cut end of the log.



Last treat- the man-made kind. This is the Milwaukee Clipper, built in 1904, a Great Lakes ferry, now a floating museum docked in Muskegon.



In other news: Today started with handbell choir. I think we played well, an arrangement of The Church's One Foundation. In the afternoon I did laundry. And here's a real news flash. Omer and I worked together and got the bottom door seals on both the front and kitchen door changed, so the wind and water can't blow underneath them this winter! Hooray for small victories.

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Muskegon State Park and a Mini-Miracle

 
The sales event finished at 2 pm, and the day was beautiful, so I went to Muskegon State Park and took a little walk.

First the mini-miracle. I had thrown walking shoes in the car, but no alternate clothes. I was wearing light tan pants, which should have almost guaranteed I'd fall in the mud. And when you see the pictures you'll know that is no idle claim. But I did not get muddy. Wow. I'm ruining my Pigpen reputation, I guess.

This was spur of the moment, and I was glad there were some trail maps at the kiosk. A web site said you could do a 4.2 mile loop with the Devil's Kitchen and Dune Ridge Trails. In theory, this is what I did, but the trail signage leaves a lot to be desired, and the paper maps are copies of copies of copies... hard to read.

Anyway, I left the Snug Harbor parking lot and headed south. I would have avoided some disorientation later if I'd noticed that the map is printed with North to the left, instead of up. This wasn't a major problem, but I was momentarily confused when I came to Lake Michigan after hiking what I first thought was east!

Today I'll just show the trail, and tomorrow some pretty details.

The first part of the trail was wide and inviting.



But then it came to the Devil's Kitchen, a long narrow bayou of Muskegon Lake. The park gets bad points for signage, but I'll grade on a curve because of the high water this year, making lowland trail maintenance difficult. However, when I came to this, I just said "no," because I wasn't going wading in muck.



A short distance up-bayou was this crossing. Not too unsteady. Still, I thought sure I'd dunk a leg since I was wearing good clothes, but I didn't.



On the far side there were trails all over the place, unmarked, so I picked one that climbed, and found myself, after a bit, on the Dune Ridge Trail. This was fine, although my original intent was to take the Devil's Kitchen Trail out and Dune Ridge back.

Soon I was approaching Lake Michigan with views across the dunes.



I caught a shot of the Lake Express ferry (Muskegon's rival of the Badger carferry in Ludington). It's coming in the channel from the big lake to Muskegon Lake.



Then the Dune Ridge Trail drops down to the lake level. After some paved walking past the south campground loops, the Devil's Kitchen Trail heads back along the shore of Muskegon Lake.



So, I'm thinking about that bayou-kitchen with high water, and wondering how this trail is going to get around it, or if I may need to turn around and backtrack the whole thing. Well, it was a nice day, so what if I have to?

The trail got narrower and narrower, but there was still a little dry ridge between the lake and the bayou. (If you danced between the waves.)



Until there wasn't! With solid brush beyond.



So, I turned around. But at the bottom of the dune where the Kitchen begins, there was a narrow trail I hadn't noticed that leads along the edge of the bayou. I took that, and soon was deciding between a somewhat dry ridge, or to walk around the head of the bayou. The ridge looked iffy, so I kept going, and the trail did just circle around the bayou, completely dry. As I came back to the actual trail, ha! That ridge was indeed the trail, and it was where I had earlier crossed on those sticks.

One last view of the Devil's Kitchen from near the head of the bayou.



And I just liked the reflection of the red leaves in the puddle.



Took me two hours to do the loop. Probably about four miles, what with loose sand on the dune, taking pictures, and trying to figure out the correct trails.

If you do this, I suggest at least having a map. My route is in red. I started and finished at the north end.


Pretties tomorrow!

In other news: The show was fine, although I sold 4 times as much last year. Last year, it was in November, and I suspect people were Christmas shopping in earnest by then. I made some money today, but not nearly as much as I'd hoped. The hike redeemed the day.

Muskegon State Park, Muskegon, Michigan, Devil's Kitchen and Dune Ridge Trails. 4.2 miles

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Bread Day Stupor

 
Made bread today. Not a great success. I tried a different recipe for plain white bread, but it was not as good as the one from Sylvia, or one from a friend, Margaret. And it said it made two loaves, but I think that would be ONE. The texture is fine, but the loaves are thin. Ho hum. I still ate myself into a carb comfort stupor while it was warm. No regrets.



Sunrise this morning was nice. Tomorrow, I'll be on the road long before the sun arrives. I have a vendor event all day.



In other news: I listened to a journal tape for the book this morning, loaded software to transfer it to digital another day, and edited in the afternoon. Plus the bread. It would have been a great day for a hike, but waiting for bread to rise and bake does not allow one to leave the premises.

	See Buttermilk Honey Bread
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Mimosa Mystery

 
I didn't get much farther into the pictures before finding another plant with uncertain ID. It's certainly a mimosa.



What I did not previously know is that there are about 450 species in the genus Mimosa. Some are trees and others are trailing vines.

I would assume this to be the invasive and alien Mimosa pudica or common sensitive plant, except that the seed pods are wrong.

In the first place, I didn't know that mimosas are legumes... that means they are in the pea family, so they have those same kind of pea-pod seed case shapes. You can see that above. But here's the ID problem. In M. pudica the pods are arranged in whorled clusters. These, as you can clearly see, are spread along the stem.



The other thing I did not know is that mimosas have thorns. See those nasty buggers along the stem?



In fact, the very unfriendly plants known collectively as cats-claw, which mostly grow in states like Texas and the southwest, are also mimosas.

And I learned that as attractive as the tree species can be, they are obnoxious, messy and invasive plants. One garden site said the best time to prune a mimosa is whenever you have a chainsaw.

Just as a curiosity, it did not fold its leaves when I touched it, but I guess that was a fluke. It's clearly some mimosa.

The most fascinating thing is the mechanism of sensitivity. I learned a bit about this when I was teaching Human Anatomy (one semester as an adjunct prof). It's the whole question of how are mechanical stimuli or chemical reactions transformed to electrical current? In a body this question relates to how nerve cells pass electrical impulses across synapses. Well, remember that an atom is basically electrons buzzing around protons, and that chemical bonds are formed when elements swap or share electrons. But cell membranes can't let large ions (molecules with an electrical charge) through (usually, calcium, potassium, and sodium), but there are special channels, some for moving ions upgradient (this requires energy) and other passive channels which allow ions to flow down gradient. Thus the movement of chemicals creates electrical current.

In other news: I didn't sleep well last night, and spent a lot of time just listening to music. So, slept late today. But I did get a lot of writing done after I got up, and did some other things that needed to be done to be ready for a large vendor event this Saturday.

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Mackay's Fragile Fern

 
I haven't made a list yet of the new plants I saw in Kentucky, but tonight I took a harder look at one of the ferns I got pictures of, and I think it's another new one. I thought this was Fragile Fern, and it sort of is. I was going to show how it likes to grow out of crevices in rocks, and it does.



But I don't think it's the common Fragile Fern, Cystopteris fragilis. I think it's Mackay's Fragile Fern, Cystopteris tenuis, which isn't really rare, either, but I hadn't seen it before. You might recall it took me forever to identify fragilis.

One reason I took this one's picture is the mature sori on the underside.



The round shape and random placement are consistent with a fragile fern. But here's the part that made me read all the text in my most detailed fern guide.

Here's a picture of a mature frond of C. fragilis. See how the pinnae (leaflets) are growing out from the rachis (stem) at right angles?


Now look at the first picture above. I know it's hanging downward, but all those pinnae are angled toward the tip. Yow can even tell this is true in the closeup with my hand. They aren't at right angles.

Thus, I'm tentatively calling this Mackay's Fragile Fern.

Now, if I could only remember more of these many ferns I've discovered. Some of them I have down pat. Others not so much.

In other news: It was a nasty cold windy and rainy day. I wrote in the morning, and printed and assembled 20 copies of Devotions for Hikers in the afternoon, and went to the Post Office and bank. But I didn't feel the need to walk there in the bad weather. I have a car.

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