10 Miles = Hike 100 Challenge

 It took a little longer than last year, but I finished the 2026 Hike 100 Challenge today. It wasn't planned, but it seems fitting that I accomplished it at the place the trail is closest to my house.

I pulled this off with a ten-mile hike on the North Country Trail today. In fact, it's the first ten-mile hike I've done this year. I needed to accomplish one for sure before I commit to my hopeful hike this fall.

Well, I did it. And I did it in 88% humidity. The temperature was decent, but I was soaking wet when I got home and not because it rained. It WAS supposed to rain, but it didn't. My knees and hips are tired, but not impossibly painful, and the joints didn't seize up like concrete after I got home.

Two nice finds on the trail. This is a group of Inky Cap mushrooms.

Best find of all was a really large blue racer. They aren't endangered, but they are becoming more rare.

Here's a closer look at his head. He was right beside the trail, but he let me pass.

I didn't do much else today. I figured the long hike would be enough. It took me just over 3.5 hours. I did take one snack break, so that was pretty close to a 3 mile/hour pace. I chose the route on purpose because it has decent elevation change. Not sure about all the ups and downs in between, but overall, I climbed 260 feet from beginning to turnaroud. If I'd been willing to make it an 11-mile hike I could have climbed another 130 feet. Maybe another day. That's a fair amount of elevation change for around here, so even though it's such a familiar hike to me, it's a good workout.

Miles walked in 2026: 287.2
Hike 100 Challenge 2026: 108.7= Complete
Onekama Challenge: 99.0 miles! I'll complete that tomorrow.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. Wingleton Rd to 8th St and back. 10 miles

See 2025 Hike 100/A>

Onekama Township Parks

One of the things you can do for the Onekama Challenge is visit all 7 Onekama Township Parks to get a sticker. Today, Cathy and I went and did that. There were places you could hike/walk at 3 of them.

First we went to John Langland Park which is where the channel from Portage Lake enters Lake Michigan. There is a short accessable walkway to the beach, but by hiking a little extra down to a public access point we were able to hike along the channel to the light on the north breakwall.

I do love these Lake Michigan pictures with nothing but sky and water.

There were ducks alongside the breakwall. Mama merganser...

And a raft of teenagers trailing her.

Then we went to North Point Park where there were also hiking trails. Part were paved for accessibiltiy, and part were dirt surface. One short loop was gravel. A nice feature there was a garden of native plants that are labeled in Braille, Anishinaabemowin, Spanish, and English. Most of the plants are very new or gone. Hopefully it will be maintained. That had 2 miles of trails, and they were fine, but my favorites were the lakeside one above, and the next one.

There was a mile of trail at Glen Park. This is the site of a mineral spring where a grand hotel was built in the late 1800s. The waters were considered restorative, and people traveled from all over to visit. Here is Cathy on a bridge over the creek.

Several places in the creek still have these ceramic tiles sunk in them to contain pools of the mineral water. And these three are under a shelter to help preserve them. I sampled the water, and yup, it has that oily, mineral taste.

Of course the hotel burned long ago, and we couldn't even figure out where it had been. This park had the most primitive trail and the most topography.

After we visited all seven (two of them we barely got out of the car because it was just a matter of taking a picture of a sign for wetland preserves- but it was good to know the township is preserving a fair amount of wetlands), we went for ice cream. Came home, did a few errands, voted. Oh yeah, I got laundry on the line before we left this morning. I had a Zoom event at 6 pm, but I forgot. Hopefully it was recorded.

Miles walked in 2026: 277.2
Onekama Challenge: 89.0 miles

Onekama Township, Michigan, John Langland Park, Glen Park, and North Point Park trails. Total 4.1 miles

See Portage Lake- A Brief Glimpse

Critter Day

These were taken over the last few days. Here's my local woodchuck. They often take very human poses, and this one was standing upright for quite a while before s/he saw me and scooted away. Just needs a vest and tophat!

This is author friend Jean with one of her chickens that helps her sell books. This is Jelly.

Here's a Margined Blister Beetle. There were a bunch in the rock garden. I'm not sure what they were eating. Web says they eat alfalfa, but probably other things too. If you squish them the "juice" can give you a blister.

This is one of the red meadowhawk dragonflies. But it's smaller than the ones I usually see. Not sure which of the meadowhawks. This was also in a flower bed.

Here's the best one, but I couldn't move fast enough to get the best picture. There was a very large spider climbing up a rock in the rock garden. But it didn't look right. Then I realized that the spider was dead and it was being carried by about 5 ants that were probably taking it "home" for dinner. I don't think I've ever seen ants capture anything this large. You can see one ant hanging on the lower leg of the spider and one pulling at the very top.

Today, I worked my little part-time job, did some volunteer stuff and some gardening. Took a road walk after dinner- 4 miles.

Miles walked in 2026: 273.1
Onekama Challenge: 84.9 miles

See Ruby Meadowhawk

Heuchera Health

I'm trying the next possible way to get Facebook to pull through a picture. This suggestion says to put a picture before any text. Let's see if this works.

Today's post is going to be a report on all my various Heuchera. It will be long, because I now have quite a nice collection! The picture above is one of the new ones this year called 'Smoke and Mirrors.' It looks really good.

On the other hand, I think, with no regrets, I'm going to give up on the very first one I bought about 30 years ago. It's the very common 'Purple Palace.' One year it got about twice this big, but it just never was able to thrive. Who knows why? I have a very pretty Heucheralla picked out to put in the space, but I need to not buy any more plants for a while. At least any that cost more than a couple of bucks.

This is another common one, 'Caramel.' Because it's common, I thought I didn't want one, but I decided it would look really good in this spot, and I was right.

In general, I've tried not to have any duplicates, but I did split the 'Caramel.' The piece was quite small, but I think it's going to live. I know it doesn't look great, but it is alive.

The other one I have several of is 'Firefly.' I love the bright green of the leaves and the flowers are actually showy enough to enjoy. You can see one of the late ones still in this picture taken today.

'Midnight Rose' has darkened. The pink spots don't show up as well as earlier in the season, but I suspect that this is normal. It also looks good except for a few leaves that got a bit too much sun. I kept them out of the picture.

This one is'Seasons King.'

Which contrasts nicely with 'Carnival Cinnamon Stick.'

Here's the first one I bought other than the ill-fated 'Purple Palace.' This is 'Cathedral Windows.' It almost died from the days when the animals browsed through the gardens at will. They killed quite a few nice plants. But this came back.

When I put in 'Caramel,' I moved 'Peach Flambe' to a new location. It's not really happy there and has gotten smaller. I'll need to watch it. The light is too dappled for a good picture, but I like the color a lot. It was the first one I bought in 2023 when I started trying to spiff up this garden bed.

Another that I bought, maybe later the same year was 'Electric Plum.' It is also brighter earlier in the season. But it, too, has gotten smaller, and it's one of my favorites, so I'll need to watch it. When the light shines through the leaves they really do seem electric.

Also purchased in 2023 was 'Dark Knight,' which is naturally smaller, but I really like the shape of the leaves.

I think there's just one other, which is 'Amber Lady.' It stays fairly red all season.

So how many different ones is this? Not counting 'Purple Palace,' it's eleven different ones. Of course, I have picked out a couple others I want. Eventually... not right away!

I said today was going to be a rest day, and I enforced that except for truly minimal putzing in the gardens. Mostly I read books. Tomorrow I need to get back in gear.

See Front Garden Report #1- 2024

Holland Centennial Park Gardens

 I thought I showed you some pix last year of the gardens at the park where the Art in the Park vendor event is held, but apparently not. They are very nice!

The gardens are dedicated to L. Frank Baum because his family cottage was nearby, and it is believed that he wrote a fair amount of The Wizard of Oz while at the cottage. The book is a frame covered with 6000 plants. It is taken inside every winter.

I'll only show you a few of the garden beds. There were many! This one has several kinds of hosta - big ones- a purple heuchera, and a border of begoinias.

I love this! It's a very light-colored Hakone grass with really dark heuchera.

One whole garden was edged with alternate coleus and begonias.

Mass plantings of zinneas were bright! This has a racemed hydrangea behind it.

This was also one of my favorites. This is two different kinds of coleus both in the Flamethrower series. The red is 'Adobo Pink' and the green is 'Salsa Verde.'

I did OK at the event. The weater was cool (good), but drippy with sprinkles (hard to manage books, and lower attendance). The worst was I had a stomach ache all afternoon. Only a minimal clue why. Pretty much gone now.

I am declaring tomorrow a mostly rest day.

I may have figured out how to force Facebook to post a picture. We'll see. Of course it's a pain in the butt.

See Hemlock Crossing and More