Seeds- Common Blue Violet's Promise

 I have let a lot of the "wild" common blue violet live in the rock garden, Viola sororia. They are so profuse it would be really hard to get rid of them anyway, and they make nice filler wherever I want it. I just pull the rest.

No blossoms now. This is a spring picture, of course.

But what does it look like at the end of the season? When the seed pods split open and dump their seeds they look like mini wind turbines rising above the leaves.

Where are the seeds? They fall out of the pods really easily. I found one full of seeds, went to get the camera and by the time I got back a breeze or something had already emptied it. But I found another.

This picture is blown up. Each seed is barely a milimeter across. Tiny. But they sure do the job. There are violets sprouting all over the place.

I was good and worked on a lot of the things I should be doing today. Didn't walk. I ended up spending a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong with my phone. Ha! Turns out Verizon admitted to 100,000 complaints today. But the weird thing here is that Omer's phone worked and mine didn't. They are on the same plan and we were here in the same space. So, this did not make any sense to us. Anyway. It's working now.

See First Flowers of 2010

A Walk at the Conservation Park

  I really couldn't talk myself into a roadwalk today. The sun was hot and pavement didn't appeal. I had to go to the grocery store anyway, so Cathy and I went to the relatively new Pere Marquette Conservation Park for a walk. It's not much farther of a drive.

If you are local and keeping track, you know that there are huge plans for this property which will make it a recreation mecca. Meanwhile, I think the first thing that's happening is a fishing access on the north side of the river. We were on the south side, and over here, not much has changed yet. The "trails" are old graveled "haul roads," from when this was Dow Chemical property.

Still, they are mostly OK to walk. There was a reasonable amount of shade. This particular location was inviting.

There are views of the south side of Pere Marquette Lake, and the clear air and sun made for beautiful water. The buildings across the way are Oxychem, which used to be Dow. The property for this park, 300 acres, was all purchased from them.

I don't get very excited by deer. They are everywhere. But this lady put on a nice pose, so hey...

There was just a little breeze, but it was enough for this sailboat to be moving along at a steady pace. This is again Pere Marquette Lake.

This is a feature that I enjoy. The bare space at the bottom of this hill is part of what was once the grade of the Mason and Oceana Railroad. It was built for lumber and passenger service, but it never connected with any of the major lines. It ran from Buttersville (the village on this side of Pere Marquette Lake, across from Ludington), through Riverton, Wiley, Crystal Valley, and Walkerville. It's farthest extent was a place long gone called variously, Maple, Maple Range, and Beaver. There were 35 miles of track at its longest. As the lumber era came to an end, so did the railroad. There is a possible plan to make the section of the grade through the park into a multi-use trail.

Now for today's botany. The two single trees in that first picture are Horsechestnuts, Aesculus hippocastanum. There are six leaflets in the palmate leaf. (the sixth one is at the top left, a bit more wilted than the others). Lots of fruits on the ground. There is a spiny nut pod, and then the smooth brown seed inside. I popped a couple out of their shells, and they are right off the tip of the lower right leaflet. You can easily tell Horsechestnut from Ohio Buckeye (Aesculus glabra). B-U-C-K has 4 letters and 5 leaflets. H-O-R-S-E has 5 letters and 6 leaflets. There are usually 1 or 2 shiny brown nuts with the characteristic light spot in each pod.

When I got home from the walk and the store, I made a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. It just sounded good. And it was. Spent the rest of my time doing dumb stuff that needed to be done. I didn't get to sleep until 4 am- just kept working on a project and didn't want to stop. Consequently, there may be an early bedtime tonight.

Miles walked in 2024: 468.6

Pere Marquette Conservation Park, Ludington, MI. 2.8 miles

See Pere Marquette Conservation Park

Spirit of the Woods Hike, September

 It was a great day for a hike and a great day for National Public Lands Day. Our hikes are usually earlier in the month, but we chose to schedule it for this day because parking at the trailheads that require a pass was free today.

The Spirit of the Woods Chapter had 22 people and 3 dogs. The people ranged in age from those of us in our 70s down to a young man who is probably 11 or 12. He was a Scout, so I assume at least 11.

Along the way, we passed by the campsite created by a trail supporter on his land, more than 30 years ago. He can't hike any more due to an injury, but he welcomed us all in to the campsite and treated us with ice tea and cookies. You can't see them because everyone is clustered around the table grabbing stuff!

Here he is; this is Kurt. He was one of our charter members, and was actively supporting the NCT before we were even a chapter.

I was too busy talking to take many pictures. Besides, with this big of a group, we got strung out quite quickly. In fact, I was talking so much that the hike leader Glen had to point this out to me. This is actually pretty cool. It's the seedpods of Poke Milkweed, Asclepias exaltata. Link at the bottom to more pictures from another year. I really wasn't positive of the ID until I got home, because with only a few leaves and the seed pods, I thought there might be a couple of choices. But this one was on my list, and it is correct.

After we finished the hike, Loren and I went to visit one of our former chapter presidents who is on hospice. His wife is doing all his care. It's a bummer all the way around, but it was nice to see them.

Miles hiked in 2024: 465.8. NCT miles hiked in 2024: 142.5

North Country Trail, Manistee Co, MI. Udell TH to Michigan Ave and back. 5 miles

See Poke Milkweed See the welcome sign Kurt posted for me when I walked past on my big hike

What a Perfect Morning!

  Believe it or not, I haven't been paddling since 2017. That's hard to get my head around, but true. Well, I was doing a little hiking, and I have an issue with no rack for my car again. Pretty sure that date is accurate.

Anyway, friends Bruce and Jenny invited me to kayak on Round Lake, and they said they would bring all the equipment on their trailer. Can't turn that down!

The north side of Round Lake is not developed and we all enjoyed the "wild" feel. The quiet was wonderful. There were a couple of small boats on the lake, but it wasn't noisy at all. We loved the eroded roots of trees. This was the best. It looks like it's trying to climb out of the lake.

The colors of the day were blue...

and green.

We did see a couple of kingfishers, but getting pictures of them is nearly impossible. However, this blue heron let us get pretty close.

Got a decent picture when it took off.

But it didn't go far. There are quite a few dead trees along that shore, and the birds love to perch in them.

The trees are just starting to turn colors. This reflection catches the peaceful mood of the morning with hints of red.

I spent the rest of the day on my current pet project. I thought I might be sore becuase it's been so long since I've paddled, but not a bit. It was a lovely, lovely time.

See Kayaking the South Branch

Tour de Basil

 Time to make my salad dressing again. Friend Margaret dug up a whole basil plant that was flowering and sent it home with me. She says she's done all she can possibly do with basil for one season. Today, I picked off all the leaves that were still good and froze some for future batches of dressing.

Meanwhile, let's talk about the basil plant, Ocimum basilicum. I'd never really thought about where it fits taxonamically. Would you belive it's a mint? It has pretty white flowers (but that means the end of harvesting it for a herb. Some varieties are tender perennials, but Margaret says not these ones. She's tried.

There are several varieties of basil, and I don't know which this is, but here is a stem with whorls of seed pods forming below the budding stalk along the square stem. That's a big clue that it's a mint.

This stem has broken off and you can really see the shape of the pods although they aren't ripe yet, and that the stem has four sides.

Here's a stalk just starting to bud. I love the telescoped layers of baby leaves.

Now I'm practically high on basil from harvesting all the leaves!

In other news: no walking happened. I stared at the computer so long my eyeballs ache, but I got a lot done.

See Is it Easy Being Green?

Violet-Toothed Polypore

  There was one other nice treat from yesterday. This is at least the third time I've seen Violet-toothed polypore, Trichaptum biforme, which seems like a contradiction in terms. It truly is a polypore (characterized by having lots of pores on the underside. But it appears to have teeth. It's also supposed to be quite common, but not in my experience. Anyway, this is the one we saw yesterday.

This is the most spectcular-looking one I've seen.

And as it fades it looks more brown

In other news: I worked on things I was supposed to almost all day. Lots of frustration. I did find the master files for the project I needed, but they were somewhat outdated. Worked on getting that sorted out. I'm waiting for responses from a few people for other projects. I walked to the post office.

Miles walked in 2024: 460.8

See True Blue Gumby II

In the Rain but On the Trail

 I had a chance to walk a section of trail today. What's a little rain, right?

I like how this piece has a long climb up a valley. It's all graded very gently until you get to the very top where it's a little steeper.

This is Crowned Clavaria, or whatever they're calling it these days. A nice patch.

The leaves weren't turning very much yet. The sassafras is getting yellow, which is what 98% of it does. But every once in a while, one will go to red.

This maple leaf is getting with the September program, but it didn't have many buddies yet.

Today was non-stop. I had to meet someone at the trail at 10 am, and after we hiked I just had time to eat and clean up before bell choir. Then I had to make a stop in town, get gas and a couple of grocery items. Managed to soak two outfits and two pairs of shoes in one day. I didn't sleep much last night. I don't think I'll be upright much longer.

Miles hiked in 2024: 458. NCT miles in 2024: 137.5

North Country Trail from Sawdust Hole to Upper River Road TH, Manistee Co, MI

See To Blacksmith Bayou and Beyond

Where I(t) All Began

  One of my third cousins (the toddler pictured in the second link below) sent me this from a box she had been sorting. She is the youngest sibling of my cousin Jean that is featured here fairly often since we've reconnected.

It was sent to my mother's second cousin Helen, as you can see from the envelope. Helen was an aunt of Wendy, the lady who sent it on (back) to me. See Helen in the first link below.

Here's the interior. You can see that I started out tiny (and I was 3 weeks overdue) and although it appeared for a while that I was going to be tall, as things turned out... I'm still fairly tiny.

In other news: I worked on computer things in the morning, including (I am beyond overjoyed to report) finding some master files that I thought might have been permanently lost in a double computer/external hard drive crash two computers ago. But I had them in a third location, also on a flash drive. What a relief!

In the afternoon I prepared books for mailing and walked to the PO. Have had a little time for my pet project.

Miles walked in 2024: 451

See Cousin Helen See Jean Hall and Joan Hall

Changing the Season

 It really began to feel like fall today. It rained all day and was much cooler.

I worked in the rock garden for 15 minutes in the rain, but mostly I sat in front of the computer. I uploaded the revised text of How to Hike the North Country Trail. Hopefully most of the errors are now gone, although I did see a couple of minor formatting things go by. Next time.

Then I worked on my pet project.

Cathy texted me at dinnertime and said she was starting a jigsaw puzzle. It was good to stop looking at the computer for a couple of hours. It's called "Cats in the Garden Shed," and here's how much we got done. It's a fun one- not super easy but not hard. She'll probably finish it without me. First one I've touched since June!

No walking of any merit was done.

See Almost Christmas, Almost July

Another Walk Around Ludington

 The day stared with engaging my brain much earlier than I like with a radio interview on WMOM with Bill Kerans who is the Director of the Scottville Senior Center. The interview went well, and you can see/hear it if you would like at Interview on WMOM

After that, it was still somewhat cool out, so I took another walk around Ludington, hitting some different streets from last time. You know I'm most interested in flower gardens. The porch and the one with the bench are like real-life examples of the displays at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

and

This one has great textures and colors and shapes. A little past prime, but hey, it's more than halfway through September.

Then I came home and finished straightening up before Omer got home, finished editing the How to Hike Book (will upload the revised text tomorrow), and I've made it to tired. Trying to spend a little time on the current pet project.

Yup, the boy is home.

Miles walked in 2024: 448

See True Blue Gumby II