Concert at St. Joseph's- 2025

Tonight was the annual concert of the West Shore Choir and our bell choir at St. Joseph's Church in Hart. I've showed you a lot of pictures of the building in the past. It's beautiful! But I try not to share the same stuff over and over.

Om got a pretty good picture of us playing the bells.

Most of what the choir does is from the loft at the back. I'll just remind you that this church is a favorite of the directors because it has amazing acoustics. You can't really see anyone in this picture, but it gives you the sense of how it's staged.

The decorations are always beautiful.

Part of the choir (the portion that are students at West Shore Community College) did come down in front to sing Carol of the Bells a capella. They were spot on!

We played all four of our songs. (Between the church service on the 21st and Christmas Eve, I'll get them recorded.) The choir pieces ranged from popular Christmas songs to a portion from "The Messiah" with the Hallelujah Chorus.

Everyone got to sing three carols.

And, as usual, the church fed all the musicians afterwards. We stayed briefly.

I got some work done in the morning.

See Concert at St. Joseph's- 2024

Camping Theme Ornaments

I did post once before about these in 2010, but since then I've been given a lot more ornaments for the collection. I now have so many that I didn't even put them all out. There are tents, hiking boots, paddles, canoes, skis, snowshoes, skiing and snowshoeing bears and moose, canoeing/skiing/showshoeing Santas, all kinds of camping gear, leaves, campfires. I really love the collection. Most of them have been gifts from friends. Some are hamdmade.

Over the past year I found both the green cloth and the set with the little girl and tent. That was a birthday present from Marie a lot of years ago- maybe 2007ish. I could look it up, but who cares? Anyway, I thought I lost it somewhere (not a quality event), and was really happy when I found it.

These haven't been out for several years. I decided to make it the table decoration for this year.

Sadly, you can't see the ornaments very well. I put some white lights on the tree and they don't really help the decorations show up. You'll just have to come see them yourself! Here is the left tree.

And the right tree. Can you see that the trail is the NCT? And there is a blue blaze on the tree.

Here's a closeup of the doll set. She has a tent, a sleeping bag, a pack, and a purple squirrel. The squirrel is up in one of the trees. The campfire is an ornament from National Wildlife, and the water bucket and lantern are part of a set, maybe also from NWF. The dog peeking around the corner of the tent is very like Chips. And down in front is Snoopy with his troop of Woodstock and associated campers. I'm a snoopy fan.

But Omer came home today and he plopped an obstruction down right in the trail! We'll need a chainsaw.

I continued to be somewhat lazy today, although when Om came home he got stuck in the driveway, so getting him out was my excercise for the day! Did some more cleaning in the kitchen and finished the turkey soup. Kitchens just get awful.

Back to business tomorrow.

See Camping Christmas Trees

Christmas Concert - Our Savior Lutheran

The other big activity yesterday was the bell choir's participation in the Our Savior Lutheran Church Christmas concert.

We were only a part of the musical program. Their choir sang several songs- Breath of Heaven, Mary Did You Know, and a medly with the Sunday School kids, shown here. And there were other soloists, and we all sang some carols.

The church was beautifully decorated. The large tree is covered with symbolic ornaments.

And they have a large nativity set in the hallway.

Of course, it takes a lot of work to set up for bell choir. We had to move all that stuff to the church, unload, set up, and then take it down afterwards too! This isn't during the performance, but near the end of the set-up time. We were first, so that the tables could then be moved out of the way for the rest of the program.

I want to say that the kids did a great job. They sang "Away in a Manger" in counterpoint to a different melody the choir was singing behind them. They were loud enough and on key. The younger girls were dressed in St. Lucia costumes, although that celebratrion doesn't come for another week, I think. The microphone kept me from getting a really good picture, but it's still cute.

Afterwards, they served cake and ice cream, egg nog, and wassail punch in the fellowship hall.

It was as full a day as I'm interested in any more! But great. I really enjoyed the Christmas celebration.

Today, I've mostly taken it easy. My goal has been to work at cleaning up the house a bit.

See SPW Hike- December

Spirit of the Woods Hike- December

Quite a change from a month ago when we were actually hiking, and in lighter jackets. Today, most everyone walked on snowshoes, and the temperature was about 28°.

But we had a good turnout with about 15 people and 4 dogs. I think a couple of people and 1 dog didn't make the picture.

We had more snow last night, so the trees were all decorated with marshmallow puffs!

Indeed, the trail was completely unwalked, but we put a strong guy out in front to break trail. I did a mile out and a mile back. Some of the younger folks went a little farther.

Somehow we've started a tradition of a campfire and snacks for December. Pete stayed at the trailhead/campground to get the fire going and heat water for drinks.

We had a nice collection of people who are younger than most of us. They had a good time visiting around a second fire.

One of the other things we do in December is collect Toys for Tots. This was part of our haul. More gifts appeared after I took the picture.

I tried to save a little energy because we had our first bell choir concert this evening. I'll share more about that tomorrow.

Right now, I'm beat!

Miles hiked in 2025: 466.1
NCT miles hiked in 2025: 251.8

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. Timber Creek Trailhead north and back. 2 miles.

See SPW Hike- November

Part Way to a Bindings Fix

There is a NCT hike tomorrow. There are 10" of snow on the ground here, and possibly more on the trail. If no one has hiked the trail this week, it will be tough going. If only one or two people have tried to hike, it will be a mess with "post holes."

In any case, my snowshoe bindings have not fixed themselves. Haha. As you can see, these straps- the ones that fasten around the instep of your boot are in imminent danger of turning into four pieces instead of two. I really don't want that to happen on the trail. So I got serious about some other solution today.

I rummaged around in my webbing scrap box and found two pieces of lightweight webbing with clips that I cut off something else that was dead (I think something of Om's). For a temporary fix to make sure this kind of clip buckle will work (some are too hard to undo when they are cold), I fastened the straps on with safety pins. That will be fine for at least tomorrow.

Here are the boots clipped in to the shoes. You can't see the new straps at all because they are black. That white toe strap is from the military bindings. I can use the other toe strap from that set. But the long strap that goes around the back of the boot is way too long and can't be altered without sewing (see link below for more info than you want about those bindings). And, sigh, I currently have no working sewing machine. (Which is increasingly becoming another a real problem). The reddish-brown is the remaining pieces of the neoprene bindings. The blue is a jerry-rigged velcro fix on the boots because the plastic buckles disintegrated and the boots are still fine (I just love expensive gear with one low-quality piece that sabotages the whole thing, don't you?).

And here is a closeup of the "new" black strap with buckle. If these work well, I'll rummage in my webbing box some more to find long strips for the heel strap. I'm pretty sure I have enough, but I think it's wide.

So I look like a toggled up mess, which it is. But I don't care as long as it doesn't break on the trail.

In other news, I did get my act together. I edited a lot in the morning. Did shopping and errands all afternoon. Ugh, but I did get gas for $2.66/gal! Soothed my stress from the hatred of shopping by pigging out on carbs.

No extra walking, though. Now, I just have to get myself to the hike on time!

See Military Service Bindings

The Trees I Wanted

These are the trees I tried to picture the other day, but managed to leave the SD card out of the camera.

First up, we have my clump of white pines that I planted about 30 years ago. For a while, they looked like the letter B lying on its back. You can see its evolution at It's b-b-b-Back

This is pretty interesting to me. The jack pine that caught fire from sparks thrown from a train in 2017 has finally fallen down. The fire didn't immediately kill it, but I guess it never really recovered either.

You can now see the "mystery tree" clearly through the open space. This turned out to be almost certainly some kind of hybrid cherry that went wild. It always has a beautiful shape.

There is no longer even the faintest sign of the walnut trees I planted in about 1974. I think the tallest one got to about 15 inches. All gone now.

The sky gave me a nice pastel purple show through the aspens at dusk.

I seem to be in a low motivational phase. I managed to do some editing and a load of laundry. I snowshoed out back. It wasn't quite unbroken, except my tracks had blown in along quite a few sections. I was thinking about going farther, but didn't. My victory of the day was that I did not stop to catch my breath even once. I just kept walking.

Tomorrow, I have to get myself in gear. There are things I must do before Saturday!

Miles hiked in 2025: 463.1

See Not the Trees I Wanted

Christmas Flamingo

If you've been hanging around here long enough, you know that I have a running joke with flamingoes. No two that I've posted are alike! I'm up to somewhere around 40 posts, and have more pictures I've never gotten around to sharing. Link at the end to the list.

Anyway... one of the funny sweaters/sweatshirts yesterday had a Christmas flamingo!

Not a lot happened today. I did not get to sleep until 4 am. I did do a podcast interview about one of my books (link when it is published), and got out to do a half-mile on snowshowes. Since we got another 10 inches on Monday night, it was all in unbroken snow.

Miles hikes in 2025: 462.6

See Bell Choir Shenanigans See All Flamingo Posts

Bell Choir Shenanigans

Our assignment this week was to show up at bell choir practice in an "ugly sweater" for Christmas. Some people had the goods. I borrowed a sweatshirt of Omer's that I don't think is ugly, but it's festive.

Then we settled in for a long practice. Our first concert is Saturday, and I wouldn't say we are ready, but... o well.

Penny made us all ornaments from old sheet music and some bling. Every one is different. I really like ours.

I managed to get in 1.2 miles on snowshoes, but don't get too excited. I was going to try for a half mile, but when I got to the School Forest trail system, I learned that they had already taken the fat-bike groomer through. So what's the ettiquette on that? I know you shouldn't walk in it- that can create post holes. But I had on the wooden shoes which do not even have cleats. I tooks some steps on the groomed trail and looked back. It sure didn't seem like I was impacting the grooming. The deer, however, had done a number in a lot of places.

I stayed on the groomed trail and that's why I was able to go so far.

When I got home, I looked up what the "rules" are. Unclear. Some sites say snowshoes are OK, some say no. It seems to me that the shoes with cleats that leave divots would be more of a problem than my flat wooden ones.

Of course, you should never walk or snowshoe on groomed ski trails, or let pets walk in any of them either.

Then I went and spent a little over an hour with Betty. We are having such fun getting caught up!

Miles hiked in 2025: 462.1

Ludington School Forest, various trails. 1.2 miles

See 2023 Bell Choir Fun

Not the Tree(s) I Wanted

No, I'm not unhappy with the Christmas tree. Not at all. It now has lights.

I am unhappy that I forgot to put the SD card in the camera when I went out snowshoeing. I took several pictures to share of trees that would at least be updates on previous posts, but I can't guarantee how interesting they would be.

So, the good news is that I went out snowshoeing again. For sure I did a half mile today. I'll add the mile from the two days to my walking total. I may want to snowshoe a slightly more significant distance on Saturday, so I think I need to get out a little bit before then!

Worked some on the usual issues, and had a Zoom meeting.

Miles hiked in 2025: 460.9

See Putting the Tree Up

First Snowshoe Winter 2025-26

It always looks about the same, but I usually blog about my first day to use the snowshoes each winter.

We got more snow overnight here, and there are maybe 10 inches on the ground. You can see flakes in the air in this picture.

I did about a half mile, which was plenty for the first outing. And the wind was pretty cold. It was all overcast, so there are no shadows to help you see the tracks. But if you can tell, yes, I was using the wood snowshoes. The bindings are shot. Cheapest new ones I can find are $50! I'm pondering options and temporarily still using duct tape for repairs, but it's iffy. I do like the wood ones better than the small foam ones although those have their purposes.

The sky looks pretty much the same as the ground without the line of tracks!

I did a little bit of work today, but it was really a non-starting day for me. I played my game more than I should have and didn't do much.

I think maybe I didn't snowshoe at all last winter. We didn't get much accumulation. At any rate, I didn't blog about it.

See First Snowshoe 2023

Peace Lutheran Windows

Today I was at a vendor event that was almost next door. It WAS next door before a medical office was built between us!

The event was at Our Savior Lutheran Church. Admittedly, I don't go inside the building too often, but there were several stained glass windows hung in the front entry and in two lighted frames on the walls. I didn't think I'd seen them before.

One of the men who was helping move things explained that the Peace Lutheran Church of Ludington merged with their church about a year ago. The former Peace chuch building had these five windows, which were brought to the Scottville building to display.

The one above is the only Christmas theme. They show various symbols and scenes of the Christian faith.

I'm always very happy to see such architectural elements preserved. And it must make the Peace congregation feel more at home with Our Savior.

I was hoping there might be some serious Christmas decorations up. It's a little early. They did have one, and it might get lumped with some others to show you this season.

Actually, I'll be back there in just a week. The bell choir is doing a concert at that church next Saturday!

And how did I do? Given that the weather was bad and the traffic was low, I have no complaints. The drive was very short (haha- about 0.1 mile). I definitely made enough to be worth my time and chatted with a number of people I knew or who knew me.

Not much else happened today.

See Methodist Windows moved