Spirit of the Woods Hike- February 2026

Today was the annual hike and attached chili feed. We had a big group despite the cold and snow. We think 25 people hiked. A couple of them did not get in the picture.

The snow was unbroken, but our two stalwart Dans led the way and most of the group did a total of about 3 miles.

I turned around earlier. My knee is still sore, and I want it to get better not angrier. The return woods was quiet and the trail was nicely packed after all those people had been on it!

The rest of the event is held at the warming shelter at Big M Ski Area. Loren does most of the work for this. There's a nice wood stove, and she heated the chili. She's dishing some out in this picture.

People also brought other foods to complement the chili. There was lots of food! This is just one secton. (It's hard to take good pictures in the building because the light is from those huge windows and it's hard to get a shot without a big blob of light behind it)

We think the total head count was about 35. It's a great time every year, and having a slightly warmer indoor place to visit makes it really nice. Several new people came.

Miles walked in 2026: 30.5
Hike 100 Challenge: 10.2 miles

North Country Trail, Manistee Co, MI. Madison Rd north about 1.2 miles out and back

See SPW- January 2026

Moose in Boots- Page Five

Yes, I can count. I know that 4 comes after 3. But...

In order to do page 4, I need masking fluid. Mine is all dried up. Hobby Lobby (our only halfway decent local art supply) carries some. It had 3 reviews on line, all of which were bad. They all said that it doesn't come off the paper, tearing it and ruining the picture. Um, nope.

So I have ordered a different kind. But until that arrives (Tuesday or Wednesday), I have to skip that page.

Then I got serious about finding the original drawings. Took over an hour, but I've got them. They were actually in one of the places that made sense for them to be. It's just that it was the last of the places I thought to look. So now those are all re-scanned and saved. Losing the old computer files isn't too big a deal because I had printouts of everything, but it just takes more time.

I also located my watercolor pencils which are very handy for small spaces

Good thing page five wasn't too hard.

Here is the concept drawing. You can see that I seriously improved the cardinal. I'm also trying to remember to keep everything important a quarter-inch from the edges so they can bleed off the page when printed. I have to redo the computer files for the first two pages, but that's not hard. And I had thought to have bark stripped by a porcupine, but they don't really do that on aspen, so I skipped it.

So, I didn't really start working on today's page until about 11 am. And I needed to fool around to make sure I could get a nice gradient of yellow to green in the background. Here it is just before lunch.

And again, at about 3 pm.

I also had to run an errand and get groceries. Managed to edit a little bit too. So, all in all, today went well.

See Moose in Boots- Page 3

Moose In Boots- Page Three

In theory, this page should have been much easier than yesterday's. But it still took me all day.

As I half-promised, here is the concept page for this, sketched 16+ years ago. These were just pencil drawings. As you can see, this has two trees, and they are both hemlock not balsam. I wanted to start putting some hemlock in the book because the "northwoods" has both, and they look very different.

I started page 3 with the sketch, and put in a balsam fir. Then I wanted to see how the hemlocks would look.

So I sketched a hemlock and cut it out. Then I practice painted one (two- the first one wasn't right which is another good reason to do this), cut it out, and put both of them on the sketch. Hemlock will work.

Then I started painting. This was just before lunch.

This was about 3:00 in the afternoon. Still a long way to go.

I'm content with this one.

Not much else happened. A little editing, some crocheting, a few phone calls. I'm trying to stay focused while I have the time. I leave for the East on Feb 21, so there aren't enough days to be finished by then since I won't have entire days I can just work on this every day between now and then, and there aren't 26 days even if I did. I need to somehow hang on to my momentum.

See Moose In Boots- Page Two

Moose in Boots- Page Two

Page two is ready to show you, but I have to say that this is about all I did today. However, it is one of the more complex illustrations.

Do you want to see some of the process? I only took one picture of that, and it was early on- really I was just doing background washes and the balsam branches.

This might be fun. This is my test page where I was trying out things to get the look I wanted on the final copy or getting rid of excess paint.

I may get away with only having to do this one once. I'm fairly happy with it. (I may redo the first one- we'll see.)

I did pick up my car from being fixed, washed the dishes, and did tiny amounts of other things. But this project takes serious concentration. Layers have to dry completely, or sometimes just a bit before you do the next step. There's not much time between chunks of working on a page.

Maybe I'll also share the concept pages. I did spend some time looking for the original computer files. Can't find them. That was so many computers ago, they may be lost. I have 2 printouts, so they aren't totally lost. And I'm sure I have the original sketches, but I didn't even try to find those today.

And now I have a computer issue too. I'm posting this from my old computer. Sigh.

See Moose in Boots- Page One

Moose in Boots- Page One

I worked really hard to get this done today. It's much better than the concept page, but I'm not sure it's quite good enough yet. I'll let it go for now and go on to page 2. I can still do a few tweaks later.

Maybe I should say that this book was inspired by a warning we received from staff at Gunflint Lodge. It was May when we were hiking there, and they told us that mother moose do exactly what the text on this page says. They chase the teenagers away when the new babies are born and the youngsters are stupid and crazy. She said we needed to really watch out for them on the road.

I also wrote 203 words in Vacation from Dead Mule Swamp, did a row on the prayer shawl, dropped my car off to have a repair done, took a walk at Cartier Park and went to bell choir practice. Next stop- bed and book.

Miles walked in 2026: 29.3

Cartier Park, Ludington, MI, Loop and both spurs, 1.8 miles.

See Improvements and Additions

Improvements and Additions

Can you tell what's different about this?

Hopefully, it looks better than the version I showed you the other day. They are the same painting. But I added reflections of the rocks and trees, and some marsh marigolds along the water's edge.



What about the additions? OK, here's where the rubber meets the road. These two elements have to be added. My (long) past attempt wasn't so great. Mama moose looked like a donkey. I hope to do them better. I am not striving for total realism. Let's call it semi-realistic.

So, I started with just trying to correct the donkey look on some plain old computer paper, painting that, and cutting out the figures to place them on the background.

Why is only half of mama there? Because the finished picture needs to be square. If I cover up part of the background it's closer to what I need. But the background needs to be reconfigured a little bit for better composition.

So I guess it's time to 'fess up as to what I'm doing. Sixteen years ago I got one of my creative jags and wrote a children's book in my head on the 2009 hike in Minnesota's Arrowhead. The title is Moose in Boots. Later that summer, I went manic again, and drew concept pages for the whole thing in a month. Have I done anything since then? A little bit of tweaking of the text. Showed it to a few people. Mostly zilch.

People always ask me if I write books in my head while I hike. This was the one-and-only instance. When these things hit me, I just can't help it. Most of the time I have to just beat out the words like everyone else.

I'd REALLY like to finish this book. But here's the deal. There are 29 paintings I'll need to do. You can see how long it has taken me to even get set up for the first one. I started on what I hope will be the final version of illustration one. Of 29.

Stay tuned to see if I can stay with it. P.S. The dining room table is now converted to my art studio.

I did errands, edited, and read a short non-fiction book that I couldn't put down.

See Spring Aspen Achieved

A Heat Wave

It was 22° today which felt really warm. Cathy and I went for a hike. It turned out to be a fairly tough hike.

I knew this section of the trail had been walked, and we chose to go in boots. Should have taken the snowshoes.

We started at 5-Mile Road and went south. Not only was it in the 20s, but the sun was shining!

We went just a little past the Big Sable River.

The Vince Smith Bridge was sporting a big load of snow. Kind of interesting that it hadn't been knocked off.

There were interesting little snow worms crawling along the rails.

I have a bit of a sore knee, and this was tough going, but we were glad to be outside. And I really overdressed. Guess I'd gotten used to the cold, so I was really warm!

The trail is broken for some distance beyond the bridge, but snowshoes are recommended. Even compacted it's still deep. We kept breaking through. (If you park on Mac Road, please park on the west side. The property owner on the east side is not friendly and will have your car towed.)

I didn't accomplish a whole lot else today. Well, a couple of little things that are parts of other things. But they feel like "nothing."

Miles walked in 2026: 27.5
Hike 100 Challenge 2026: 9 miles.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. Mac Road to south of the Vince Smith bridge and back 2.3 miles

See To McCarthy Lake

Spring Aspen Achieved

I spent most of the day painting.

My new pens with a great variety of point thicknesses arrived.

I found a picture of aspens that had the effect I wanted, and drew from that. Things that could be improved: 1. that dark splotch on the left was in the picture, but I should have left that out. 2. If I'd made the background greens darker it would have made the aspen trunks "pop" more.

But I'm fairly satisfied with this. It's mixed media- pen, watercolor, acrylic

Then I started putting the things I've worked on together. This isn't a good composition. That's beside the point because there is something else that has to go into this scene in the foreground. But I'm not quite ready to add that yet.

Also mixed media- pen, watercolor, acrylic

Other than these, I did some errands, crocheted a bit, started a new puzzle and edited a tiny bit.

See Balsam and Aspen

Balsam and Aspen

Still working on trees. Tried balsam fir today.

This one is with the black ink on the paper first and then a watercolor wash over that. I like this one.

This one is with the paint first and then black ink on top. Even though the paint tone is different with more blue in this one, I think I like the first one better. Balsam are dark.

Still struggling with the spring aspen. This is try #5. This is watercolor first with a sponge. Probably too much water. This could be improved with some more paint, I think. But it's still got too much foliage for early spring. The scalloped outlines don't say spring, either. They suggest too much fullness.

This is acrylic paint with a sponge first, and then the black lines over that. Needs a little more pen work so the trunk doesn't just end when it hits the leaves but this is starting to approach the look I want.

I edited and did a few other things. A pretty low-key day.

See Trying Trees

Charley Harper's Isle Royale

This puzzle was loaned to me by hiking buddy Bill. I really liked doing it. It was just the right level of difficulty to be both challenging and fun.

Its a puzzle of the art work "Isle Royale" by Charley Harper who is known for his geometric depictions of nature. Here's the entire puzzle.

The dominant dark shapes are two moose.

But the rest of the pictures are really oriented the other direction with birch and aspen trunks. There are also aspen and maple leaves that you can easily see.

And all the other animals are just hiding out in the trees. It would be too many pictures to highlight them all, but here are a few. The squirrel.

The butterfly.

A flicker.

And four wolves. I show this one, even though its tail bleeds off the edge because it has a blue jay on its back.

There are also a red-headed woodpecker, two chickadees, a sparrow, and a brown creeper.

It was a very busy day. I went to Muskegon to the dentist where they took new x-rays and said that the bone has grown back very well, so we scheduled a date in March for the implant!

And then, early this evening, I gave my program about the NCT via Zoom to the Green Mountain Club in Vermont. It would probably be more accurate to say they hosted it because people from anywhere could sign up. They said there were 123 people watching. And time for questions afterward. I love to share "my" trail with people!

See Delightful Cat Library

Chilly and Short

Had to do errands and get groceries today, so even though it was cold, I decided to walk. My body really wanted something more physical too.

Did the loop and spurs at Cartier Park which had been plowed, so it was better walking. But it was 11°!

This is Lincoln Lake.

Stumps had biscuits perched on top!

I spent the morning doing stuff for Confidence Camp, then all the on-the-go-stuff. Then a volunteer zoom meeting, and another meeting in 5 min. There you have my day.

Cartier Park, Ludington, MI, Loop and both spurs. 1.8 miles

See cARTier Trail