35 Years Since...

Well, it hasn't been 35 years since I've seen Annabelle and Sophie, although it has been a little long.

And it hasn't been 35 years since I've seen Sue, or even since I heard her play a piano.

And it hasn't been 35 years since I've seen this Kathy. What are we doing?

Can you guess? I now have a piano again. (it was FREE- can you believe it? PTL) And it's been 35 years since that was true. You know I'm horribly out of practice, but I played a few pieces that were in the piano bench (badly). I have two cartons full of piano music, plus about 15 hymnals and uncounted chorus books. I'll need to get some of that out. Yeah! More mess.

It was a fairly major project to clear out a space where the piano could live and I need to find better homes for some of the stuff that was in that space. Sue and Kathy came to help move it. That was really a major project, but we did it! Took most of the afternoon.

We also had ice cream, but I didn't realize the SD card wasn't in my camera, so no picture of that.

The morning had the usual computer tasks. Another really hot one today. We are supposed to get some serious rain tonight. I hope that's real or I'll have to water the flowerbeds tomorrow.

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Birthday Fun

 My usual birthday treat to myself is a hike. But this year I deferred that to another day. Maybe tomorrow, we'll see. I'm kind of on a roll with the book and want to work while I'm highly motivated.

But I was eating my lunch and someone called and asked me if I wanted to go out. Um... I was full. But there's always room for dessert, right? Especially pie.

Do you know who it was? It was Sue! With a friend of hers, Jan.

They had Jan's car, so I wasn't sure if I'd get to see my little buddies. But they had come too. Sophie and Annabelle are always good for smiles and licks.

And Omer got me some treat foods I'd been wanting. Some chips and pop.

And I've been inhaling broccoli. Just in the mood. Here it is with cottage cheese for breakfast. But last night for dinner I just ate a huge bowl of broccoli with butter. Yummers

Sue brought me another fun item. But I'm not going to share that until I decide where to put it. I thought I knew the answer to that when she gave it to me, but I need to rethink it. Stay tuned.

I did my editing, and then my 100 new miles of campsites, and some more formatting fixes. I may try to get more done this evening so that I'll feel good about going out to play tomorrow.

Oh yeah. What year is it? Most of you know. Finishing trip 76 around the blazing ball of gasses.

See Surprises and Blessings

Almost Food

  Sue came over this afternoon and we worked really hard. Here she is mixing trail shakes. The food is ALMOST done. I need to fill the dehydrator with apples overnight and do one more thing in the morning that requires an ingredient I will get across the street.

Here are tubs filled with bags of various items. I tried not to have too much just nutrition-poor candy, but I did get a few things. You've already heard that there are tootsie rolls in some of the meals. I got a big bag of Riesen candies because they travel well and they are SO good. I do have a weakness for chocolate. I am also trying some fruit chews called Hi-Chews. They look like they can also survive heat and they are nice and tart.

Other than that, it's mostly healthy. I rifled the discount bar tub and picked out the best ones. I bought some sausages at the dollar store. I don't eat a lot of meat snacks, but a few are fine. There are several different fruit and nut mixes, what I call "new age gorp" (walnuts, raisins and dark chocolate M&Ms), I bought a box of a seasonal Christmas Chex cereal-- it would be horrible for breakfast, but is pretty tasty for a snack, the salty mixes are already packed up so they aren't in this picture, the rest of the veggie snacks are here, and a mix with little crisp breads with almonds and yogurt-covered cranberries, and of course a LOT of trail shakes (I'll have one of those almost every day- a lot are already packed up and not pictured here).

I have no idea yet how much this all cost. I'll try to figure it out at some point. I managed to pick up a large number of things at the discount store, which made me feel better about a few more expensive things (like some dried cherries). I THINK I've managed to do this pretty economically.

I'm trying to clear out the food mess, so I can put boards in the kitchen to polyurethane. Maybe I can have them all done before the weather dries out enough to be getting out tools and running in and out of the trailer.

And quality control? Sophie and Anabelle approve! Sophie even curled up in my chair beside me for a few minutes when I took a break to check email and stuff.

In other news: I did not get to cross off a single thing, but three BIG ones are really close. I worked on a volunteer project that has to be done in the morning, and then the rest of the day was food and family, because, of course, Josh is having a crisis. Omer is mostly dealing with it (so thankful for that), but I am not completely off the hook. Had to run some errands this evening, one of which involved Cathy, who FED ME DINNER which I had not had time to have yet.

Still 25 BIG ITEMS to complete- (37 done). 38 small ones to do (32 done). 18 days to go.

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Mower and More

  Big day today! Sue and I drove to Shelby to pick up my "new" lawnmower. It's been really well taken care of. This is such a great deal for me!

Then we went out to eat at the Brown Bear in Shelby.

This was what we elected to take home. We'd already eaten half! Good food.

We were parked right beside the Hart-Montague Rail Trail. We were stuffed and needed some exercise, and the doggies wanted a walk. Perfect!

Two happy little sniffers. We walked a total of four miles.

Best event of the walk? Spotting a rufous-sided towhee!

On the way home, I saw a northern harrier hawk too, but no picture. And on the way down, we took a peek at the Pere Marquette river flats because there were reports of a flock of migrating white pelicans. Pretty sure we saw one straggler. Great birding day, especially since I'm not a very good birder.

In other news: I had a meeting tonight. I didn't get any mowing done, because it was starting to sprinkle as soon as we made it back to my place, and then it actually started raining.

See First Bike Ride 2017 See Half an Accomplishment

Friends and Footsteps

  Life gets somewhat non-stop when Marie and I are together.

First we went to Baldwin to have lunch with Sue. Then we went to historic Idlewild and walked around the lake. And Sophie and Anabelle joined us, of course. This is just small-town streets, but there are some interpretive signs about Idlewild, a former African-American resort community. Lots of history there. The lake is the center of town. It was a cold and rainy morning, which gave way to a cold and gray afternoon. Fine for walking but not for spectactular pictures. Still pleasant.

The Wilson House is a beautiful fieldstone Craftsman bunglalow. The family was instrumental in the creation of the town.

I almost always see a red-headed woodpecker in Idlewild, and today was no exception.

Did we have a good time? I think our faces tell the story.

Pup-dogs were not interested in posing, but they each got a nose in the camera. Sophie

and Anabelle. Most definitely not their cutest poses, but hey...

Then Marie and I drove to meet someone to pick up some trail supplies, got home in time to catch our breath before heading to a meeting I had this evening.

Yesterday, we hiked at Bowman Lake. I've taken you there many times before, so you know it's a beautiful place. But I didn't want to neglect mentioning that we did hike 6 miles.

North Country Trail miles hiked in 2021 is at 203

Lake County Michigan, Bowman Lake Trail and North Country Trail loop- 6 miles, and walking around Idlewild Lake- 5 miles

See Caught the Red Head

A Sort of a Hike

 
Tomorrow I'm leading a hike at Sheep Ranch Pathway near Baldwin. I haven't been there for a while, so I like to make sure things haven't changed before I go leading a group into the woods.



Whoa! These trails are not in good shape, and I couldn't even figure out one of the junctions from either direction, and another whole piece is a complete mess under big trees that probably came down in the winds last fall.

Sue hiked with me, and my two favorite little doggies, Sophie and Anabelle.







We had a treat! After such a late spring, now summer things seem to be ripening with astonishing speed. We found wild blueberries that were ripe.



And the water lilies on Little Leverentz Lake were perky.



So, I do have a route we can follow tomorrow, but it's not what I planned on paper. Good thing I checked it out ahead of time.

And I got to see Sue, and get a doggie fix!

In other news: I wrote in the morning, and then I was going to go hiking, but realized if I waited till she got off work, Sue could probably go too. She said yes, so I spent the afternoon working on the trailer. I'll share that another day.

Sheep Ranch Pathway near Baldwin, Michigan, about 5 miles

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Small Hike in the Sunshine

 
It was just too beautiful to spend all day today being good.

And it worked out that both Sue and Cathy were able to take off and go on a little hike!



We went south from Timber Creek on the North Country Trail. I actually hadn't gone there since the big blowdown in the fall. I kind of didn't want to. I knew there had been a lot of destruction. You can see an open area beyond Sue in the picture above. That used to be all trees. Well, it's still all trees, but they used to be standing.

Here's what they look like now. In a lot of ways it's sad to me when the forest I'm familiar with changes so much, but it's a part of what happens, so we'll just deal with it. At least the trail was opened quickly.



Three happy hikers. (But it would have been good if I could have gotten Sue out of the shadow, but couldn't tell on the small screen)



And I got my doggie fix for a while. Sophie and Anabelle are always up for a hike and some hugs.



Hike 100 Challenge for 2019 is at 11 miles.

North Country Trail, south from US 10 at Timber Creek to Wingleton Rd and back. 3 miles

In other news: Well, I have worked on a lot of things today, but it's not clear that I've accomplished a lot. I transferred a tape. I wrote some words of the next chapter, tentatively named "Scattered and Cloudy." I wrote the first draft of my next column before the interview I did earlier this week lost its freshness in my mind. I made a salad for dinner that was ok, but not great. I went to Ludington and took some pictures for that column because I wanted to do them when the sun was out. I went to the grocery store. I'm not sure how those things took all day, even with a little hike in there. But they did.

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Impromptu Hike

 
Sue and I live just far enough apart that getting together doesn't work all the time, but there is one piece of the North Country Trail that is about halfway between the two of us, so we snuck in a few miles after she got off work.

Sophie and Anabelle have spiffy new jackets! All the better to climb logs in.



I think these might be a chanterelle not fully open.



Just south of 8th St (just a dirt road) there is a long stretch of rail berm that used to be a spur of the Lake County Railroad. This was a narrow gauge logging RR built just to take timber out of the woods. This would be a good time of year to follow it beyond the NCT portion and see where it comes out. Maybe another day.



I wanted to show you a few last bright leaves, but Sophie apparently thought I was marking the spot where she should dig.



When we were almost back to the cars the pups decided to run off and chase something- maybe a chipmunk. We had to corral them and Anabelle, who was naughtiest, had to ride in the pack the rest of the way. Oh! They also encountered something that scared Sophie. She was yelping as if she was being killed. Sue thought maybe a porcupine and we went running to rescue them. But no quills and we have no idea what they found.

We did six miles. Glad Sue is able to be spontaneous from time to time. Hike 100 Challenge is at 87 miles.



In other news: I wrote my newspaper column, and read over the chapters in Dead Mule Swamp Mistletoe that I have done. I was thinking maybe they were pretty boring, but I guess they are OK with one exception that might need a bit of tweaking. Tomorrow, it's back to writing on that book.

North Country Trail north from Timber Creek to 8th St and back

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