58 Years in the Wayback Machine

 Guess what I was doing 58 years ago today.

The boy on the right carrying the cake is Ron Rickner. I think the boy on the left is Dave Mendoza. The girl? Marie- always there for the important moments of my life since we were 12!

Let me tell you a little bit about the wedding. The year was 1968. The world was changing big time. Young couples were beginning to have non-traditional weddings. We didn't go that far, but we didn't follow all of the constricting "rules."

I was always disappointing my mother, and the wedding was no exception. She was very unhappy with many of our decisions, but I was stubborn, and in many respects Om and I had things our way. The end result was that neither Mom or me was happy with the ceremony.

However, this looks pretty traditional. I mean... I had the white dress (maybe more on that potential fiasco another year), we had bridesmaids in blue dresses and groomsmen in fancy tuxedos. Om's sister Loretta sang "The Love of God." My dad "gave me away."

However, by that point in the afternoon, I'd managed to act "normal" and girlish for as long as I could possibly stand it. Please notice that I am cramming the cake all over Om's face. (I really couldn't help myself... everything was just too serious.)

In retrospect, the actual ceremony means almost nothing to me. I probably should have let Mom plan everything the way she wanted it, and it would have made her happy, and 58 years later, I would not have cared at all.

The crowning "disaster" for Mom's day was that some of the teenagers (yes, Om was already attracting hoardes of teens) set off firecrackers. That part still makes me smile. As I recall, we got back at the instigator by setting off some at his wedding a few years later.

And in keeping with our tradition, we are not celebrating today. We are not even together, not even in the same state, another thing that has almost become traditional. If we'd been able to project how our lifetimes would play out we would have known that finding time for an anniversary in the summer months was going to be nearly impossible. We nearly couldn't fit a wedding into the summer of 1968 as it was. But we did, and here we are.

Well, Om is on a trip south. He was with Loretta just a few days ago. They are only a year apart in age and we are both sorry she lives so far away. (Picture is LORETTA and Om)

We'll celebrate some time when we are both in the same space. Meanwhile... here's to us. Just too stubborn to give up on each other.

See 55 Years

Fun, and Games

 In the morning today, I gave my program to a group at Loretta's church. No pictures. I'm always too busy to get any, and we all forgot.

I finally got to meet a couple that Loretta has known for 23 years. When she went to Brazil to do mission work, they were her team leaders. I've heard a lot about them, but had never actually seen them. They live in this town and also came to the program. We went out to lunch. Ron and Alana are in the back. Loretta is right front, and the girl left front is Ligia, from Brazil, who is going to college here.

We chilled in the afternoon. My car had some work done today at Loretta's garage, but they got that done.

Then we went to Ron and Alana's house for dinner. After that we played Farkle. My first introduction to that game. It's mostly luck, but may require some of the gambler instinct to know when to keep going and when to quit.

Ligia is pretty smiley anyway, but she won the first game, so had plenty of reason to smile.

There were bad storm warnings for here last night, but not much of that materialized. However, the temperatures are quite chilly for Louisiana.

See Stop Six- Loretta

Stop Six- Loretta

 Here I am at stop number six, state eight, and the seventh set of friends/relatives. You know this person already- SIL Loretta. We are good friends.

I got here in good time. We were going to go to a concert at her church, but it started early, and by the time we got settled and got some dinner, it was too late. That's OK; I may have made it to tired.

Said goodbye to JoJo this morning. We had such good times. She didn't want me to leave, but I told her that's just when a guest should leave- before they wear out the welcome.

And it was an extra perk that I got along well with Charlie too. We had such a good time doing some walks and talking about plants, ecosystems, architecture, books, and more.

I forgot to tell you that we heard both a great horned owl and a pair of barred owls from their house. That's interesting. They do live fairly near White Rock Lake, but it's within the city limits.

Tomorrow I'm doing a program in the morning, and then I think there are other things planned. See you then!

See Cedar Cliffs

Trail Work Day

Pete, from the Spirit of the Woods Chapter of the NCTA, has been working on the trail every day for a week and a half, with a couple of days to go. The chapter has had the help of two groups of young people and several of our volunteers. Today, they were replacing the decking on 5 small bridges that are in my adopted section of trail. For some reason, the decking boards were not treated lumber, and they were getting pretty rotten.

Pete got the saw set up to cut the new boards.

Mark was working on removing the old decking. These bridges are in the bottomland hardwood swamp area. Thankfully it's pretty dry at this time of year, so he could stand down in the water channels to work on the boards. He pulled them off then turned them over and laid them on the stringers so we could still walk across.

The stringers and sills are still in good shape. This one is awaiting the new boards. I'm not sure why it has the hump in the middle. Originally, all five bridges were very narrow with a hump. They were replaced once, a number of years ago now, and made wider so the mower could be taken over them. At that time the hump was kept in one of them.

In a little while, the EcoSeeds group showed up with four college students. I gave them instruction on how to replace the boards, and they got right down to business.

Except for showing the group what they needed to do, I spent most of my time taking lumber out to the bridges from where Pete was cutting it. I got my exercise for the day. I took 9 loads of boards and 1 load of tools and hardware before I had to leave. That's between 3 and 4 miles of pushing a loaded wheelbarrow. I was feeling a little wimpy taking only 6 boards at a time, but we had to go across some uneven ground before we got to the trail. After I saw that the "kids" also chose to only do 6 boards at a time, I didn't feel so wimpy anymore. Damp, treated lumber is heavy!

I've been busy with Bernie and Loretta, and haven't gotten out to help as much as I wanted, but at least I made one work day.

In the afternoon, Loretta and I actually did something together. We went to Manistee to see Oppenheimer at the Vogue theater (great movie!), and then we went out to dinner.

It was a great day. But tomorrow I need to get back to my own worklist.

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The Real Sloth Hiking Team

We've had quite a few good laughs about this today. You know the joke- Sloth Hiking Team. We will get there when we get there.

In February, Loretta went to the Amazon. Yes, THE Amazon. She even got to hold the baby sloth. The picture above is Mama.

The baby actually had enough energy to look slightly awake. Sloths sleep about 15 hours a day.

As if this wasn't funny enough, the candy wrapper from some chocolate we ate had sloth facts. They have the lowest metabolic rate of any mammal. They can fall 100 feet without getting hurt, and on average a sloth will fall out of a tree about once a week for its entire life. They move an average of 125 feet a day.

We took a small slothful walk of our own on the Ed Malkowski Nature Trail which was created by students at Mason County Central School. It needs maintenance badly, but we were able to follow it past the little pond.

One perk of our walk was ripe blackberries!

Other than that, I spent most of the day writing an article for Outdoors.com.

See Nature Center in Winter

Bernie's Very Bad, Very Good Day, and More

Today was non-stop, but the important things happened. Bernie was here all day. We spent the morning talking about things he should know concerning the trail in Vermont and the Adirondacks.

The reason for the title is that the afternoon was very good in that Bernie got some much needed dental work done. The bad part is that he has to deal with the pain of that and antibiotics on the trail, etc. Because you know he's not going to take any more time off. Hopefully, the pain of the dental work will be much less than the pain he's already been dealing with on the trail. He called every dentist in the county, and did find one that would see him.

While he was doing that, I took a little walk in Ludington. There is a little urban loop that goes along the marina and the channel. Here's the marina.

The Badger, the carferry, is sadly sitting in port. The rest of the sailing season is cancelled. The "apron," which is part of the dock, not the boat, collapsed and the removal and rebuilding is going to take months. Without that part, vehicles can not be loaded onto the ferry. You can see a crane already working behind her.

Kayakers were taking advantage of the protection of the breakwall to enjoy some time on Lake Michigan.

This is a relatively new addition to the Mason County Sculpture Trail. This is an actual propeller from the Badger that was damaged in ice. The date is not given, but it was many years ago when the ferries sailed year-round. You can see the big chunk missing from one of the blades.

When Bernie was released, we went shopping so he could get medication and supplies. We arrived home in time for a downpour! It only lasted for about a half hour. Southwest salad and corn bread for dinner.

One of the strangest and most humorous events from Loretta's arrival is that we have twin cars. Supposedly hers is 2012 and mine is 2013, but we can only find a couple of minor differences. The body and lights are exactly the same. They are the same color. Usually there are at least changes in the taillights from year to year. But unless one of us has a faulty title, they are not the same year. We both have NCT stickers. It's really weird. We've each gone out and momentarily thought we were in the wrong car!

So that's a total mish-mash of stuff from today. But that's how the day was. Bernie thinks he's going to be good-to-go to hike a full day tomorrow!

See Long Distance Hikers

I've Got Bernie, and Loretta

I picked up Bernie (Sea Otter) from the North Country Trail today. He's going to spend a day here as he has something he needs to take care of. You know the drill: shower, food, laundry, resupply, re-organization. I love helping people- so many of you helped me. In this house of small people, we actually found some clothes he could wear while his are being washed! Fortunately, he's thin, just much taller than we are!

And, Loretta came last night after I blogged. She went with me to get Bernie. I had a hiker meal all set to go pretty much as soon as we got back here. I just had to stir fry the veggies. Baked macaroni and cheese, stir fried summer veggies, sausages, and...

... brownies. I haven't needed to cook this much food since Thanksgiving 2021! But I'll probably live.

In other news, I picked up a little cleaning job, so I did that this morning too. Very full day!

Fortunately, Loretta will be here long enough that I'll be able to focus on her. Just not today.

See I've Got Annie See I've Got Denali

Oceana County Adventure

 
Loretta and I went out to just find an adventure today, with a little less walking. First I took her to the high point of Oceana County. The view from there was great, not hazy. This is looking east



Then we went to walk the short loop around Gale's Pond.




The marsh full of heavy-headed cattails was visually interesting.





Now, for the big find of the day for me. Drum roll... I've been trying to catch this orchid in bloom for years! I keep finding just the leaves, or the seed pods later in the summer. Today I found it in bloom. Downy Rattlesnake Plantain, Goodyeara pubescens. Here's the whole plant. Notice the interesting leaves.


And the flower head. This makes it a preeeemo botany day!


Caught an interesting angle on a common whitetail dragonfly.



Then, I quick checked another short trail (Loretta had enough walking, but she didn't mind waiting while I did the other loop), and we got a yummy dinner at the Big Hart Brewing Company in Hart.

The car needed to understand more about dirt roads so we wandered toward home on one of my favorites, 88th Avenue. Sadly, they've closed the bridge over the Pentwater River on it. You used to be able to drive through.



A wonderful afternoon!

In other news: I wrote in the morning, and did a few other odds and ends.

	See Gale's Pond, A Wonderful Day See Gale's Pond
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Memory Lane on the Young Side

 
Loretta went on a trip today to see some of the places where her Mom grew up. That's Omer's Mom too, of course.

And then there were piles of pictures to sort that have been passed around the family. I had never seen this one of Omer and Loretta before. I think this was taken in fall of 1944 or 1945. That's my best guess. I love it!


This one, we can date for sure. This is 1946, because the toddler between the two of them is their sister Patty, who died soon after this, of pneumonia.


Because their mother was from Grand Rapids, Patty is buried there, and Loretta visited the grave today. I have seen it once, one day long ago.


Lots of pictures- some precious, some we can't even identify. Maybe you'll see a few more in days to come.

In other news: I worked on the book in the morning, got some stuff cleared out of my old car in the afternoon, had dinner with friends, and then had a meeting and writers' group. I'm pooped.

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