More New Things

We'll start with the last two of the new plants. The final one I had ordered came today. It's very tiny, but I have hopes it will spread. Actually, it will probably do so faster if I separate the rosettes. Maybe tomorrow. It's a Sempervivum- one of the arachnoideum (has filaments like a spider web on it) and is called 'Arctic White.'

Here it is in context. Definitely need it to spread. I spent a fair amount of time deciding where best to put it.

The other new plant I bought last month may turn out to be a mistake. Or not. The leaves are a vary dark green, which is a nice contrast depending on what's next to it. (Not much yet.) And the flowers are a deep blue. But they are also very small, so they are pretty much lost in the rock garden. We'll see if it survives. It is Veronica peduncularis 'Georgia Blue.' Common name- Creeping Speedwell.

The thing down on the road that is new is the paving project. Lots of people are complaining about how disruptive it is, but I can assure you that when I was a kid a project of this magnitude would take at least one whole summer. They will probably have all 5 miles of this done in a month. I'm impressed. The only thing that's tricky is they are doing it so fast you never are positive which lane is the one you are supposed to be in. No accidents so far!

This is new only in the fact that I've never seen a mourning dove come on the deck before. It both used the bird bath and took a few seeds from the saucer. Fun!

In other news: We got 0.7 inch of rain yesterday, but things dried out pretty well by afternoon so I could work in the garden without getting too wet. I did all the tasks as usual. Still trying to work my way through the rock garden for the second time this season. But I've now completed all the spaces where I have to be slightly acrobatic to get to them. The rest will definitely be easier.

Sigh. I have 3 plants in an online shopping cart. Because I had a gift card for most of what I've bought so far this year, I'm not even remotely close to what I spent on the gardens last year. But I still need more money for my tooth, and I just had a big car repair too. Decisions, decisions!

See Some of the new plants

A Few More Fall Color Shots

These have been taken at various times over the past week, but there wasn't room to add them to that day's blog post.

I'll lead off with a row of trees along the Methodist Church parking lot.

I've been hunting for red this year. Here's one splash.

This was a few days ago, right on US 31 at Wolf Lake!

I had sort of forgotten how beautiful rural Oceana County is. There are a lot of rolling hills, and I loved my drive coming home yesterday. These fields were just stunning! Vinyard on the left.

But maybe this one is even nicer with asparagus in front, then an orchard, and the woods.

And you know that quote- not sure who said it- "Of all the roads you take, make sure a few of them are dirt." Totally agree. 96th Avenue in Oceana County was up for the challenge. I took pictures at two different places, but decided this was the best. Can you feel the peace?

I had a chance to go for a hike this morning, but I decided I really nneded to stay home and get some things done. Worked pretty steadily at all my projects. More time on the autumn olive and a little more putting the gardens to bed in the afternoon.

But, tomorrow, the discipline ends. I have a little adventure with a friend planned!

See More Fall Finery

Color Tour 2025- Part 2

Here are the most stunning colors from yesterday. This was a farm on 112th Ave in Newaygo County.

Someone planted some wonderful maple trees 50-75 years ago. The house and barn were surrounded by flaming maples.

I just couldn't do an entire tour on paved roads. We took one dirt road. This is 200th Avenue in Oceana County.

I loved all the bright orange and red tones but thought we needed some yellow too. I think this was somewhere on 172nd Ave.

Of course, the big joke is that perhaps the most stunning tree we saw was on 6th Street after we got back in Scottville! The light was lower by then and that's when you can get some awesome pictures.

We got a bit of rain today, but mostly it was just gray and windy. Did all the usual projects, went to the store to look at various tools, had bell choir practice.

See Color Tour 2025- Part 2

To Cadillac, but Not Beyond

Today I travelled to Cadillac for several reasons. Two of those were to take short hikes that I'll share over the next few days. I'm going to feature them in my next "Get Off the Couch" newspaper column.

Nothing says "Cadillac" better than Lake Mitchell.

The primary reason for the trip was that I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Rose Odette. She has a highly successful videocast, and she invited me to be one of her guests. I'll share the link when it's edited. She also writes motivational books.

On the way home I drove part of the way on the road named Mackinaw Trail. This is actually Old US-131, and more or less parallels the current expressway. Some day I'd like to drive the whole distance on it from Reed City to Petoskey, which is the portion that carries the name Mackinaw Trail. It's nothing too special, but I'm just an historic transportation junkie.

The colors along the roads are starting to brighten.

And although I didn't want to take too long to get home (I was hungry!), you know I couldn't pass up a few dirt roads. This is 4-Mile Rd in Lake County, just where it changes from 16-Mile in Osceola County.

The interview with Rose covers a lot of ground! We talked about the trail and hiking and books. The link below is to the only similar interview I've done which was in 2019 (before the second hike).

What a great day! I managed to get in a little bit of editing before I had to head north.

See Indie Reads TV Interview from 2019

Chillin'?

 We certainly weren't chillin' as regards to the temperature. It was a hot day! However, we definitely made today a rest day. Did some laundry and puttered a bit but mostly relaxed. It was a darn good thing we didn't need to go out in the middle of the day because Marie's street was being paved! This is accomplished so much easier and better than when I was a kid. And I know that crew was a lot hotter than we were.

I'll show you more pictures from Sonnenberg Gardens today. Here is another view in the Rock Garden. I sure did like that space.

This is just a nicely-blooming garden. It was actually part of the greenhouse complex- overflow plants.

Here is another long view of the Old Fashioned Garden. You can see hints of some of the blooms between the hedges. The architecture is such an important part of the gardens, it often makes the scene extra delighful.

This is a plant combination that I thought was particularly successful. Red amaranth, Amaranthus erythrostachys, and a pink coneflower.

They had combined these in several locations, and I also really like this. It's Persian Shield Strobilanthes dyeriana, and one of the begonias, maybe 'Gryphon.' You know I love begonias. When I get to be garden queen with an unlimited budget, I'll have a Begonia garden.

And for the orchid lovers, this is an Oncidium orchid, possibly 'Sweet Baby,' but there are a lot that are very similar.

We played a couple of games, and may be ready to do something more energetic tomorrow.

See Heart of the Lakes Trail paving See Sonnenberg

Blaze Day!

 I've explained a lot about the how and why of this before, so I won't cover that again. Here are the tools.

I'll just say that I'm pretty sure the last time this section of trail was blazed was in 2010. That's way too long ago. Not good, but sometimes these things happen. Too few volunteers, whatever... The link at the end is the year that Ellen and I did part of this section. Yes, that's a 14-year-old blaze.

I went out with Dan D. today, and our goal was to touch up a half mile of trail in each direction. That is usually plenty for one day. Dan wanted to try a template he made for spraying the blazes. I have to say that this is not standard, but he wanted to try it.

He was really careful to not let the paint flare out inside the edges of the template. I'll concede that. Here is the sprayed blaze.

I'll stick with using a brush. A lot of the trees we had to use in this section are large red oak. They have deep ridged bark that is really difficult to get nice blazes on, but here is one of my reasonably good successes.

We had help from Riley, the trail-blazing dog. She thought the blue paint was great for accents.

We also did a tiny bit of white blazing on a side trail, but we were getting tired, and the white paint was too thin.

I got to do a little bit of back-roading on the way home. I was just on this road not too long ago, but can't find the date. It's a back way from Freesoil Road that actually has a bridge over the Big Sable River. It's fine as long as the weather has been fairly dry. Yonkers Rd.

My goal after I got home was to get 100 more miles of campsites done, and I did it. Had to really knuckle down!

Total miles hiked in 2024: 200.6 of which 70.6 is North Country Trail.

North Country Trail, Mason Co. Michigan, Tynadall Rd to Koenig Rd. and back. 1 mile

See More Blue Blazes

Miscellaneous

I'll start with my drive to get to a cleaning job this morning. I took Conrad Road where it goes through the tunnel of trees. Link below will lead to other seasons. It's just a favorite local place.

Now we'll back up to some more from the weekend. Jean and I stayed at Tahquamenon Falls State Park. It was everything you would expect at a popular park in the summer. Full, busy, semi-noisy, and almost more wood smoke than was pleasant. But it had a bathroom and didn't cost what a motel or cabin would have. Basically we just used it to crash.

I have a lot of leftover hiking food yet. I ate backpacking meals for most of the weekend. I did allow myself to buy a hot dog and an ear of roasted corn, and a blueberry muffin, but that's it. OK, I had a slice of pizza in the car on the way home but I needed something I could eat in the car. I need to keep making a dent in the leftover trail food! This is one dinner. Cous-cous salad and some mixed fruit. I know this doesn't look like much, but that's the point. A small amount rehydrates and is very filling.

Here's one of the friends I ran into. This is Les. I don't think I've seen him for maybe 15 years! We both belong to the same organization from Ann Arbor days. We had a nice visit. And you can see what a great trail advertisement the new shirt is.

Today I had the cleaning job, answered a lot of correspondence, and tried to chill a bit. I'm really grateful for the cleaning jobs. They require no thought or decisions. I just show up, do the work, receive money, and leave! I can use some of that in my life.

See Conrad Road Tunnel of Trees

O'Flynn's and Back Again

My vendor event today was in Cedar Springs at a small art gallery called O'Flynn's. We were part of the Cedar Springs Summer Vibes Sidewalk Sale day.

It's a pretty nice little gallery for a small town, and the owner likes authors. I found out she is one herself, so that explains why they support authors with book premiers, and author signings, etc. Most of the vendors were out on the street, but the gallery offered a few spaces inside, and I took one. There were two of us inside. They provided the tables and covers and chairs. That was nice- less stuff to haul around for me. And since I was inside, I didn't have to fight with the canopy.

In addition to art for sale, the room itself is decorated with some whimsical wrap-around murals on the support posts. I like this one best.

I came home in the black, so I can't complain at all, but there was almost no street traffic. That has to be disappointing for the city, and some vendors left early.

You already know what I did on the way home. I took the back roads! I think I managed to find some I'd never been on before, and even the ones I have previously driven, I haven't been on for a long time.

Nice farm fields with the corn looking quite good, given how dry the weather has been.

I don't think I'd driven the road between Pickerel and Sylvan Lakes before. This is Sylvan Lake. They are completely surrounded by cottages, but I can accept that some lakes are going to be populated, and the water is still pretty.

You knew this was coming, right? There had to be at least one road like this. This is Lincoln Street in Newaygo County. I met a truck coming the other way, but it was at a curve where there was a wider space!

Not much else happened today. At least it wasn't a stressful event in any way, and I made friends with the next-table vendor. Two people I knew came in to see me. That's always fun. Certainly this is not why I hiked the NCT again, but several people recognized me from news stories. Being a mini-celebrity won't hurt book sales; that's for sure.

See Headshots