The Skies Have It

Maybe it seems like the sky is nothing special. But, let me tell you, a blue-sky day in Michigan in the winter is definitely worth noting. The big lake keeps us cloudy more often than not.

We started with a pink sunrise.

It stayed in the upper 30s all day, but the sky was wonderful.

And the sunset, at 4:51. It will be good to see those sunset times getting later.

It was a good productive day with editing, shopping, crafting, laundry, doing errands, and the word count for Vacation from DMS is up to 23,682.

See The Last of the Color

An Adventure with Cathy

  You know my acetylcholine gets to pumping and making me happy when I have a new adventure! Cathy and I wanted to explore one of the trails that angles off the familiar route we followed last week to the back side of Hamlin Dam. Left at the fork- known. Right at the fork-unknown.

We made ourselves all kinds of promises about not doing anything stupid since it's winter, and we only had about 90 minutes between when she finished work and dark. As it turned out, many people have been hiking that trail since we had snow last Friday, so we were easily able to find where others had walked. These trails are all "unofficial," so there are no markings.

We came to this cut in the hill. You can see trail going fairly straight on the next hill. There were also trails going right and left in the valley. We chose left, going pretty much north. We were nominally attempting to connect to a trail we know goes along the south edge of Hamlin Lake. But, we were willing to go where the adventure took us, up to a cautious limit.

We had agreed on a turn-around time. At exactly that time... we reached Hamlin Lake!

What fun! This is a view I've never seen before. OK, I've been close to here at Inspiration Point, but not EXACTLY here.

The sand dunes across the way look quite alien!

Directly below us, the wind is churning the soft ice into pancake ice, although the "plates" haven't separated yet.

What should we do? Go back the way we came or take the trail that climbed up a ridge heading west? West would take us back to connect with the trail we took last week. I thought we might even have found the extension of the trail that goes past Inspiration Point. The sun was getting lower. We had about 45 minutes of light left. You know I took the "new" route, heading west. It soon turned away from the lake, so we knew it wasn't going to Inspiration Point.

But what scenery! The wooded dunes are high and steep-sided. This is one of the prettiest routes in the whole park! My pictures today don't do it justice. This shot shows one valley, and also that the low light is starting to make the trees glow. We still don't know where this trail is going to dump us, but it has turned south, which is good. As long as we make it back to the road the car is parked on, who cares?

The trail wandered and wandered along the top of a ridge. This big beech tree is growing on the side of the hill, but the hill is so steep it looks like it's practically buried.

We'd been going south for quite a while and still wondering where we'd come out. We had to cross either the usual trail, or the one we'd headed north on. Sure enough. We came to the top of the hill on the north side of the cut in the second picture above. That trail wasn't visible when we were down in the cut.

Just another ten minutes and we were back at the car with exactly enough time to hustle out to "First Curve," a parking area along Lake Michigan, to catch the sunset.

This was SO awesome. And we can explore those other junctions another day. I definitely want to do this route in other seasons. We probably walked between 4 and 4.5 miles. We move right along, the only place we dallied was when we got to the view of Hamlin Lake.

In other news: I wrote a chapter this morning and did a few odds and ends.

Ludington State Park, Mason County, MI. Piney Ridge Road to Hamlin Lake and back, about 4.5 miles

See One Day, Two Hikes

Hikes with Loren

  Loren and I are going to try to hike once a week for the forseeable future. Last week we were at Ludington State Park. Today we went to the North Country Trail. This is my adopted section so we did some maintenance too. I had done a really good job in the spring, so most of what we did was just clip or flip some small brush.

This is the section that begins on an old rail bed. I always like how this looks. Dogs Corky (white) and Koa (black) hiked along too.

The rail berm was built up through a bottomland hardwood swamp. The water level is fairly low now, It looks inviting to me, but I'm a swamp stomper.

The temperature was just above freezing when we started, and long ice crystals were forming. The ice looked very thin, but Koa walked on it without falling through.

Because the water was so high this spring, this area which floods slightly most years stayed wet much longer. A great patch of sphagnum moss took over. It's still spongy, but I think you could walk on it. I tested the edges, but didn't go to the middle.

Witch Hazel is a tree that blooms in the fall. I love the clusters of subtle yellow flowers.

This was pretty interesting. I should have tried to figure out what kind of tree this was, but I didn't. The beetle galleries are crazy! They look like some ancient decoration. You can sometimes ID the beetle/tree by the patterns of the galleries. But I don't know this one.

This was the one thing we had to report that we couldn't deal with. Someone who is a certified sawyer will come and take care of this fallen tree. Corky and Koa just like to climb. We hiked 6 miles.

I know that's enough pictures, but the sunset was violet! That doesn't happen too often, so I had to grab it in pixels.

North Country Trail miles for 2020 is at 243

In other news: I mailed some books, and worked on the editing jobs.

North Country Trail, Lake County, Michigan. Freesoil TH to Koenig Rd and back. 6 miles

See Another Loop at Ludington State Park

Intense

  I knew I had to get a lot done today as soon as I learned that I was "in" for a vendor event tomorrow. I will still have Sunday, but I had to make a lot of progress on the roof. And I did! I put up 6 bundles of shingles. This is not nearly the record of 9 in one day that I did in the spring, but I was not under THAT much of a weather panic.

Don't worry about that torn tarpaper. I'll get that covered when I get there.

Still, the day was a little intense, since I also had to go buy the second half of the shingles. I can only easily load/unload 6 bundles at a time in my car.

I have to tell you a little side story. When I checked out, the young girl who waited on me was looking around desperately. "You'll have to wait a minute until I can find some big guys to help you with those," she said.

I said, "I loaded them myself last week, and I expect I can do it again." I confess to secretly smirking when I get to say things like this.

And look how we ended the day in the west! Really intense. Those colors are true- cherry red to reddish purple.

I like the long view that shows the extent of it, but a closer view is good too.

In other news: Yes, there is other news! I also did a load of laundry.

See Discouraged/ Encouraged

Always a Gift

  I didn't have any interesting pictures from today. I thought I might have to go back and search for something. I was pretty sure you would not care that an apparently new UPS driver doesn't know the difference between a house and an outbuilding since we discovered two packages (thankfully wrapped in plastic) by the building down near the road. I thought of giving you a hint about what the rest of my week is going to be like, but, nah, that's going to be boring enough without stretching it out for an extra day. I didn't look at a new seed yet.

And then, in the last moments of daylight, I was given this! Just another sunset... but like snowflakes, no two are ever exactly alike. Love the colors!

In other news: I wrote 1266 words in Dead Mule Swamp Singer and did errands including getting ready for the rest of the week. I am being SO good. I hope there's a big reward in my future! :)

See Halloween-ish

Halloween-ish

  This is the best I can do for Halloween. I missed a nice spooky shot of a bare tree with the moon the other night. I haven't been able to recreate it because it's too cloudy here.

At least the sky cooperated and provided the correct color palette.

I've been working on Dead Mule Swamp Singer- actually wrote some words. And messing around with some other book promo stuff. Kinda laid back. Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be nasty, and then get better. There is one more major house project in my future, thanks to that forecast. Stay tuned. I'm resting up!

See Halloweens Past and Present

Gold by Day and Night

  The day was filled with errands and then bell choir practice. The sun came out for a while, making the last of the golden leaves brilliant. This is the large white birch by the post office. The link below takes you back to a blog post about that tree from 2009. The images had disappeared, and I wasn't sure I could find them again. But, they were taken with the first camera that had an SD card. I've managed to keep those pretty organized, so I found them and fixed the post! And the day ended with a golden sunset. I slept for 11 hours last night. That cured being unable to wake up! Worked on a lot of small pieces of bigger projects today. I need to have more days like today.

See The Blindness of Familiarity

School Day

  I am taking a course this week in learning how to use Amazon Ads and (hopefully) really make them work. I've previously run a couple, but with very little results. So far, I'm pretty happy with what I've learned, although it's way too soon to tell if anything is happening as a result.

But this is not a class in theory. We have real assignments to create ads. Today was labor intensive. If you haven't previously created Amazon keyword lists for your books (not just the 7 keyword slots they give you when you post your book) this takes a bunch of work. My brain is fried, but I have three ads running, one based on title keywords, one on authors, and one on subject-based keywords. We are supposed to focus on one book this week, so I chose The Secret Cellar. It's not a free book, and it's first in a series. All good choices.

No wonder I haven't been getting Amazon sales on the kid's books- they don't show up in searches even of categories they are listed in. The Secret Cellar doesn't even come up first on the list if you put in the exact title. Amazon is a grim mystery of its own.

Needless to say, I did not do anything else today. Have the pretty sunset. So nice of the cloud stripes to line up parallel with the electric wire!

And here is the ad with the new "hook" copy that is being run.

See That Mystery Tree

That Mystery Tree

  When Robert was here the other day we were talking again about the mystery tree back by the railroad tracks (because he's a tree enthusiast, so we often do botanical things together). It seems to be some sort of hybrid cherry tree, although it has never borne fruit. Some years, it is exceptionally beautiful, and it has a lovely shape. This was yesterday

It looks more mysterious today. And wetter

The rain didn't actually begin until late afternoon. I probably could have worked on the well pit. However, in the morning I was taking a class and doing an assignment about book advertising (which I'll be doing all week). Then in the afternoon I did some volunteer work, and read another book.

I thought I was done with this blog post, but the after-rain sunset decided to be a bit showy. That tree again. I do love it.

And the view straight west.

Trying to make my mind get busy cooking up the details of the plot for the next Dead Mule Swamp mystery, but I'm continually drawn to the next Dubois Files book. Making notes, and trying to steer myself back to the other series. We'll see which one wins.

It looks like two more days of nice temperatures, then more rain, and then significantly colder. I'm going to try to finish the above-ground work on the well pit in those two warmer days.

See Finally Some Color

How About those Sedums?

  Remember those sedums I bought? At least something in my gardens is happy! And that makes me happy. Here is what they looked like today. I even weeded around them so they would look nice. Both patches of the 'Lemon Ball' sedum are thriving, and the hybrid sedum recovered from being eaten, turned dark purple for fall and is blooming. Yippie!

The sun is a hazy ball as it slips to the west.

In other news: I did the second illustration for The Lonely Donkey. I worked 2 hours on the well pit- again with not much to show for it, but progress was made. I walked to the post office. Now, I hope to spend the evening doing serious editing.

See Lemon Ball Sedum- June SeeHybrid Sedum- June

Lazy Self-Indulgence

  Today was an in-between kind of day, and I made full use of it to be decadent and selfish. For one thing, I spent extra time playing my newest game obsession, Klondike. There was a special event that took a time commitment, and I did that. I ate way too many crackers, which were yummy, and chips with 7-layer dip. But (hopefully) I balanced it out for dinner with one of my favorite wild foods, purslane. Irene was thrilled to have me get it out of the garden, and I love eating it. Irene ate some, but she didn't like it as much as I do. It rained off and on in the late afternoon, but we managed to get in a little walk. The sheep in the neighboring lane were just heading home. I was reminded of the nursery rhyme, "Leave them alone, and they will come home wagging their tails behind them." And in the midst of the hardest rain of all, there was this glorious sunset. Nice calm day. Tomorrow, however, I have plans. See you then. 

See Crown Gall