All the Colors, Not the Rainbow

Red is for the Seven Sisters Rose. This is usually varied shades of light pink with an occasional darker flower. This year all the roses are very nearly red. Since I don't like this plant much, this is at least a color I enjoy more.

For orange we have another blossom open on the 'Frosty Kiss' Gazania.

Common Mullein provides yellow. Thes are on the plant that has the fuzzy rosettes of big leaves in spring.

Green is a surprise. I just don't know what the surprise is yet. These leaves have come up in some disturbed soil. It may be one of the prickly lettuces, but it doesn't look quite right to me for that. Stay tuned.

Blue and purple don't look very different in the pictures. In real life the plants do look different. This is the Viper's Bugloss, that weed I love. I've coaxed enough of it to self-seed in the driveway beds that it's looking very nice right now. I'll share a long shot another day so you can see how much there is.

And for purple, this is a plant Betsy gave me, Moldavian Dragonhead, Dracocephalum moldavica. And there's a scientific name that's easy to remember. Draco=dragon, cephalum= head, and the moldavian. It's an annual, but perhaps it will re-seed. This one is new to me.

For white, this is one of my new Moon Garden plants. It's still in its pot because it's going in a specific place that I don't have dug up yet. This is a Guara called 'Whirling Butterflies.' It's supposed to get 3 feet tall but probably not until I get it out of that pot!

Finally, what set off this color theme in my head was the black sky at mid-day! We had a fast but heavy thunderstorm. But if there was a rainbow afterwards, I missed it.

The heat today has been the worst so far. I may have to sleep on the deck tonight. The fans have lost the battle with the interior air.

In other news, I did the morning editing and stuff, but the hateful task in the basement is nearly done. Stay tuned. Only worked outside briefly. There is a little breeze now, so I might try for a few more minutes.

See Winter Rainbow 1

Gray Day and a Little Stinker

It was dark and oppressive all day long. Lots of thunder, a little wind, not much rain. (But a tiny bit.) The edge of one cloud rolled over us about 30 minutes ago.

Despite it being slightly wet all day, the finches are spending a lot of time at the birdbath. I'm getting a kick out of watching them.

In fact, I am enjoying them so much, I broke our decision not to feed the birds. It's not a big deal. I found a jar of seeds when I cleaned the pantry and decided to at least use it up. So I've just been putting a handful on the deck railing each morning. Last night the wind was blowing the seeds off, so I corralled them in a pot saucer.

Guess who found the seeds within just a couple of days. The chipmunk. I haven't been able to get a better picture of him.

He climbed right in and stuffed his cheeks full of every seed in the dish and took off.

This is the chipmunk that has been trying to come in the screen door. In fact, he can get in underneath it (twice last year- if it's the same one) and once this year. I've managed to scare him right back outdoors each time. But I decided I need a barrier because he might get in when I wasn't watching.

I have a board about 2 feet wide that just fits across the bottom of the opening. So far, this is keeping him out, although if he works at it, I'm sure he could duck under the screen door edge and jump over the board. To get on the deck at all he has to either make a leap of about 3 feet from the outside stairs, or climb up a window screen and leap about 2 feet. (Because the only access to the deck is through the house) I've watched him do both. Until I got a really good look, I was even contemplating if this was a small red squirrel because I didn't realize chipmunks were such good climbers. They tend to stay on the ground, although I've occasionally seen one higher in a tree.

One day, he climbed right up the screen door and hung there looking at me.

I am considering hanging the saucer on a cable that he can't climb down. That might slow him down for a while until he figures out how to leap to it. Probably not worth it for one jar of seeds that isn't even full any more.

I used to dream of having a small pond and a really wildlife-friendly yard- you know, one of those certified Backyard Habitats from the National Wildlife Federation. But I think I have enough wildlife already.

In other news: I did all the editing stuff and projects, but it wasn't a good day to work outside, so I cleaned the kitchen and spent some time on plant records. Makes me feel virtuous, like Archie Goodwin keeping the orchid records in the Nero Wolfe books. (But I do have pretty good records of the gardens.)

See Home Before the Storm

Skyday #1

I'm going to start an occasional feature called Skyday. I've taken a shot of the sky each of the last seven days and I picked 6 of them to feature. They are arranged in chronological order from top left to bottom right, not necessarily in the most artistic positions.

This is mostly because I'm kind of fascinated by tile mosaics made up of images with similar color tones. Some don't have any relationship to each other, some do. But I thought I'd see what happened with a few of these sky mosaics. Winter in Michigan is often constantly gray... but we'll see what happens.

This is October 16-22 (seven doesn't make a balanced arrangement, and I forgot one day anyway.

Then I'll show you the entire picture for each day.

October 16- clear blue perfect October day.

October 18- partly cloudy, mostly high, thin clouds

October 19- rain all day

October 20- mostly clear with some puffy clouds on the horizon- the day Om and I went on the color tour.

October 21- quite a lot of rain, but not solid gray- the clouds were changing constantly

October 22- today. They predicted rain, but it was really only partly cloudy. I even went for a short walk.

I buckled down and spent my time quota on all the usual projects. Walked down through the cemetery and back.

Miles hiked in 2025: 402.6

See The Skies Have it

Swoopy Sky

 Today's big event has to be the storm that swooped in early afternoon.

Literally.

I looked these up, and this kind of cloud formation has a name. It's called Asperitas clouds. It is defined as a low layer that looks like the upside-down surface of a roughened sea. Interestingly enough, these rarely carry rain.

There sure was a good suggestion of rain. I could see the radar. I could smell the rain falling somewhere (actually the smell of the newly wetted earth). Even better, I could see the rain falling behind these interesting clouds.

The "waves" were moving fast. The heavenly sea was roiling.

Quickly, this formation moved off to the east. You can see that ragged edge on the back side. Sure enough, not with these clouds, but behind them, within a few minutes the rain reached me.

It was almost like a spring rain, gentle and falling straight down. A half-inch total. Very nice.

I pretty much took the day off. I did write a newspaper column, but other than that I goofed off. Hopefully, tomorrow morning I'll be ready to jump back into working hard.

See Yesterday's Storm

What a Weather Treat!

 
It's the big news among almost all my outdoor friends-- today's beautiful weather.



Although I'm trying to be really good and not spend money to just go take a walk, I really had to visit a piece of trail today. It was simply too wonderful outside to do another too-familiar road piece. Well, this section of trail is awfully familiar too, but at least natural surfaces hurt the feet and legs less than pavement.

A green fairy ring?



There were some places where there was snow on the ground, but the trail was mostly bare. The snow did keep the air under the trees cool, but every once in a while, where the sun had penetrated longer, when I took a breath the air was warm!



I didn't see anything unusual, but wintergreen is always a cheerful addition to a winter landscape.



In places where there was snow on a far hill but not nearby, it almost looked as if there was water ahead.



Best find? A clump of Indian Pipe seed heads, but these are pretty common too. If I ever find an unexpected plant on this section of trail, you'll be sure to hear about it. I've seen this piece an awful lot, and it's the typical dry upland forest of the region.



Total distance, 6 miles. 2 hours to the minute. Right on my usual pace for this section.

In other news: I wrote in the morning, and did formatting in the afternoon when I wasn't hiking.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. North from Timber Creek TH on US 10 to 3rd St and back again. 6 miles.

See A Beautiful Day for a Hike

I Felt Artsy

 A friend posted a picture on Facebook yesterday, done in pen and ink, that I liked a lot. In fact I liked it so much I more or less copied it with just a few tweaks. The original artist is Heather Victoria Held. Here is my version in colored pencil.



I was pleased with the results, but I wanted the vibrant colors of the original. My colored India inks dried up years ago. (I was kept in glorious art supplies by Mom and Granny through college, but the artsy side of me slipped somewhat after that, as did our budget for things like arts.)

And, I hate doing the same thing twice. So I decided to make my own medallion with a rabbit. Mixed media: colored pencil, markers, and pen. I'm actually pretty happy with this, surprisingly so. My rendition of things seldom meets the expectations I have in my head.



I have a couple more ideas. We'll see if I have any further interest. That's the problem with me and art. I'm a fickle practitioner. However, several artsy friends have been inspiring me lately, so who knows? (Valory, Linda, John, Ellen, Sue, Jennifer)

In other news: This is what 4-6 inches of predicted snow looks like here. No skiing yet!



And I wrote my monthly column for the newspaper. Thus ends another day.

	See Betsy's Eggs are Celebrities
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Day Twenty-Three - Midland to Mackinac

 
Today I had the pleasure of hiking with a buddy I haven't seen for a long time.



Less than a mile into the hike the trail crossed the Cheboygan River on the old railroad bridge. Just the ordinary truss kind, but they are still interesting.



The view of the river was fun too. When I came back past here there was a group of people on the bridge shouting and waving to boats as they passed below.



Saw a group of Shaggy Mane mushrooms. Good eating! But I wasn't on a mushroom quest today.



This red squirrel was impressively and loudly upset that I was passing beneath his/her tree.



And, I know it's just a robin, but it was so bright and happy, it just wanted a picture taken.



I loved the mixture of shapes and textures with the New England Asters and cattails.



The colors seem to be nearing their peak along the roads, but only small portions of the trees have turned along the rail trail.



Today, it was extremely grievous to turn around and walk back to the car. I was only 12 miles from Mackinaw City! But I would have been truly beat if I'd gone on. However, I joined and switched to the North Central Rail Trail, and turned the corner westward toward Mackinaw.

I met a Vizsla named Otis (and his owner). Otis leaned on my leg (velcro dog) and wanted his back scratched. The owner and I talked about doggie things. She was impressed that I knew the breed. I told her about my Maggie.

There were quite a few people using the trail for a weekday, during work/school hours. I saw 14 pedestrians (four of which were runners, two were pushing strollers, and two were children), the two tiny humans in the strollers, two dogs, and three people on bicycles.

I expected the trail to go through some ugly places in Cheboygan, because rail lines usually passed through the industrial sections. But this trail continued to feel rural or suburban at the most crowded. The only real change was more street crossings.

The temperature shot back up. I should have worn shorts! I knew it was warm and humid, but found out why I was feeling miserably hot. But I did NOT get rained on.



Forward progress on the trail: 7 miles. Total miles walked today: 14. Total miles accumulated on the M2M: 186.

	See Day Twenty-Two
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Pea Soup and Hail

 
I haven't been doing a very good job of taking interesting pictures this week for the blog.

One thing I finished today was making split pea soup. It came out really good. Much to my surprise, I've never shared a picture of split pea soup here before, although it's one of my favorites, so at least this is a "new" (to the blog) idea.



What I wanted to share with you was a book club I met with. They had all read North Country Cache, and we talked about it, and writing and publishing stuff. It was a lot of fun, but I forgot to take even one picture.

The big local news is the weather. Today we've had wind, rain, hail, lightning and thunder. Tomorrow is supposed to be serious ice. But the most interesting thing I didn't see, so of course, didn't get any pictures.

At several places along the shoreline today there was a seiche. This is an event caused by wind or disturbance (could be seismic, but this wasn't) that results in a rapid change in water levels. The water must be partly enclosed, like in a harbor, bay, river mouth, etc so that a standing wave can form. There are pictures of the breakwall in Ludington completely submerged. There was damage in Manistee along the river, and the water level change was observed in Pentwater. I guess the change was as much as 20 feet in a few places. Pretty amazing.

When it happened, I was eating lunch with the book club, and we watched the sky turn black and then the hail begin. We had no idea the water was creeping up the street just a couple of blocks away!

Now it's thundering and lightning. Hope it's not glare ice when I have to come home from work. Next to last Friday night, coming up!

	See Turkey Soup Fog
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