God of Grace and God of Glory

  Today was about as perfect as a day can get. Only way it could have been improved would be if my best friend had been able to be with me. It began with music.

This is a fun arrangement of God of Grace and God of Glory. Interestingly, some of us in the bass clef could not hear the melody at all during practice. But you can hear it just fine on the recording. That's a win!



It hit 60+ degrees with sun this afternoon, and I simply could not stay inside glued to a computer. So you'll see more about my beautiful hike tomorrow.

And then I drove home by back roads. Another favorite thing.

OK, now I have to settle in for the rest of the evening and actually do a couple of things. Ha! Life is EXTRA good today.

See Just As I Am

Eight Miles for Spring

  This was a pretty perfect way to celebrate the entrance of Spring 2021. Cathy and I walked for 8 miles on the North Country Trail, and also took a little side trip. I just like the way the trail curls around the shoulder of this hill. This is the hill at the north end of Not Quite Endurance Edition, within the bubble of high land known as Ward Hills.

But very little snow today! You can see that the sky was blue, and despite a chilly start, I was hiking in shirtsleeves before we were finished. Pretty wonderful!

There were spots of white yet in low areas that don't get the sun as much. This section is fairly hilly, and you can sort of tell that in the picture

The adventure of the day was that we bushwhacked the extra little bit over to the Ward Hills Fire Tower Site. It looks like the last time I was there was three years ago. How can that be? Anyway, the views are better when the leaves are off the trees. The tower is long gone. I'm not sure when it was removed, but long before I ever hiked there. This is looking south, which is the best view. I can't quite identify the ridges, but suspect the farthest one might be a high E-W ridge near Hart, about 30 miles away. The fire tower hill is the highest point in the Ward Hills.

To be honest, my favorite thing about the location is the foundation of the caretaker's house. I love contemplating what it looked like, and how the keeper lived there.

With someone else along to snap a picture, I even went down to check out the basement. There were pieces of a broken chair, but not enough to play house.

We did all our goofing off on the way outbound, covered 4 trail miles, turned around and came part way back before stopping for lunch. There was some neat moss on a nearby log.

My NCT Miles for 2021 is at 117. Cathy is going for the Hike 100 Challenge, and her total is at 22 miles.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI, Centerline Road south for 4 miles and return, with a side trip to Ward Hills Fire Tower Site. Total miles 9.2

In other news: When I got home I hunkered down and spent some serious time on an editing job.

See Ward Hills Fire Tower Again

Blue Sky, Blue Water

  Mostly I painted today, white on white. But the color of the day outside was BLUE.

What an exquisite color!

Made a quick stop at Lincoln Lake to catch the color of the water.

It would be nearly impossible for me to be anything but happy with the world sharing these colors today!

In other news: I ran some errands and am working hard on an editing project.

See Not Quite Spring

Not Quite Spring, but No Snow

  Today, Loren and I did the same hike we did at the beginning of January (link below). However, it was much easier today with almost no snow on the trail. We started at 5 Mile Road and went south to cross the Big Sable River on the Vince Smith bridge. The boardwalk is the approach to the bridge through the floodplain wetland. You can see the bridge in the distance.

There is always a beautiful picture to be had of the Big Sable River.

The river and bridge are the best features of this stretch. From the river you climb about 100 feet to the top of a wide ridge and then drop back down again to 3 Mile Road, and just past that McCarthy Creek and Lake (beyond where we walked). So this section should also be remembered as one with a big climb and downhill no matter which direction you hike. Here is Loren starting down the slope in a valley toward 3 Mile Road.

I was trying hard to find things that weren't just brown and gray. You may recall that March is my least favorite month of the year. Well, I found a puddle of bright yellow-green moss on a stump.

The symmetric pattern of the bark flowing around the roots of this tree is intriguing.

Moss and lichen in a repeating pattern. I found this oddly appealing.

And a true hint of spring- also good with comparison to a year ago- Trailing Arbutus. Tiny tight buds. I compared them with the picture from a year ago, and they are just a little bit tighter than those. However, this is also 15 miles farther north, and spring "travels" about 15 miles a day. And we are still 4 days earlier than my pictures from last year. So, perhaps, everything is about on a par with 2020.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI, 5 Mile Rd to 3 Mile Rd and back 7.5 miles total

North Country Trail miles in 2021 = 109

In other news: When I got home, I settled in and did some more editing, and also started reading a good book.

See 5 Mile to 3 Mile

Cattails and Horse Tails

  I didn't sleep much last night, and had a terrible time getting moving today. I did finally go paint for a while, and then Cathy and I took a short road walk.

These two beauties came over to say hello to us.

My brain was too groggy to process much, but I tried to get a couple of interesting pictures of last year's cattails. I do like this one with the reddish saplings behind.

Are the individual heads ratty or artistic?

Only walked about 3 miles, but it was good to do a little bit.

In other news: I did manage to pull my brain together enough to do a little editing, and run a couple of errands. And- just for an extra chuckle, there were some potatoes along the road, and we picked up a few... free food!

See Glorious Temperature