More from the School Forest

 I did a few errands in Ludington this afternoon, and then took a walk at the School Forest before bell choir practice. I had hoped to get in more miles, but the trails were sloppy and slippery. This was about the worst, but even so, I couldn't hike as fast as I wanted.

The weather was really nice. In the 40s and very little wind. I'm trying to get tracks of all the bike trails there. You aren't supposed to walk them when they are groomed for fat tire bikes, but there's not enough snow for that now.

There's one of these teepees built of sticks that you find in forest from time to time. I don't know if this one was just built by kids for fun, or if it might be part of some ongoing school activity, since this is the school forest. Also, the forest is right beside the new elementary building. To be more accurate, they built the new building in part of the forest. Sigh. I understand this is called progress, but...

At this time of year, interesting things to take pictures of aren't much in evidence. Here's a stump. I'm pretty sure it's hemlock since it's reddish and broken into blocks.

One section of the forest has a grove of Norway Spruce, Picea abies. There are a couple of species of spruce with bark that forms these little round scales, but around here, it's likely to be Norway. These are not native, but are often planted.

One really special thing on one of the trails is the Telephone of the Wind. This was installed to honor first responders who "work tirelessly to help your loved ones when they are at their worst." The larger print says that this is a safe place to talk to loved ones you have lost, to tell them things you never got the chance to say when they were alive.

I also did editing and writing.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 105.7 of which 18.7 is North Country Trail.

Ludington School Forest, 3.0 miles

See Pepper and Salt

Strange Plastic

 I returned to the abandoned pantry-cleaning project today. It got sidetracked by many other things.

But what I want to show you is something very strange. In fact, I've never encountered anything like it. I like unique and unexplained things, so this qualifies.

Stored in the pantry were a pile of these large plates that Om had purchased a number of years ago. I picked up the pile and took them to the kitchen to wash them.

But when I removed one plate from the pile it made a funny crunching noise and disintegrated. The patriotic design is a thin film stuck to the base plastic. The white base plastic crumbled as the film peeled. The oddest thing about it is that the plastic has a very strange non-plastic odor to it when broken. If I were to keep playing with the plastic pieces, they could be broken down by hand in to a coarse sand-like pile.

I have NO idea what these things are made of, but needless to say, they are now headed for the trash. It's almost like they are made of biodegradable plastic. But why would anyone make something that is supposed to be durable from a biodegradable product?

In other news: I edited, I wrote, I worked on taxes.

See One More Pantry Section

Handbell Sunday

 Today was handbell Sunday and we played two pieces.

The prelude was "It is Well with My Soul." There is a lot of congregational noise as people settled down. O well.



This one was a lot of fun. It's a medly of "Onward Christian Soldiers," "Stand Up for Jesus," and "Lead On O King Eternal." You can't see the trumpeter in the video, which is too bad, because he's really good.



I also stopped to get groceries on the way home. Other than that, I mostly read a book

See Handbell Christmas

Cold, but Sunny

 It was 16 degrees this morning, but a small group of us decided to hike a few miles. The awesome news is that the sun was out most of the time!

This is the same section I hiked last week (link below), but things certainly look different today. And look at the shadows!

Six of us met and broke new trail in the snow.

We had two dogs with us. You know Koa, and you know that she is pretty small, about 20 pounds. But look how tiny Roxy is! Roxy is a Tibetian Spaniel. I'd never heard of that. She will only grow to be about 15 pounds. She's so tiny that she got to ride in a pack the whole way, and even with her warm coat and being in a pouch, she curled into a ball and hunkered down. You can see the little lump in Peg's front carrier in the picture above.

Naturally, the topic of greatest discussion was the blue sky. And what a lovely shade of blue it was!

Other than that I did some editing and writing. Walking in the snow was hard. I stressed my sore knee a bit.

Total miles hiked in 2024: 102.7 of which 18.7 is North Country Trail.

North Country Trail, Lake County, MI. Timber Creek TH to FR 6428 and back. 5.2 miles

See Before the Rain

Didja Hear the One about the Banana?

 Om has developed a cute little sense of humor in his old age. I had three bananas thawing on the counter that had been in the freezer. Of course they were black due to their recent housing situation.

So he comes out of the kitchen and completely deadpan says to me, "Those bananas are too ripe for me to eat." (This is quietly hilarious because he only eats green bananas, not even yellow ones.)

You know the fate of freezer-slumming bananas... bread.

One for now, and one for later.

I spent the rest of the day editing and writing. My eyeballs are swirling with words.

See Same as Last Year