Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: Michigan


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Is it time for Walktober already?

Longtime readers might remember that every October many of us bloggers deliberately take a walk, then post a few (or a lot) of images and descriptions. Robin, over at Breezes at Dawn, hosts the Walktober, compiling everyone’s posts into one at the end of the month.

This year the official dates for Walktober are October 8th through October 24th. But if you need a little bit more time just let Robin know and she’ll try to accommodate you.

Let’s go on a walk!

It’s so much fun to take you all along on a walk. And it’s fun to read everyone else’s post, to explore a part of the country, or the world, that we might never get to visit any other way.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been on two walks, complete with friends and their dogs and I’ve considered whether I should use those walks as my official Walktober.

Deuce and Ace patiently posing.

After all, I was walking, and it was October, and better yet, there were dogs!

But ultimately, though these were both really fun walks, I decided to take you with me to a place I’d never been before. And today I explored a new park.

Jasper enjoys a spot of sunlight.

But today’s images aren’t ready for the public yet, and I knew you wouldn’t want to miss pictures of dogs…so I’m sharing those here.

Maybe you’ve done a Walktober in previous years, or maybe you haven’t but think it would be fun. Either way, I encourage you to take some time out of your day and get outside.

Robin’s rules are easy. Take a walk or ride a bike, jog or go for a drive, just get outside, grab an image or two and then post about your experience. Link your post to this post of hers and she’ll be sure to add you to her list of people enjoying the beautiful October outdoors.

A dignified Jasper pauses for a pose.

And if you’re worried that you don’t have any country trails to share, maybe no autumnal color, well, one year I took everyone to downtown Detroit for my Walktober submission, and had a wonderful time showing you that a city is a great place to walk too.

There are plenty of beautiful days left in October!

Look around you, there’s bound to be something, perhaps your own yard, that you’d like to show us.

Let’s spend October sharing our wonderful worlds with each other. I can’t wait to see something of your part of the world!


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Colors trigger memories

The maple trees around here are turning colors. They are brilliant reds and oranges and golds this year.

Out on the main road is this little pond. It puts on a show every fall.

Each year I notice how beautiful they are, each year I think the colors are the prettiest ever.

In our small local cemetery the sun focused on a single branch.

Just like this year.

But today I also feel tinges of sadness as fall progresses because my little girl, the one who loved fall and who believed the trees turned color just for her isn’t here to enjoy it.

Our empty backyard.

Katie looked so beautiful in fall colors.

Her colors.

She’s everywhere I look.


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New feeder

I swear the birds in my yard are so spoiled.

Ms. Downy Woodpecker spent a lot of time on the new feeder yesterday.

They wait every morning, growing more impatient every hour I’m late, for their feeders to be filled.

She was curious about me, just inside the window, but not frightened.

Yes feeders. As in multiple.

They already had an oiler feeder, a thistle feeder, a flat feeder and an oriole and/or hummer feeder, depending on the season.

I love capturing her fuzzy fluffy feathers.

But I follow a bird photographer who just purchased a new feeder that seemed to be a bird favorite, so I ordered one too.

Then Mr. Downy showed up, chasing her off. He thinks he’s special I guess.

The birds love it. I don’t know if it’s just because it’s new, or because the bigger birds who can’t fit through my caged feeder have a new source of snacks.

He’s fuzzy too.

Yesterday it enticed three different types of woodpeckers to spend time near our windows.

And then Ms Red-bellied arrived, chasing Mr. Downy off the feeder.

I hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as we did!

And Ms. Hairy Woodpecker arrived too, with her long beak. She at least shared the feeder with the little birds.

And go over and read Backyard Bird Nerd’s blog. You’ll love the variety of birds that she attracts to her yard!

Hey! What about ME? I’m pretty too….but they won’t let me on the popular feeder.

I’m looking forward to spending more time with my birds, but I’ll try to get up earlier to get those feeders filled before they go on strike and demand one treat per image taken. It’s possible Katie left them a copy of her contract and I don’t want that kind of thought process to spread.

I’m new around here (red breasted nuthatch, I’ve never seen here before!), so I’ll just look for seeds over on the railing.


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A Tail of Three

It all started early one morning when we noticed a visitor breakfasting in the back yard.

But wait! Look who else has arrived!

A young buck enjoys our house special, succulent turf du jour.
Are you looking at me, lady?
Just a moment…do I hear something over there?
I guess it’s nothing. If that lady is going to be taking pictures I better spruce up a bit.
Meanwhile, another visitor approaches the buffet.
Just one moment! Who are YOU?
Why, no one important, sir!
OK then. Just so it’s clear who’s the big buck around here.
Yes sir, of course sir!
Shhhhh! Just a word of warning, watch out for the big guy over there.
Thanks for the tip!
And another thing, you two youngsters need to show more respect!
I swear, this younger generation has no idea. The things I had to put up with when I was a kid. Why I walked to school in blizzards, uphill both ways!
I’ll just grab a quick snack to go…
Need to find me a quiet place for a nap.
Kids today…gotta keep em in line. Yep, always something….


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What to send?

The library here hosts a photography contest every fall. Residents of our township submit up to three 8×10 images which are numbered and affixed to big display boards.

#1

We have the month of September to submit photos. Then they are on display at the library through the end of October.

#2

People get to vote on their favorite. There’s an adult and a kids division.

#3

The only rule is that the images have to have been taken in our township.

#4

I love looking at all the pictures. Lots of times I think, “darn! I’ve seen that exact image and always thought I should stop and take a picture!”

#5

The first year I submitted three images, things I thought were artsy, interesting, technically good.

#6

I realized right away when I saw which images won that the people voting are not judging skills, but rather are voting with their hearts on things that touched them.

#7

So I changed my strategy and tried to see my photos from a casual observer’s point of view.

#8

What would catch someone’s eye? Make them smile or even laugh?

#9

What image would make them come back and look again?

#10

All of these photos are from around my yard. You’ve seen most of them before. I have to pick three.

#11

What’s your vote?


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Waiting on the Milky Way

So what does a person do all day while waiting for true dark to arrive? Besides nap that is.

Working on the river.

Well, on the one day the skies were clear while I was in the UP I wandered the Manistique waterfront looking for other things to photograph while impatiently urging the sun to hurry up and sink.

If you zoom in you might be able to read about the lighthouse.

The mouth of the Manistique River was being dredged so I watched that for awhile. It was sort of interesting, but you can only watch so many piles of mud being moved before you have to move on.

Scoop after scoop of muck was dug up from the river bottom and poured into the barge.

I couldn’t resist walking out on the causeway leading to the shiny red lighthouse. It was such a pretty day.

A wide cement walkway made the trip out there easy to navigate.

I spent quite a bit of time out there waiting for the sun to go down. And watching the light glint off the water.

It’s not a long walk on a pretty day.

A couple of guys were fishing but they hid behind the lighthouse for me to get some shots.

All metal, it can withstand some nasty weather. But none was forecast while I was there.

But as the sun lowered I came back into shore.

The flowers glowed, loosestrife, an invasive, and goldenrod.

The evening light makes everything so pretty.

The last bit of light before the magic begins.

And then, slowly, slowly, the sun sank and the blue hour began.

Let’s take a walk down this boardwalk.

Earlier in the day I had scoped out a place to set up, hoping that the Milky Way would be near the lighthouse from my vantage point. The compass said it should be. But I knew I only had one night so I hoped I wasn’t wrong.

The beginning of blue hour on the beach.

I waited impatiently. It takes forever for the night to get truly dark. And then….a few stars decide to turn on their lights.

Here we go…

I still couldn’t tell exactly where the Milky Way was going to shine…but the stars made me smile anyway. And then….finally, finally, there it was. It was pretty darn amazing. I don’t know why the beach wasn’t full of people just staring.

Take a moment and just look.

I stayed out there a long time. A lot of it not shooting, just standing there, in the moment.

Because, really, how many shots can you take of the same lighthouse with the Milky Way? Well, as it turns out…several dozen. You see, the dark sky requires that you have a high ISO and a wide open aperture and that causes grainy shots.

Beautiful without the lighthouse too.

But you can stack them. Did you know that? There’s software that will lay your photos, one on top of the other, and match up your stars and eliminate anything different. And that clears up a lot of the grainy noise. Huh. So I was taking 7 shots of each shot, in preparation for stacking. But I learned, just this week, I should have taken 10 to 15 shots to stack.

Ah well.

Many of my images had these streaks. I never saw it when I was on the beach, but some people say this light in the sky is the Sky-Link satellites. Zoom in and see what you think.

So, anyway, these are single images, no stacking here, just a little editing to bring out the whites and sometimes to lift the shadows.

I still have so much to learn…so many technical things that I can do to make the images more clear, more beautiful. But the Milky Way season here in Michigan is almost over. There will be one more chance in October, just a few nights, and then I’ll have to be patient until 2023.

Just to show you, we are never alone, the sky is full of stuff flying around.

Yea right. I can hardly handle waiting for the sun to set in a single evening. How am I going to get through months of no Milky Way?

It’s gonna be tough.


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So, on to the UP – ey?

Let’s see…last you knew I was hanging out in Mackinaw City waiting for it to stop raining so I could continue on over the bridge to my next adventure.

It was such a beautiful night.

Yep, I was feeling pretty good. Almost kinda certain that I had gotten some decent Milky Way shots at my last location. Of course I didn’t really know, but was feeling good about it.

The other end of the Milky Way.

And I was so excited to be heading to a new (to me) location to find more dark skies. I had a campsite booked for three nights at Fayette State Park which is located at the bottom of the “Garden Peninsula,” a piece of land jutting down into Lake Michigan from the southern edge of the UP. Should be perfect, right?

Well…wrong. When I arrived at the park about 4 p.m. and drove to my site I found a very small site (not necessarily a deal breaker) that was entirely sloped, about the size of 2 cars, and totally a mud pit.

Out of focus because I was speeding away.

I sat there in the drizzle for the amount of time it took me to say”H*LL NO,” and then I drove the long 14 miles back up to civilization where I sat beside the road and searched the internet for a cheap hotel.

Where do I go now?

Along the way, down and back up, I did note that the Garden Peninsula itself was beautiful. With lots of barns and windmills and such.

So that made it a bit easier when I had to drive back down there again to formally check out of the campground that I never camped in so that I could get a refund for the other two nights.

A barn being renovated.

A sixty dollar refund was worth the drive too. I should have just checked out the evening before when I decided not to stay but I was so freaked out by the campground I just ran.

Mama cow wants me to move along.

I made reservations at another state park, Indian Lake, which pretty close to the town of Manistique. It was a much nicer place, with larger camp sites and grass. It wasn’t full my first night so I had a distant view of the lake, though the second night someone camped behind me. Still, I had plenty of room.

Much better. Grass and a view.

And it was only three miles away from the lighthouse where I spent a lot of hours waiting for a sunset and hoping for a chance at a decent Milky Way image.

Did I get that image? Well, as usually this post is getting too long, and I still have lots of images to edit. So I guess you’ll have to wait and see.

Not much of a sunset….but there was the anticipation of stars.

I just had another 2 hour lesson from my Milky Way teacher and I now know more about what I don’t know. I guess I need to get out there for another practice session!

Meet Harlo, my doggie neighbor at the campground.

Oh darn.