Well. You may have noticed that I was not included in any of mom and my Auntie B’s adventures.
I don’t know how they could have left me out!
I would like to point out that I am a big girl now and I think I should be included in everything my people do! Don’t you agree with me?
Don’t you like the way my fur is starting to flow in the wind?
After all, I will turn 9 months old next week, and that’s pretty old if you ask me. Don’t ask my folks, they still treat me like a baby.
Well, OK, sometimes I DO still get a little bit scared.
Anyway, once mom and Auntie B returned home, with plenty of great smells on them I might add, I insisted on going with them everywhere, and a couple of days that everywhere included a local park next to our town’s small cemetery where my aunt could practice her bagpipes for an upcoming competition she will be in.
This is my Auntie putting in her ear protection. I noted I didn’t get any ear protection.
She said she hadn’t played in way too long and she needed to practice somewhere. I guess you can’t play the bagpipes just any ole place.
Wait a minute, mom! What’s she doing?
At first I wasn’t sure about the bagpipe sound, but mom urged me to come with her for a walk and we left my aunt to play in the park while we explored the cemetery next door.
I found out there were lots of whirly-gigs and flags flapping over there and I wasn’t too sure about all that at first.
Hmmmm….this stuff moves!
Then I found this little dog and I tried to talk to him, but he was more the silent type.
Hey buddy! Wanna play?
And then I saw this little boy and tried to play with him, but he wouldn’t move and suddenly that scared me so I went and hid behind my mom’s legs.
Maybe YOU will play with me?
That’s ok, right mom? Whenever I get scared I can hide behind you, right?
I’ll just rest a moment back here, OK mom?
Anyway, I practiced sitting pretty a lot, and getting my picture taken. My sister, angel Katie, says that’s just part of the game plan when you live with our mom.
OK, mom, I’ll sit here. But I’m not going to look happy about it.Unless you have cheese?
I’m getting pretty good at it too, though Katie says I need to be more insistent on getting my share of treats for the work I do modeling.
Sometimes mom gets kinda close, but I’m not afraid of the camera any more.
I’m getting prettier and prettier by the day now, so I don’t mind showing off.
Mom says it’s all about the light, but I know it’s really all about me!
Meanwhile my Aunt played on.
She played way on the other side of the park. It sounded cool!
And the resident cranes listened too.
Mom wouldn’t let me go say hi to them.
We all had a very good time, both days we wet to this park, and I guess I’ll call this a mini adventure, but I’m telling you, I’m up for something truly epic.
This was not really adventurous, mom. Try to do better, OK?
After the bagpipe parade my sister and I began to prepare for a night trek through the cedar forest and along the sandy beach out to the end of Sunset Point. The wind was picking up and we were worried that waves we heard crashing somewhere out in the lake would be washing over the point.
At 11 p.m. we decided to head out there and check it out for ourselves. There was a certain amount of anxiety as we wound our way through the woods and along the beach, but we were relieved to find there were no waves anywhere near the point and we were able to set up on a picnic table out on the point with a perfect view of both the Milky Way to the southwest and the Big Dipper to the north.
I lightened these somewhat for Facebook, but you’ll still want to look at them in a dark room if you can, and on a larger screen.
My first composition included more of the water in the bay. The light on shore is someone with a flashlight, probably also out looking at the meteor shower.
She sat in a chair and watched the northern sky, exclaiming in excitment every time she saw a meteor streak across the sky. I focused on the Milky Way, deciding to include some of the bay in my first set of images, and then moving slightly to the left to include all the trees in the next series of shots.
I like this composition too, with more of the trees we walked through to get out to the point included.
But she was seeing so many streaking meteors that I decided to turn my camera around and see what happened. I liked the rocky point jutting out into the dark lake.
I was lucky enough to get the meteor in the shot – barely.
And then I asked her to go sit on a rock at the edge of the gravel, still many yards away from the water, and sit very still for 20 seconds while I took a shot of her watching the sky.
The green might be air glow, or it might be northern lights. There was some pink in the sky too.
I love this shot so much. The image looks peaceful, but in actuality the wind and wave noise was so loud I had to signal when the shot was finished by flashing a light at her.
Then we realized I could set up the camera and she could push the remote shutter release while I sat on the rock watching the sky.
Such a perfect place to star gaze.
This was sooooo cool, to sit out at the end of a rocky peninsula and look at the stars. In this image I think there are 3 meteors, though at the time I didn’t see any of them.
My sister had been watching part of the Milky Way which was directly overhead and she asked if I’d take a picture of that, so I pointed the camera straight up and pressed the shutter release.
Uh oh, clouds have invaded.
But when we looked at what we had we realized the clouds had suddenly moved in. Our night of shooting stars was over. Our window of opportunity had been less than 2 hours. I was very glad we went out there a bit earlier than we had planned. I was happy with what we had captured and we hoofed it back down the point, across the beach and through the woods to our waiting car.
Back in camp, snug in my tent, I scrolled through my images on the back of my camera. I couldn’t see much detail in the small screen, but I knew it was there. I was smiling so big it was hard to go to sleep.
During our exploration walk out to the point earlier in the day.
I don’t know if I would have gone out that night, given the roar of the lake and the gusty wind, if my sister hadn’t been with me. Thanks to her we had a magical couple of hours, and now you get to share in it too!
Time is marching on, faster and faster, and if I don’t write this post now I will begin to forget all the fun stuff we did on our four night camping trip in Ontario Canada, on the shores of beautiful Lake Huron.
The beach in downtown Kincardine. It reminded me of the beach on a Caribbean island.
We were able to stay two nights at Point Farms Provincial Park, but they were booked for the weekend, so we planned on packing up Friday morning and moving to our next reserved campsite at MacGregor Provincial Park about an hour north, beyond the town of Kincardine, where the bagpipe parade would happen on Saturday evening.
The beach at Point Farms, early in the morning.
Very early Friday morning the sound of the lake roaring woke us. We hadn’t heard the lake from our site during any part of our two day stay, but Friday morning it was obvious something was going on.
Both of us popped out of our tents and said, “Is that the lake??” Then we scurried down the long set of stairs to the beach to see what there was to see.
Good morning!
The sun was just getting high enough in the sky to start illuminating the water and there were pretty little puffy clouds turning pink along the horizon.
Pretty big piece of driftwood.
We spent a long time wandering the beach and taking pictures. Good thing we had until 3 to vacate our site!
Early morning light on gull wings.
Eventually we went back up to the campsite and began to pack.
Didn’t count the steps, best not to know how many.
Normally it takes about an hour to get everything stowed in the car. It takes longer than that if everything is kind of wet, which it was.
Time to move on.
But we only had to go about an hour north, so no worries. Plus there were lots and lots of pretty barns between where we were and where we were going to be.
On the way out of Point Farms.
I guess I’ll show you those in a separate post, there were so many!
Well, OK, here’s one of the pretty barns we saw that day.
Finally we arrived at Kincardine, but we were too early to check into MacGregor Provincial Park and our site. So we explored the town’s beach, watching beautiful sailboats and clouds move at the horizon…
A steady wind caused both the boat and the clouds to move right along.
…and a very large boat come into the marina….
The boat’s name was 2nd Seabatical, and it was from Houston.
….and of course we saw the town’s lighthouse.
The photogenic lighthouse next to the marina.
Kincardine is another pretty town, and we enjoyed walking on the beach…
This post’s artsy-fartsy image.
…and eating a quick lunch sitting on a bench along the boardwalk watching people and their dogs.
We talked to this doggy grandma about her dogs and the town of Kincardine.
Eventually we made our way to McGregor Provincial Park.
This is a giant bat house near the ranger office. They said no bats lived in it, they chose to live somewhere else. Silly bats.
This park had sites tucked in among the trees and brush, so there was quite a bit of privacy, though noise from other sites certainly carried over to us.
Setting up at our very nice site, which was surrounded by poison ivy.
We explored the park; the beach that didn’t allow dogs…
It was nice to sit in the sand.
….and the beach allowing dogs. The dog beach was definitely the better choice.
That’s sunset point out there.
And then we walked out to the end of sunset point, to consider whether that might be a prime stargazing location. It seemed promising.
Friday afternoon out on Sunset Point. There would be no stars that night.
But we were really there to see the bagpipe parade, the parade that had sparked this entire trip. So… did we find the parade? Well of course we did! Even better, as we walked into the park where the bagpipers were congregating, we met Quinton, a beautiful little sheltie boy and his owner.
Quinton showing off his tricks and getting a treat, of course.
We had a great conversation with Quinton’s dad, learning some of the history of Kincardine, what the winters were like (not as snowy as they used to be), why the parade route was altered (Queen street was being dug up to replace ancient pipes underneath), our mutual love of shelties (he had 2 before Quinton, one died of kidney failure at age 7), and where to stand to get the best view of the parade.
A very good boy.
Then we went to listen to the bagpipes warm up, talked to one of the pipers and headed over to the parade route, smiling in anticipation.
Warming up.
The sun was setting over Lake Huron as the pipers began to march and play.
Waiting for the start of the parade.
It was pretty magical, though odd, as they marched down the street for a block, then did a complicated turn and marched back up the block again, then turned and marched part of the way down again.
Making the turn around.
I hope when Queen Street is opened again they might be able to march further in one direction. I imagine they hope so too.
They do this every Saturday evening all summer!
After the ‘parade’ the musicians moved to the center of the park, formed a big circle and played for the several hundred members of the appreciative audience that had settled on chairs and picnic tables.
It felt like the whole town turned out.
Kids played in the grass, neighbors caught up on their personal news, extended families gathered, people nodded and tapped their toes to the music. It was a beautiful evening of community togetherness.
Even the lighthouse showed up to give high fives!
My sister and I were both smiling as we made our way back down to the beach where we had parked. Mission accomplished, we’d seen the bagpipe parade, the event that spurred this entire trip.
One of many beautiful buildings on our walk back to the car.
But….would there finally be stars on this, Saturday night, our last night in Canada?
Terri over at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives has challenged us to post about all things yellow. This works out perfectly for me because I’m just home from four days spent camping in Canada, where one thing became very obvious — some time in the last century building beautiful homes out of yellow brick was a thing.
We were driving up highway 21 through small towns along the eastern coast of Lake Huron and every town had a lot of yellow brick houses. They were all beautiful, big or small.
Some were out in the country.
Many were along shady streets in town.
The town of Kincardine had so many of these beauties along one street that we just had to park and walk a few blocks admiring the houses and their gardens.
I’ve traveled in Canada a few times and have always noticed how beautiful their gardens are. On this street almost every house had flowers in full bloom from the front porch to the street.
I’ve got lots to show you from our four day camping/bagpiping/starry night trip, but I still have lots of images to sort through.
Bur I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to show you yellow from a Canadian point of view. I hope you enjoyed seeing these beautiful homes.
If you ever get a chance to drive up the eastern shore of Lake Huron you’ll find the same thing we did; friendly, happy people, cute little towns and stunning landscapes.
Hmmmmm…I seem to have gotten off blog topic. I was supposed to show you the rest of my two nights of camping up in the Upper Peninsula. The intent of that trip was to take another crack at capturing the Milky Way. But as you know, there are only a few hours a night, and a few nights every month, when the Milky Way is best photographed and weather doesn’t always cooperate.
Don’t worry, it got better later on in my stay.
When I left you last I was setting up camp during a torrential rain storm. There was so much water surrounding my tent, and a huge bubble of water under the tent that I decided to just drive away and go exploring. I figured I’d sleep in the car the first night and let things dry out.
It’s a beautiful part of my state!
I drove down the Garden Peninsula toward my planned destination of Fayette State Park which houses historical buildings.
You know I can’t resist an old barn.
The Garden Peninsula is beautiful in it’s own right, full of scenic pastures and barns. Truthfully if this was all I saw over the weekend I’d be happy enough.
Red barns and wheat are good too.
But I was curious about the historical buildings. Would they make a fantastic foreground for a Milky Way shot?
The light was wonderful.
I arrived at Fayette State Park late in the afternoon when the sun was lowering and making the cliffs glow.
The buildings looked beautiful in the golden light. I tried to figure out which way was south, knowing that the Milky Way would rise from that direction later in the evening.
The building in front wasn’t square, it was so interesting.
Mostly I just enjoyed shooting the buildings in the soft light and imagining what life was like back in the day.
One of the buildings that had smelted metal.
And then I began to wait in my car in the parking lot for it to get dark. Gradually the other visitors left. And as they left clouds began to roll in. Soon enough it was clear that there would be no stars that night. Plus I was beginning to feel creepy about being there alone.
Is someone watching me?
So I drove back to my damp camp and worked at getting the puddle out from under my tent, then I went to sleep to dream about stars for the rest of the night.
The next day I visited Seney Wildlife Refuge, not as early as I’d hoped, but still morning. Almost immediately I saw this loon family snoozing.
Expand this image to see the sleeping family.
They were a long way from me and even my zoom lens didn’t get them really close enough, but it was cool to see all four of them, mom, dad and the two little ones resting after breakfast.
Then I realized that the milkweed, which was growing everywhere, was covered in monarch butterflies.
You can almost smell the sweet milkweed.
I had so much fun stalking butterflies, trying to get that iconic monarch image. They moved a lot, but at least they were closer to me than the loon family!
Mama duck and her baby.
Eventually I moved on and found a couple of swans…
Notice the clear skies. Will there be stars tonight?
…and a Canadian goose family with teenagers.
Mom, Dad and four teens.
Still, I wished I could have gotten a good photo of the loons. And then I rounded a corner and there was another family of loons, focused on breakfast, much closer to the road.
Num, num, num.
I parked so fast and quietly got out of the car. I didn’t even close the door. The car was parked in the middle of the road with the door open and I didn’t even care.
The happy couple.
I was so happy to get some closeups of this beautiful couple. Their youngster, an independent singleton, was swimming and eating on his own quite a ways from mom and dad. He was not so easily photographed.
The teen, maintaining his distance.
But I got quite a few nice images of the adults. They made my day. I felt that regardless of what the weather did to my star hopes I was happy with the trip just because I’d been able to watch the loons.
Isn’t he beautiful?
Then, not to far from the end of the refuge road I came across a dead tree. I could see something hoping around in the branches so I stopped, once again in the middle of the road with the door open.
Turns out there was a single elusive cedar waxwing, who managed to always have his head turned away from me…
Hey there, the camera’s over here.
…and a king bird who never sat still long enough to get a clear photo.
Too busy hunting lunch to wait around for me.
I stayed there a long time but never did get any better images of either of them. And then I headed back to camp to wait for it to get dark again. I took a nap and considered where I was going to go if there were stars.
It turned out to be a nice site, wider than others and with shade.
I couldn’t talk myself into driving the 14 miles back down the Garden Peninsula, I felt like I needed someone to go with me if I was going to hang around historic buildings in the middle of the night. So I just went out to the boardwalk a couple miles away and shot straight out over Lake Michigan.
There was lake fog and a few clouds near the horizon.
Nothing exciting in the foreground, and a stupid big ole streetlight behind me (but that did light up the grass in a kind of cool way) and not anything like what I’d hoped for. But the lake was gently lapping the shore and the air was warm and the stars were shining.
So I was happy.
Letting a little bit of the lighthouse beam into the shot.
And I have a couple of people that are interested in going back there sometime to shoot at Fayette State Park. I’ll contact the park rangers first and make sure we’ll be allowed to be there after hours, and we’ll scope out just where to stand to get the sky and a building in the shot.
I’m supposed to be sharing with you images of my short camping trip to Michigan’s UP. And I will…really. But this morning as I was busy washing dishes I happened to look out the window and, surprise, this guy was standing on our deck railing.
This is a green heron. They fish in the pond across the street, and they used to nest every summer in the vacant land behind us. But there’s houses back there now.
I haven’t seen the green herons all summer, nor last summer either that I remember. So this was really special and I just had to share him (or her) with you!
I’m up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a couple nights, hoping for a clear sky to practice Milky Way photography. On my drive up I stopped for a break at Otsego State Park.
I had just made it through a driving rainstorm, the kind where everyone slows down and turns on their emergency blinkers because you can’t see anything. It was stressful, so I figured I’d look at a state park I have never camped at and get a little walk in too.
Though it wasn’t raining, the sky didn’t look promising for night sky photography. I didn’t stay long, wanting to get to the UP and my destination camp site.
But once over the bridge, the sky turned even more ominous.
It was sprinkling when I got to my camp site, so I waited in the car for the sun to come out. And it did.
But then, halfway through my tent set up, the sky suddenly and with no warning let loose with a downpour. I managed to get the rainfly up over the exposed tent and then I dashed for the car.
And hoped.
Would the rainfly keep the inside of my tent dry?
Would I ever get a clear night to try to find the Milky Way?
Change Is Hard 