Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: Photography


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My advice – when you’re stressed, take a walk in the woods

Katie here.

Yes, I know you heard from me quite recently, but mama has been really busy and being a responsible dog, I feel the need to fill the void here on mama’s my blog.

Deuce and me before our walk in the woods!

Because mama is so busy it’s pretty easy to make her feel guilty about neglecting me. So I’ve been exploiting using that guilt to get her to take me on walks at several parks.

Sitting together for our obligitory picture in the fall leaves.

Having wonderful October weather doesn’t hurt either. I think mama should thank me for getting her outside to enjoy the last bit of warm weather before it starts snowing.

Anyway…last week I got to meet up with my friend Deuce and explore Dinosaur Hill, a park over near where he lives with his mom.

Deuce thinks he’s going to get a treat photo-bombing my shot!

As you can see, somebody had decorated the park, getting it all ready for Halloween which is coming up soon here in the United States.

What is all this stuff, mama?

We had a real nice walk. So nice in fact that we walked all the way around the little park two times! I felt wonderful, and sometimes I even led out front, something that I never did even back when I was a youngster!

Hurry up you guys, it smells great over here!

Mama was real happy that I was real happy.

I guess I should tell you guys, if you don’t already know, that I have some days when I don’t feel so good. It turns out my kidneys aren’t working at full strength.

Don’t feel bad for me, I’m still a happy girl.

A few weeks ago the vet said I had progressed to stage 4 kidney disease and that made mama and daddy very sad. But then last week my numbers were a lot better, so now they feel a little bit better.

I don’t know what’s in my future, but you can be sure I’ll parlay it into more walks!

Deuce thought he’d find treats up there, but nope!

In fact, a couple days after my Dinosaur Hill adventure mama took me to one of my own parks, Davis Lake Overlook which is right by my house. I call it Katie’s Park II.

It was another beautiful day, kind of windy, but I don’t mind that, wind just makes me more beautiful.

Me at my park on another beautiful day!

Mama said we were only going to go a little ways down the trail. She didn’t want me going too far because she didn’t want to have to carry me back. Silly mama!

I thought we should keep going, right down this big hill. Mama thought I was over estimating my ability.

We got to the top of a big hill and mama said we should turn back. I said no way! We argued about that for quite some time.

I love being in my woods.

And then I won and we went down the big hill and up the other side and around to my favorite part of the park. I walked all the way back too, I never once asked mama to pick me up.

We saw a little bit of color. Of course mama had to take a picture.

So there mama, you don’t have to coddle me! On these bright beautiful fall days I can’t wait to get outside and into the woods!

I thought maybe I’d find something good under the picnic table. But nope.

In fact, mama took me to another of my parks tonight, but I’ll save those pictures for another post.

Hey! Do YOU guys have any treats? Cause mama is restricting treat dispersment around here.

I figure you’re pretty much overstimulated with all these images of me. Though I have to say, there’s not a bad picture in the bunch. Naturally.

Always a cover girl.

Talk later,

Your Katie-girl, rock star, hiker extraordinaire, and all around glamour girl.


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Princess Katie does Walktober with the Queen

Katie here. Things have been kind of boring in my world lately – as you may have noticed I haven’t gone on any adventures in forever. So this year’s Walktober seemed the perfect opportunity for me to kick it up a notch. Or ten.

The moms put us up here ’cause some really big dogs were coming. And because we are cute.

So I instructed mama to invite my friend Queen Abby (and her mom) to accompany me on my Walktober adventure. Abby was pretty excited about going on an adventure too. We think alike, Abby and me, mostly by ignoring each other. It works for us.

“Hey Katie, let’s not look at them when they take pictures of us, OK?”

Anyway, we met at Hudson Mills Metro Park down in Dexter which is near Ann Arbor Michigan. That way neither or our servants moms had to drive too far.

Queen Abby refused to smile, stating she was too regal to stoop to the paparazzi’s level.

It was a pretty day, though it started out foggy. But I don’t mind that, foggy means cool, and cool is, well cool to us shelties. We wait all year for the temperatures to drop so we can show off our beautiful but heavy coats for everyone to see

OK, maybe a little smile.

But I digress. I’m here to show you all the fall color, right? Hmmmm….down here in lower Michigan there’s isn’t that much color quite yet.

Mama says the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is at peak color right now. She’s not up there. I think she’s sad about that, but she sure wasn’t sad about going on an adventure with me!

A little bit of color against a beautiful blue sky.

Abby and I even put up with all the photos the moms wanted to take. As long as they didn’t want us to sit too close together we were willing.

Not going to look at you, mama.

And we managed to find some color under a couple of trees so that the moms felt like this walk qualified for a Walktober.

We paused to rest at this spot that was right next to a disc golf tee, so we got to see lots of guys throwing stuff. I thought that was facinating.

We had a wonderful time. The moms were very careful to let us rest as much as we wanted. After all, both I and the Queen are seniors now.

We sat in this pavilion, the concrete was nice and cold.

But we walked a good long way too, just real slow. The better to appreciate our adventure, you know.

“Seriously Katie, does your mom always take so many pictures?”

I think Queen Abby was glad she granted me the playdate so we could go on on a Walktober together.

All hail the Queen!

And I was really glad to share my adventure with her too. But, eventually, we had to leave. We each went back to our waiting carriages.

I was disgruntled because my treats had not been placed in my private compartment as requested.

I don’t think Abby was quite ready to leave. I didn’t want to say goodbye either.

See you later sweet Abby-girl!

But I was ready for a nap, and slept most of the way home. Except when mama stopped to take pictures of barns. But I forbade her from showing those on my Walktober post!

Geeze mother!

I swear, that woman has no boundries! But I’ll forgive her, cause I had a stupendously fun day!

Talk later, your adventuring girl Princess Katie.

PS: Thank you to Miss Robin for hosting the Walktober again this year! It got mama to take me to a park, so I owe you!!

Come along with me, there’s another adventure just over here!


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Northern Lights

No, I’ve never seen them in person. Well. I might have seen a tiny bit of some once, but I’m not sure.

I’ve been watching all the great Northern Light images popping up on Facebook. Many are being shot in northern Michigan, often very near where I used to live a lifetime ago. Sometimes I can tell exactly where the photographer was standing because I’ve stood there myself.

Creating pollution, light and otherwise while waiting for the Northern Lights.

Now days I live far away from the northern reaches of the Upper Peninsulia which would be my first choice of viewing locations. It’s just not practical to jump in the car when conditions are right and drive ten hours on the off chance the dancing lights appear.

It was a crazy night.

But I’m sure, sooner or later, I’ll be in the right place at the right time. In fact I was, kind of, a couple years ago.

I never saw this fist cloud that night, only when I reviewed images later.


These are photos from 2019 when we were in the UP in the fall and northern lights were predicted. Not only predicted among local northern light buffs, but also on national news networks. Everyone knew there should be lights that night.

Is there some green light over there?

Which is why we found ourselves on a beach looking out at Lake Superior along with a few thousand of our closest friends, all of whom were enjoying bonfires producing smoke obscuring the sky.

Bad composition, but the Milky Way is there.

Yep. That’s the closest I ever got to seeing the Northern Lights.

They’re out there somewhere. I never did figure out what that red spot was in the water.

It was a crazy night, and though I was facinated by the others on the beach, mostly Michigan Tech students, we couldn’t see much of anything out over the water. I didn’t even look at these images when we finally made it home from our adventures. We’d seen so many other wonderful things that trip I never thought about these shots at all.

But I have to say…maybe, just maybe I did see some Northern Lights that night. In spite of myself.

There were people and bonfires as far down the beach as we could see. In both directions.

Note: These aren’t great images, but to see them at all you’ll probably need to be in a dark room and looking at something larger than your phone.


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Both ends of the road

While camping midway on M-77 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula last week I decided to explore both ends of that road.

The colors are changing on M-77 north of M-28 in the UP!

I’d been up at the northern end, which terminates at Grand Marais along the coast of Lake Superior, in June, but it’s such a pretty spot I thought I’d go see what the lake was up to again.

I always love the color of the water against the purple grey clouds during a fall storm on this lake.

As seems to be usual when I visit, it was a stormy day on Lake Superior. Heavy dark clouds made the sky facinating, but made me dash to the car several times as bands of cold rain swept in.

Good thing I brought my raincoat.

That didn’t deter the rock pickers and there were even a few beach walkers out there even during the worst of it.

This guy was riding the waves and wind, while a flock of sandhill cranes in the distance fly against the wind.

But amazingly, the sun won the weather battle and the sky began to brighten. More people instantly appeared to revel in the beauty that is a beach walk in Grand Marais.

Nothing like a brisk walk along the beach once the rain lets up.

I always enjoy my time on the shores of Lake Superior, and this time I didn’t pick up one single rock! Though that might have been due to the weather and not my willpower.

The next morning I headed south on M-77 down to where it ends at M-2, then a bit west to Manistique. My goal was to visit a spring my husband and a friend had both told me I had to see. But first there was this pretty lighthouse off the shore of Lake Michigan.

Reminds me of us, decades ago.

Who can resist, right? It was still windy and cold, but this family out there on the rocks was having lots of fun. Four little kids, they reminded me of my family when we were all that young.

But I was really there to see Kitch-iti-kipi.

This deep, photogenic spring resides within a state park.

What is that, you ask? And how do you pronounce it? Well, maybe I better let you read about it first.

It’s a deep, beautiful spring that maintains a 45 F temperature all year around, even in the cold upper Michigan winters. There’s a barge like flotation that runs on a cable out over the top of the spring.

The colors really are this intense. Especially when the sun shines.

The barge is moved by turning a wheel near the back. Anyone on the barge can turn the wheel and be captain for awhile.

Pull hard to the starboard side!

The center of the barge was open so you could see straight down into the water.

Some big fish down there!

The water was so beautiful, it was mesmerizing. Everywhere I looked people were smiling and happy and chatting and exclaiming over how beautiful it all was.

Such amazing colors!

So, that’s what there is to see at the north and south ends of M-77 in the UP. Since you can’t all get there this fall, I figured you wouldn’t mind if I shared.

Hope you’re smiling now too!

Note: You really should look at these images on something bigger than a phone. You’ll smile wider I promise.


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Nothing to say

I sit here with a few pictures from around the yard to share but nothing to say.

Daddy red-bellied woodpecker is back after raising his kids.

Everything seems bigger than my words. Sadder.

Daddy’s girl follows him to the deck for breakfast.

There’s Hurricane Ida leaving devastation from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast.

Early morning light.

There’s the covid resurgance in my state and most of the country.

Afternoon sun makes everything brighter.

There’s kids going back to school while parents and school boards shout at each other over masks.

Wasps are storming the hummingbird feeder. I took it down for a couple of days.

There’s Texas.

The hummers are unhappy with me.

I need to look seriously for the good that I always say is there amongst all the trouble.

Shadows everywhere.

A good long walk in the woods might help.

I don’t know what these are, they are tiny, hidden in the messy wildflower garden.

But there are those mosquitoes.

And I know just the place to take a walk, too.


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Let’s celebrate!

Katie here. HEY! Did you know it’s NATIONAL DOG DAY? It’s been on the news and everything!

Hey! It’s another opportunity to celebrate ME!

Honestly, here at my house every day is National Dog Day, but don’t tell anyone how spoiled I am. Oh. You’re fully aware of that? ALL of you are fully aware? Hmmmm….I think mama discloses too much information. A review of the nondisclosure clause in her contract with me might be in order.

But I digress.

This is my garden. Mama should make a boquet to decorate the house in celebration, don’t you think?

So as soon as I woke mama up this morning I told her we needed to do something special to celebrate. But so far, nothing.

OK, maybe she wasn’t in the planning mode at 3:30 in the morning when we went outside to explore the yard, umm, pee. But surely when she was making my breakfast #1 she should have been thinking about what we could do that was fun.

Or when she made my breakfast #2 a couple hours later.

I’m waiting, mother.

But no. Mama says she’s going to book us for a camping trip but I haven’t heard anything about where or when yet. She keeps saying it’s too hot for shelties to camp.

One of my favorite things to do is sleep in my tent.

She might have a point about that. I’m thinking early November would be the perfect time to sleep out in a tent. Don’t you agree?

I thought so. Mama is a wuss. She even bought an electric blanket to use when we camp later in the season. I think she should book that November campsite right away! Oh- you say the campgrounds up here aren’t open in November? Well, that’s just silly.

I’m sure if mama was motivated to make me happy she’d find somewhere to camp. I’ll add it to her ‘to-do’ list.

You weren’t doing anything anyway, right mama?

Anyway, if all you doggies out there haven’t gotten anything for National Dog Day yet either, we should band up and form a doggie union. Sometimes the only way to make change is to make some noise.

And you all know Sheltie’s can make some noise!

I usually get what I want when I really put my all into asking.

I hope you all have a wonderful National Dog Day! Even if you’re not lucky enough to be a dog.

Signing off,

Your Union Organizer,

Katie-girl.

I’m not manipulative. I’m just really super cute.


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More practice

I got a couple of tips (thanks DailyMusing!) about how to maneuver through WordPress’ blockhead editing system, particularly with images.

So here goes….I should be able to delete a photo. Guess I should insert a photo first:

Then I’ll see if I can remove it….one moment please…

OH!!!!! That worked!

But wait….now there’s nothing there, and you can’t see the image…because…I REMOVED IT! 🙂 🙂 🙂

So here it is again…

It’s just a barn taken on my trip home from the night sky camping trip I took a week or more ago. In fact I have a few other barn images from that drive home. It was prime farm country, after all.

She gave me a tip on how to do a gallery too, let’s see if I can do that:

More barns!

Well, THAT was interesting! I don’t know if there’s a way to decide what goes where, but at least it’s a gallery!

The trick now will be for me to remember what I did.

Always something.

Edit: I just figured out you can click on any of the pictures in the gallery and see them bigger. They’re really better bigger.