Trent coordinates a smile a week blog post, asking people to share something that’s made them smile each week.
Well, currently I’m in one of my happy places.
Pt. Betsie on a windy wet afternoon.
And it sure makes me smile.
The Coast Guard on patrol.
What made you smile this week? Post about it and link up to Trent’s blog, he’ll recap on Monday.
Lots to smile about this week!
I’m ‘up north’ and the sky is clear and the air is warm and the bugs aren’t bad. Perfect to head out and try to learn more about shooting stars. And there might even be a few shooting stars to boot!
The little lake was calm with families waiting for the sunset on the protected beach away from the big lake.
I went out to North Bar Lake, a place a photographer told me about years ago. I’ve been there a couple of times since, and I figured it might be the perfect place to watch the stars.
I got there way too early, but walked out on the beach anyway, trying to scope out a spot for sunset and star viewing.
Someone’s castle, left from earlier in the day.
There wasn’t much beach to speak off, the Great Lakes are high this year, but I’m not complaining, it feels good to see the lakes full.
Not a lot of sandy beach, but enough to enjoy.
Once I figured out there wasn’t any one particular spot I’d want to be I headed back to the car to read for awhile.
The stairs glow with late afternoon sun.
And then an hour or so later I dragged my towel, camera bag and tripod back out and walked way down the beach away from all the families and groups of kids with their bonfires and set up shop.
The last of the daylight shimmers.
It wasn’t much of anything, last night’s sunset. But it gave me plenty of time to play around, trying to figure stuff out.
Typical sunset pinks up the sky.
Like how to slow down the movement of water.
Add a bit of time to that shutter speed and smooth out the rough edges.
And how to make the most out of that time just after the sun goes down. The pink sky.
Still waiting for those stars.
The blue air.
The blue hour, Lake Michigan style.
But the darn moon, only half a moon at that, was just way too bright.
Moonlight on the big lake.
I tried, because I was getting tired of waiting, to capture the big dipper. Just to see what this camera can do.
Really, the big dipper is in there. Promise.
And then I focused for a minute or two on the group of college kids up the beach and their bonfire.
Don’t know what happened here, but it’s kind of cool, so I’m keeping it.
By 11:15 I was so tired, sitting on the sand, looking for anything to take a picture of, the stars not really showing yet. I finally packed up and headed back to the car, checking along the way for things to shoot.
Can you see the tree and the stars and the fence?
I liked the old tree and the big dipper behind it. Not exactly why I was out there, but still pretty cool.
I sat on the little beach and captured the moon and the kids’ bonfire. And then I headed back to camp.
Can you see the bonfire out there, to the left and lower than the moon?
An hour later, pulling into the campground, the moon was setting, a bright orange crescent putting out much less light. And at my site, almost 12:30 in the morning, there were a ton of stars overhead.
No pictures of any of that…but you can imagine my frustration. And so the quest continues for another night.
A failure, but a fun failure.
“I can’t watch you all the time, mama. Sometimes I need to turn my back on you and watch for those squirrels.
There are two bluebird boxes in our yard. Last spring I cleaned out one of them, but hadn’t gotten to the other one when I noticed bluebirds checking it out, so I left it alone. Turns out the bluebirds went with other options and I sadly acknowledged that we didn’t have any tenants this year.
Warning off the human intruder.
Well, I guess I haven’t been paying attention.
For the past couple of days, whenever I wandered around the backyard there would rise up noisy, agitated chatter from the fringes of the yard. Somewhere up in the oak tree, or over in the hydrangea bush was an angry bird, but I could never quite find it.
Everybody OK in there?
Well, this morning I figured out most of the noise was coming from the bluebird house, the one I never got around to cleaning out. A house wren soon swooped up to sit on the roof and tell me off. I retreated to find my camera while she fed her babies who were screaming for their breakfast.
Heading out to gather more insects.
Once outside with my camera I hid in a tree far away and watched mom and dad fly in with insects for the hungry crew. I don’t know how many babies they have, but in this next shot you can see one of the little ones inside.
Click on this to make it larger so you can see inside the nest box.
My new Michigan bird book says they have two broods a year; this is probably the second and last. I’m guessing they had a batch while we were off traveling earlier in the summer. I’m so happy at least one of our rentals had occupants this summer. I think the world could use a few more wrens and I wish our happy brood success as they venture out into it.
It’s hard work being a parent.
Good luck little ones, it was an honor to be your landlord!
Don’t make me come in there!
Katie here!
I know for a fact you’ve been missing me, cause I haven’t been able to blog for months and months! OK. Weeks. But it feels like forever!
I’m bored mama!
There are a lot of reasons why I haven’t blogged, most of which have to do with the fact I haven’t done anything fun in ages. It’s not fair. Mama has been gallivanting all over the world.
And where did I get to go?
Seriously bored, mama.
I got to go to the kennel, that’s where I got to go! I seriously don’t understand why mama thinks that’s an adventure. I mean, while she was climbing mountains in Norway and the Hill in D.C. I was napping in my cell, um…room at the kennel.
Don’t get me wrong, they treat me fine there, but it’s definitely not an adventure.
I don’t think this is the kennel!
So yesterday, when mama got up early and started hustling around I got sort of nervous and went to hide somewhere, hoping she’d forget I was around. But that never works, and it didn’t work this time either.
A pretty river runs through the park.
I ended up in my crate in the car and we drove for almost an hour. I was definitely nervous when she opened the door, but you know where we were?
We were at Deuce’s house!
This is my friend Deuce!
Boy oh boy, I haven’t seen my buddy Deuce in a long time! This was way better than the kennel!
Being at a park is way more fun then the kennel or the groomer or the vet!
And then we all went, Deuce, his mom and mama and me, to one of his parks! It’s a perfect little park, just my size and it’s all shade.
Deuce and I spent a long time sniffing stuff, he’d be up front doing the scouting for us, then I’d come along and sniff the good stuff that he marked for me. It worked perfectly.
We’ll sit next to each other but we’re not thrilled about the interruption to our sniffing.
Of course along the way the moms had to make us pose for pictures. I swear, I try to use my new deafness as an excuse not to follow directions but darn mama uses hand signals so I end up posing for her.
We saw a couple deer in the park, a mama deer and her baby. My mama only got good pictures of the mama deer, after we moved on we looked back and saw the mama licking the baby’s face. It was so cute, but there was too much brush between us to get a good picture. Mama was still glad she saw it through.
You can see the two, mom and baby, looking at us, even though the photo isn’t in focus.
After we made one tour of the park I still felt good so we walked around it again. This time we noticed the numbers and we found the number 12 for me, cause I’m 12 years old!
Look! They’re celebrating my age!
The vet a couple weeks ago said I looked real good for my age and I have to agree I’m fabulous.
So anyway, that’s my adventure, and I’m grateful to my Aunt Karen, Deuce’s mom, for inviting us over to his park and for being patient when I was a little slow.
Sitting in a spot of sun for mama.
Though to be honest, it wasn’t always my fault. Don’t forget, I had mama attached to me and she has that darn camera that slows her up all the time. She’s always taking these artsy-fartsy pictures.
Mama is fascinated with light.
Frankly, if the focus isn’t me I don’t think it’s worth taking up the pixels.
Am I right or am I right?
Talk later, your park girl Katie.
I think I deserve a treat.
I like site #16 at our local state park because it’s always filled with birds, many of them different than the birds that visit my feeders at home.
A yellow warbler hides in plain sight.
Camping there this week without Katie to distract me or them, I sat quietly through most of a day, camera in my lap studying how they worked the shrubs for food. There was wild cucumber as well as wild grapes winding their vines all over, and though the fruit wasn’t ripe, they seemed to be enjoying it.
I don’t know if this is the same bird, see the black around it’s eye?
This little yellow warbler worked his (or her) way up and down the branches, picking off green fruit as it went.
Giving me the cold shoulder.
I couldn’t get a good image, because it never stayed still, and mostly hid behind at least one layer of leaves. It would pop out for an instant and then be hidden again.
Incoming!
I tried for hours.
While I was concentrating on the little yellow bird I noticed a robin hopping around near my feet. Sometimes he’d stop and stare at me, and I realized I had a big container of blueberries open in front of me.
Hey lady! You got anything good over there?
Did he want one?
Well of course he did! Obviously he has been successful begging campers before.
Nom nom nom
The whole three days I was there a robin stopped by and begged for a treat. I don’t know if it was the same one, but at least once there were several be-bopping around.
Thanks lady!
And I had this visitor, I don’t know what this is, but he (or she) stopped by a couple of times.
He’s got a dark patch on his head that you can’t really see here.
And this one….this one seemed interested in the blueberries and chased a couple of them down when I tossed them his way. But he didn’t eat any of them. I don’t know what he is either.
About the same size as a robin, but slimmer. Maybe because he doesn’t eat blueberries.
At one time there was a perfect shot, he flew up on top of my tent with a small insect in his mouth, but of course my camera was over on the picnic table so I just watched him as he watched me.
Maybe a young something?
None of these bird pictures are great. I have excuses, the light was low, the birds were fast, I didn’t have the right ISO or shutter speed. But it was good practice for me and I’ll try again soon.
Meanwhile if you know what those last two birds are, let me know!
Site #16.
We returned from D.C. a week ago today. I was so exhausted, so overwhelmed by crowds of people everywhere we went, that I needed some quiet time.
So I booked a campsite at the nearby state park for three nights, avoiding the weekend deliberately because no matter where I’ve camped sites fill up with crazy people starting Thursday afternoon.
Luckily for me my favorite site, #16, was open for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Site #16 is kind of sweet!
It’s my favorite site at this state park because it’s almost entirely surrounded by trees and underbrush, making it much more private than most of the sites.
I didn’t even take Katie, I was that tired. I planned on sleeping long in the mornings and doing nothing more than walk in the woods, read books and take naps.
Morning light deep in the woods.
Most of that happened.
When I checked in on Monday evening the ranger warned me that there were a “bunch of teenagers in site 12.” I wasn’t that worried, I figured there would be some laughing and squealing and music during the evening but my experience has been that everyone sort of settles down at 10 p.m. when quiet hours begin.
Not so much with these teenagers.
A bit of bee balm reaches for the light.
They were playing rap loudly when I arrived, and continued that throughout the evening, and well after midnight. Sometime during the night I heard a sound like a bunch of metal pipes falling. Then lots more laughing and yelling. Eventually, around 1:30, the music stopped and silence prevailed.
Early the next morning as I silently walked through the campground on my way to a walk in the woods I saw this.
Oops. One side of their camper collapsed.
I laughed, even while hoping no one was hurt.
My walk was wonderful, four miles took me two hours, caused by the hilly trail…and the fact I was taking pictures, practicing the manual settings that I learned last Sunday at my lavender field photo shoot.
Trees reaching for the light too.
The morning light was wonderful, sliding sideways through the trees. So many things were pretty that I had to stop often. That’s my excuse for my slow time. I’ve found it’s always good to have a camera around to use as an excuse when you’re just moving slow from lack of sleep. Most of the photos here are from that walk.
Don’t forget to look down sometimes, lots to see there as well.
Tuesday night a marauding groundhog woke me as he was snuffling around my tent for about an hour. Then coyotes howling far away kept me from falling back asleep. Still…that’s what camping is all about.
Wednesday I spent most of the day at my site, trying to get a decent picture of a yellow warbler that was flitting around. I didn’t end up with a great picture, but I’ll show you what I got in the next post.
Such fun stuff to see no matter where you look.
Then…Wednesday night. I really really wanted to get a good night’s sleep on my last night camping. But that wasn’t going to happen, because across the street, out of my sight, but right on the other side of the narrow park road, two huge campers were parked. Their many children were loud all day, but that was fine. The moms yelled, loudly, at the kids all day long, but that was OK too.
What wasn’t Ok was that after the kids went to bed the four adults sat around a campfire and discussed loudly most of the world’s ills. I am guessing what they were talking about, because it sounded like an Eastern European language, but it was obviously something they were very passionate about.
Touch-me-not with morning dew.
The four of them talked louder and louder, talking over each other excitedly. It woke me up at 1:30 and went on until almost 5 a.m. At one point I got up and walked to the end of my driveway, listened a bit and realized they weren’t talking louder than they had been all day. Maybe this was just the way they talked. Sure they’d been drinking, but they weren’t sloppy drunk.
A peaceful morning doesn’t always mean a peaceful night.
Maybe it was just the night air that made it sound like they were sitting around my fire. I went back to bed, drew the blankets up over my head and tried to imagine that their voices were just the sounds of bullfrogs singing.
The frogs actually were singing, but I couldn’t hear them over my neighbors talking.
I don’t know what this is, but it was very cool.
So, night three of little sleep. The first night I told myself not to let six teenagers ruin camping for me. But with two out of three nights ruined by rude noisy people I wonder if maybe camping has lost it’s appeal.
I don’t know. Maybe I should try again somewhere further away from the city. Maybe I should have called the night ranger. Maybe I should have just gone over there and asked them to pipe down.
What would you have done?
Twisted logic?
Trent, over at Trent’s World urges us all to post one smile a week, because we could all use a smile now and then. I’m been absent these past few weeks, not because anything terrible has happened, or because I couldn’t think of any smiles. No, I haven’t posted a smile in awhile because I’ve been so darn busy, or out of town, or forgetful.
Maybe all of the above.
Breath in deeply and try not to swoon.
But this week I can’t but help sharing a smile. Specifically a very sweet, heavily perfumed smile. The kind of wide smile that happens when you see fields and fields of lavender in bloom.
Which is exactly what happened to me.
For a moment I thought I’d been transported to France.
I signed up weeks ago, long before our D.C. trip, even before the Norway adventure, for an evening photo shoot in a lavender farm located about an hour away from me.
Then I forgot all about it.
Peddling some lavender.
Good thing I put it on the calendar in ink, just to remind me, otherwise I’d have missed this heavenly opportunity altogether. And that would have been a shame, because I couldn’t stop grinning the whole evening.
Smells yummy.
Imagine.
Ready to make some lavender honey.
A small group of photographers and a whole lot of lavender, lining up in rows, topping hills, glowing in the sun.
Some of our class having fun out in a field.
Alive with bees and butterflies, the purple heads nodding in the breeze or reaching for the sky.
Rows and rows and rows of lavender.
Did you know there’s white lavender too? Me either.
And a few other photo worthy things as well. Some of them were placed there by the lavender farm itself, as points of interest for photographers.
Waiting for a rider.
Some of them were just growing wild along the edges of the fields.
Trying to blow free.
All of it was just wonderful.
Evening sun made the orange pop.
There was so much to see, let me insert a little slide show here.
As the sun went down we were reluctant to leave. But we had our lavender shots and all that was left was to capture the sunset. So we did.
Lavender sky over lavender fields.
I can’t fully explain what a treat this was, and I thank Bob Ditommaso, a professional photographer who teaches great classes, for putting these opportunities out there for us.
That’s Bob in the blue shirt.
It was a fun evening, I met some great people and I finally figured out how to capture images totally in the manual mode on my new camera. That’s been so frustrating for me and I was grateful for the “aha!!!” moment I had out there in the lavender.
If you want to understand your camera better, and you’re in the Detroit area, take a class from Bob, and then join him and some other great students for one of his meetups.
Guaranteed to be phenomenal.
Phenomenal lavender too.
I promised a few photos of the churches we visited so let me do that before I get even further behind! The first church we visited was in Vance, a town not too far from where we were staying. It’s beautiful and sits in the center of town.
A family member is the caretaker for this church and he gave us a personal tour of the building…
…including taking us up into the bell tower.
This is the church where my husband’s grandfather is buried so it holds a lot of family history.
It’s history also includes a tiny little door over on the side which is where the women, back in the day, were required to enter.
I’m glad those days are gone!
And then we were able to attend an outdoor Sunday service at the church where my husband’s grandmother was baptized when she was a baby.
It happened that there was a baby being christened that morning, and I couldn’t help but think the ceremony might have been similar all those years ago.
In fact, the baptismal used in the ceremony we witnessed was the same one used back then.
We were given a tour of this church too, by a town historian who said his English wasn’t very good, but we found it to be perfect.
It’s a smaller church than the one back in Vance, but just as beautiful.
Our Norwegian family went out of their way to help us understand family history. We met with several people over the two weeks that knew something of the history of the area or of the family.
It really made our time there special; everyone was so friendly and helpful. We know we only saw a tiny bit of what was there, but hopefully we’ll be back some day to explore even more!
Change Is Hard 