What do you do when it’s a cold rainy day, when the rain never stops falling and everything seems to be grey and soggy? Well, you go out and take pictures! Of course.
So here’s the story of the tree branch…first noticed when I was taking Katie out on a walk up the street. I noticed the horizontal row of raindrops on the tree in our front yard. It looked interesting.
Hmmmmm, that could be interesting.
So when we got home I put her inside and grabbed the camera. Katie, of course, wanted to go back out too. Because if mama has her camera, surely Katie herself would be the subject. And there’s that one shot, one treat clause in her contract.
Silly girl.
Not quite what I was imagining.
I took her with me anyway, because she asked nicely, even though I knew it would be harder to capture those raindrops with her. And it was. Cars going by, sniffing, tugging on her leash, all of it caused me to stop doing what I was doing. Which was trying to focus on the drops of water.
I eventually just put her leash under my foot.
Still an especially noisy truck was coming, and I had to stop once again and pick her up, she squirming, me grumbling under my breath. Especially when I slipped in some poo that somehow I had missed while cleaning up the yard earlier in the day.
Yep, it wasn’t easy. But this is what I was looking for.
Our world, captured upside down in each drop.
For me, it was worth the soggy coat, soggy dog, poo on the shoe and cold rain down my neck. But I’m sure hoping for sunshine tomorrow.
I was participating in a group of truck crash families and survivors a few weeks ago and one of the topics that came up was foggy brain. Many of those in the group that day were brand new to the reality of coping with life after a traumatic event.
A local park, early this foggy morning.
A discussion about living in a never ending nightmare morphed into a discussion about foggy brains. How hard it was to concentrate. How the memory wasn’t as sharp as it once was.
I didn’t bring it up in the meeting, not to discourage any of the new families, but my dad died in a crash caused by a sleepy semi driver more than seventeen years ago, and my brain is more foggy today than it was way back then.
A sentinel stands strong in the fog.
On the other hand, I doubt my fog is related to Dad’s death. It might be menopause. It might be covid. It might be something else, still to be diagnosed.
Whatever it is, it’s tiring. I know from months, maybe years, of experience that I can’t remember anything that I don’t write down. And that often, if too much time goes by, I won’t know what I meant by the scribbles I find on random pieces of paper.
Trying to pick out the clarity amidst the fog.
I have never been able to remember people’s names. Now I can’t remember conversations, or finishing tasks, or whether or not I took the clothes out of the dryer.
For several days this week I couldn’t find the remote that moves our adjustable bed until it was found, out in the living room, on a table next to the sofa. I am constantly looking for my phone. And my shoes.
Sometimes it’s so hard to see.
More scary, I don’t always understand what people are saying. Not just the concept, but the actual words. Sometimes it all sounds like noise, with only an occasional word I recognize. Other times there are words but their combination doesn’t make sense to me. Lots of times, after the fact, I’ll figure it out, and usually it’s just words that sound like other words confusing me. Ah, I think, that’s what they meant.
Trying to focus.
Most of the time my confusion happens while watching tv, often while doing something else, and not concentrating on one thing or the other, and, as it turns out, not hearing with context.
But other times it happens when people are speaking live and I try to slow my brain down and concentrate. That often works, but sometimes I have to ask questions, where I risk appearing dense. Other times I just let it go. Pick your battles, that’s my rule.
Foggy brain. Is it age, life experiences, past traumatic events, illness, stress, or just a lack of concentration? I don’t know, but I’m beginning wondering if the drugs they’re peddling on television to forgetful seniors really work.
Walking through the fog.
And I’m wondering when I turned into a senior anyway. Looking back, it’s all turning into a foggy blur.
Ah yes. I went out to Kensington nearly a week ago to see if there were red-winged blackbirds singing there. I had one lone male visiting my feeder at home, but I hadn’t heard the early blackbird chorus that announces spring every year here in Southeast Michigan.
Not a blackbird.
But I got distracted, first by the turkeys and then by the redheaded woodpecker. Still….were there red-winged blackbirds here in Michigan, aside from the lonely guy at my feeder?
Can’t get over this guy.
I could hear a few, down another icy trail, and I hoped I didn’t have to go too far to gather proof. They were mostly far away, hiding in the cattails. They weren’t making much noise, and seemed a bit shy, or maybe they were just shell-shocked by the freezing temperatures and snow.
“I’m hungry, but I don’t know if I can trust that lady over there.”
One was walking up the path ahead of me. I thought maybe if I put some peanuts and oilers out I could coax him up into a more photogenic location.
“HEY! Hurry up you guys, she left us SNACKS!”
The longer I stood there the more blackbirds I saw, though none were brave enough to come get the treats I put out.
I’d appreciate a snack too, lady. My feet are cold.
Eventually they came closer, and ate some treats that I tossed near them. They even sang a little, but I know that later in the season they’ll be much happier to see me, once they figure out that the people visiting generally have food for them.
“If I don’t look at you, you’re not there. Right?”
So yes, spring has officially sprung in Southeast Michigan. The red-winged blackbirds are here, let the snow begin to melt!
Time is sliding by and I haven’t shared my wonderful camping experience from last week. And it would be a shame if you missed that because it was amazing and it definitely made me smile.
We were in sites C3 and C4.
You know that usually I camp alone with my Katie-girl, but this time Katie stayed home and I met a couple of friends at a campground on the Platt River, within the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. The three of us had kayaked this river last fall, and checked the campground out back then.
The trail from the parking lot to our sites.
And one of my friends knew someone who told us about the walk-in sites which are even more beautiful because you’re not near anyone else. No one’s generator will be running all night. No listening to people partying around the campfire in the next site, because there’s so much space between them.
My campsite.
Plus, if you have to carry everything to your site you’re not apt to be partying late into the night! Trust me on this.
Our other site.
Our first afternoon one friend and I got tents set up on our two sites. We were at the end of the trail so no one else would be walking by. As it turns out, most of the time no one else was out there at all.
It was a short hike over the dunes to the lake.
Once we were set up we walked the .8 mile through some low sand dunes to the beach on Lake Michigan. It was a dark and pretty cold afternoon, but it was good to walk after our long drive to the campground. And you can’t beat the view once we got out to the shore!
A chilly afternoon for beach walking.
The next day we decided to take a hike on trails within the park, looking for three small lakes. We drove around on some narrow dirt roads and accidently ended up back at the beach, just further down from where we walked the day before. It was beautiful, but still kind of stormy with a threat of rain.
It was a dark and stormy morning.
Eventually we found the trailhead.
This looks inviting.
The woods were beautiful, filled with wildflowers. My friend had an app on her phone that told us what they were.
This was really tiny, but the bright color made us notice it all over the forest floor.
Of course I don’t remember any of it, except for this lady slipper.
This ladyslipper was right next to the trail, just begging to be noticed.
We found the first lake just as it began to sprinkle. But we didn’t let a little rain stop us.
Bass Lake, the smallest of the three lakes we walked around.
We continued on around the first lake; the trail led right through a deep, wet boggy place, with no option except to just get our feet soaking wet. We were compensated for that by seeing a beautiful, lush fern right there.
Worth the muddy feet.
We eventually found all three lakes as the rain continued. Of course I had left my raincoat in the car where it could stay nice and dry.
A little rain never hurt anything.
Ah well, we enjoyed seeing the woods and the flowers, and the lakes, and when we got back to our campsite our other camping friend was arriving!
Nature’s double yellow line.
We had a lovely dinner….
Yummy dinner coming up!
…and an even lovelier campfire where we heard coyotes loudly discussing something important….
Did you hear something?
….and went to bed. During the night foxes yipped and owls hooted and we knew we were truly in the woods!
The next day we kayaked down the river again. We were looking forward to a nice easy paddle, but the wind picked up, and we had to work really hard across one long lake, and every time the river turned to the west into the wind.
Paddle harder!
By the time we got to the mouth of the river we were definitely tired!
A pretty amazing day.
But not too tired to hike the Empire Bluff trail! The trail goes up and down through some beautiful woods.
Heading to the bluff.
And the first view you get of the shoreline is stunning.
A first peek through the trees.
But it was soooo windy by then it was hard to stand up on the bluffs and look at the view for long, so we drove down to another beach to watch a guy who was windsurfing.
Not easy to do!
And then we went to a diner and had a burger! It was my first restaurant experience since February of 2020. It was amazing.
Our last night at camp was windy with a big thunderstorm blowing over. Lightening and thunder and wind, the perfect ending to a perfect three days in norther Michigan!
Tucked in safe and dry.
We packed up in the morning, walking everything back down the long trail to the car.
Packing up always takes longer than setting up.
It took a bit of work, but it was definitely worth it to camp back in the woods away from everyone. We had so much fun, it was peaceful and beautiful and I’d do it again next week if I could.
One of many trips to the car.
Oh wait. Next week I’ll be camping in the Upper Peninsula. Not at a walk-in site, but it will be beautiful in a different sort of way.
I have so many things to smile about this week, so many that there’s not enough time to sort through them all.
“A guy can’t get any privacy around here.”
As you have likely guessed I was camping way over by Lake Michigan again. Lots of pictures to sort through. Not enough time.
“If I stay still, she’ll take that blasted camera out of here.”
So this week I’ll stick to things around the house that have made me smile. You will note I don’t show you the garden as the grass and weeds infiltrating it do not make me smile.
“Hurry, children! They’re watching us from both sides!”
But my little friends sure did!
“I don’t think you’re doing that right down there!”
I’ve seen pictures of the Pt. Betsie lighthouse in lilac season. I’ve been covetous of those images because I’ve never seen it myself, never timed a visit to the lighthouse, one of my favorite places in this state, at exactly the right time.
I always get a happy feeling, deep down inside, at the first sight of the Pt. Betsie beach.
Yesterday, on my way home from a 3 night camping trip near the Sleeping Bear Dunes, I finally got to check that as done.
I mean…how can it get better?
The lilacs were at their peak, the sky was cerulean blue with a few wispy white clouds, we were the only ones there.
Perfection.
The view the other way was pretty striking too.
I have many reason to love this lighthouse, one being it’s where my parents visited during their honeymoon in 1953, and where they went for their 50th wedding anniversary a year before they died.
Gentle waves lapped at the base of the lighthouse.
I like to sit and think about them there, and I hope they were close when I squealed at my first sight of the purple blooms against the white of the lighthouse.
The iconic image. Even though I have hundreds of these I can’t resist this angle every single time I visit.
I imagine they were, possibly, even squealing along.
In the past weeks we’ve seen stunning portraits of an eagle on Facebook, taken in the nearby Great Lakes National Cemetery. There’s a nest out there, says the photographer, so I thought I might head out early one morning and see if I could find the noble family too.
Pink light.
I got to the cemetery a little after six, just as the sun was beginning to think about emerging. There was no one out there but me and the stirring wildlife, moving quietly in the mist rising from the water into the cool morning air.
The sound of geese wings were the only noise on this beautiful early morning.
I drove to the very back of the cemetery which borders on a small lake. The photographer had said he parked at the back and walked across a field. I could see there was a newly plowed field adjacent to the very back of the cemetary.
How hard could it be to find an eagle’s nest?
Early spring in Michigan, the colors almost look like fall.
I tromped around that field with my feet getting increaingly wet and muddy. I saw plenty of spots I thought an eagle’s nest should be, but I never found the nest.
On my way past the lake again, headed toward the car, the rising sun was making the mist glow.
And the grave markers were beginning to glow too, hit from the east with the first direct rays of the day. Row by row names were being iluminated, making the sheer size of the loss overwhelmingly obvious.
Each one was someone’s family.
I decided that was enough to call the photo shoot a success.
After more than a year of near isolation, this week I was finally able to travel to Ann Arbor to visit my Aunt. We used to get together regularly, to attend concerts and theater, to walk in gardens or around her neighborhood. But since February of 2020 we’ve only connected on the phone.
Backlit may apple blossom hiding under the leaves.
But we’re both fully vacinated and when the CDC lifted some restrictions we both felt comfortable meeting for a walk through the woods.
I’m not sure what this plant is. It was tall, with small leaves on the flower stem, but larger leaves at the ground.
She said she’s been walking at a metropark and that the dogwood was gorgeous this year. I hadn’t noticed dogwood in my woods yet so I was excited to see it for myself.
The yellow flowers were beautiful around this bench.
It was a Monday, when most people were working, so we had the woods to ourselves. The sun was shining, and it was warm enough to take off the sweatshirt early in our walk.
Happy little violets were tucked away everywhere.
We had such a lovely time, chatting and bringing each other up to date on things we’d been doing during the pandemic year.
Little vignettes like this were easy to find.
The woods glowed for us, with trillium….
Not the sweeping waves of trillium of last week, but elegant in it’s own way.
…and wild geranium….
Such a simple shape, but so pretty.
…and even several jack in the pulpit plants!
A clump of 4, two facing each way.
But it was the dogwood that stole the show. It was everywhere toward the end of our walk. I loved the shapes…
A hint of color, but a distinctive shape in silhouette.
I loved the color.
I loved the optimism that dogwood provides, proof summer is on the way.
Dogwood lined the bike path.
Everything in the woods that day made me smile, but what made me smile the most was finally spending time with my Aunt. That’s priceless.
Change Is Hard 