I’m getting used to retirement. In some ways it isn’t that large
of a change. I’m still really busy, but now I’m doing things at my pace and that
I have more control over. I have a very large list to work on and I’m slowly plugging
through them. Some big, some little, the list is long and seems to keep
growing. But at least I’m not sitting in a cubicle.
One thing that has changed is that I’m getting outside a lot more.
Sometimes just sitting on the patio to eat or sit and think. But a good bit of outdoor
play time too. Last week Lise had a meeting at Pokagon State Park, down in
Indiana. We coupled the trip with a visit with Fred and Jackie Wooley. While Lise
did the meeting I played in their fen and prairie. The place is beautiful, a
testimony to their prairie restoration and fen maintenance efforts.
Halloween pennant in Fred and
Jackie’s prairie.
In the past few days Lise and I visited a couple more fun places; Bunker
Natural Area and Hartwick Pines State Park. Bunker Natural Area was donated to
a conservancy I’m on the board of. It’s 120 acres of restored prairie, open wetlands,
and a nice little mesic forest.
Bunker Natural Area prairie.
Viceroy butterfly at Bunker Natural Area.
Mating
Eastern forktail damselflies
at
Bunker Natural Area.
Unknown
spreadwing damselfly
at
Bunker Natural Area.
Unknown brown phase bluet damselfly
at
Bunker Natural Area.
Hartwick Pines is one of those few places that
managed to avoid being scalped during Michigan’s early timber frenzy. Not sure
of the details as to why, but there is a small old growth pine remnant that
survived the logging. The trail we hiked crosses a branch of the Au Sable River, one
of Michigan’s great trout streams. I have a couple fly rods that haven’t been
used in years. May be time to relearn one of the classier sports. Fly-fishing isn’t
the same as drowning worms, waiting for a fish to come by and decide it wants your
dead worm for dinner. Fly-fishing takes some skill to convince a fish with a
brain size a tiny fraction of your own that your bits of feathers and fluff are
something to eat. More often than not the fish wins.
The Au Sable River.
The presidential
election is now in full swing. I really, really wish we could vote now, just to
end it all. But no, this will go on for another couple months. I so hope Trump
is totally smashed and every Republican that doesn’t repudiate him loses too. I
can’t help but feel a lot of Republicans wish the election could be held now
too, in an effort to limit the damage this nut case causes. What is really
scary to me is that there are people that actually believe what he says. His
mouth opens, gibberish falls out, and they believe him. A larger proportion of
our population than is healthy for survival of the Republic. Scary.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 