Author: turndoozie

A couple collages

and totality viewed through a cloud that moved in. I’m looking at this eclipse as a practice run for 2014. Or maybe 2019 if Lise lets me go to South America.

Like, totality man.

Collages to follow.

We are back from our jaunt to Marquette and busy getting
ready for the next excursion. The next trip will be a real quickie. Tomorrow
morning we are headed to St. Louis, via West Lafayette, to see the solar
eclipse. We’re a bit pressed for time since Lise has to do a workshop right
after we get back and I start teaching at Lansing Community College.

I was on Sand River a couple times and got in a trip to a
nearby bog. Any place with carnivorous plants has to be interesting.
Photographing odonates at both places can be challenging. On the river, I wear
waders and tow a small inflatable raft holding the camera gear. It’s fairly safe
as long as you don’t do anything too stupid. The bog is a bit more challenging.
There isn’t a shoreline. You walk on a bed of sphagnum moss overlaying fairly
deep water. For the record, fairly deep is anything over my head. The sphagnum
shakes and quivers a bit, and you can break through it. In a number of visits I’ve
only ever had one breakthrough though, where suddenly my left leg went through
to the upper thigh. My right leg did a major unexpected stretch but I managed
to get myself out without too much trouble.

Bog

Carnivorous sundew plant.

Pitcher plant

Flying meadowhawk

Lyre-tipped spreadwing.

Male Lyre-tipped spreadwing appendages, the only way to identify the lyre-tipped spreadwing.

Mating ebony jewelwings.

Frosted whitefaces mating.

Violet dancers mating.

All told it was a really good trip. We got Joanna’s canoe
rack set up. We got to visit with Joanna, always a pleasure. We got to see
Marquette through some new eyes when Molly brought Mitchell up for a quick
visit. And mostly we got some time to just enjoy a pleasant place and see some
neat things.

Sunset from Presque Isle Park.

Storm cloud over Superior from
Presque Isle Park. 

Indian pipe, a saprophyte on the Tyoga Trail.

Clay-colored sparrow at the Chatham sewage treatment plant.

Tundra swans with young at Seney NWR.

Swan couple feeding
at Seney NWR.

Being mooned by swans
at Seney NWR.

Common loon
at Seney NWR.

Double-crested cormorant
at Seney NWR.

Hummingbird at Joanna’s cabin on Sand River

Ya gotta love a place like Marquette. The downtown area has
a number of lovely circa 1900 red sandstone buildings. This type of building
just isn’t built anymore and it gives the downtown area a classy look. The
courthouse was where the trial that served as the basis for “Anatomy of a
Murder” took place and where the movie was filmed. In the same courthouse
Theodore Roosevelt won a 1913 libel case against an Ishpeming newspaper publisher. T.R.
was awarded six cents, “the cost of a good newspaper”. 

County courthouse.

City Hall.

Originally a bank building, now offices.

Carved sandstone on the bank building. 

Where else will you find
great hiking with mountains and waterfalls essentially right in town, a small
university, public parks right on Lake Superior, multiple brew pubs, fresh lake fish
caught by a third-generation fishing family, great pasties, a coffeeshop that
roasts its own beans, and a jewelry store with a 100’ long replica gold mine.
As a bonus, there are no Confederate statues either. All this in a town of less
than 25,000 people.

The obvious amenities are great but it’s the intangibles
that make the place. There’s a kind of energy that’s hard to describe. Marquette
and the surrounding environs are a place that seems to like itself. There’s an
air of fun about the area. No surprise that Marquette is on the retirement
short list, even with the long winters and near legendary mosquito and black
fly onslaughts.

 The umbrella walkway.

Ed and Lise, with Dead River Coffee, on the  umbrella walkway.

Bigfoot footprints on the Peshekee grade

Buick with a snowplow

at the Yooper Tourist Trap.

Big Gus, world’s largest working chainsaw
at the Yooper Tourist Trap

. There’s a Ford car
engine in there.

First line of defense should Canada invade.

Just married. A true north woods elopement. An extension
ladder, a rusty van, and a canoe. Life is good in Marquette.

A busy and
fun weekend. Molly and Mitchell came up to visit for the weekend. Drove up
Friday and went back today. Molly hasn’t been up here for a couple of years.
She wanted to reconnect and to show Mitchell some of the things she did when we
would visit. One of those things was hiking up Hogback Mountain to catch the
sunrise. So, after a brew pub Friday night, we woke up Saturday at 4:00 AM, drove
to Hogback, and hiked the two miles to the top in time for sunrise. This was
especially fun for Lise and I because it happened to be our 28^th
wedding anniversary. Can’t think of a better way to spend an anniversary. With great
people in a great place.

Hogback on the daylight.

Molly and Mitchell waiting for sunrise at the top of Hogback.

Lise, Molly, and Mitchell catching the sunrise.

Hogback was just
the start to the day. We also hiked up Sugarloaf Mountain on the way back into
Marquette, grabbed breakfast at Donnecker’s, did the farmers market, Molly took
Mitchel through the mining tour in Wattsson & Wattsson jewelry store, and
we hit Thill’s Fish market to get fresh whitefish for dinner. All before 11:00
AM. After some desperately needed naps, Molly and Lise took Mitchell back into
Marquette for more activities while I played on Sand River. While I was on the
river they hiked the Dead River waterfall trail, jumped into Lake Superior from
the rocks at Presque Isle Park, and probably worked in a few other activities. After
dinner, it was another trip back into Marquette for a brew pub visit, followed
by a fast-paced game of Euchre. Well, fast paced by Lise and my standards.

Before
heading back to Lansing today, Molly and Mitch did a kayak run on Sand River and
played with the resident wildlife. On the way back they did a little detour to Tahquamenon
Falls. I rested on the river.  

Feeding the wildlife.

Training the wildlife. 

Filming the wildlife.

Eastern forktail.

Fragile forktail.

Violet dancer.

Swamp spreadwings mating.

Swamp spreadwings mating. 

Unknown female spreadwing.

Unknown female spreadwing.

Female Northern spreadwing.

Male Northern spreadwing. 

Either green frogs or mink frogs.

Greetings from Sand River, outside Marquette MI. One of the nice
places in the world to wake up. This morning it was 53 degrees, cloudy and
windy. This is just a few degrees warmer than when we were in Marquette last
February. But, we were on the Sand River so one can’t complain.

Surf’s up on Lake Superior. What used to be the beach near Sand River.

Surf’s up on Lake Superior 

Surf’s up on Lake Superior

.

Been a crazy week or so. I’m starting to feel like a long-distance
trucker. Wednesday, July 26, I drove back to Pennsylvania for a few days.
Stayed a couple of days at Lynn’s place on the Susquehanna River outside of
Lock Haven, then Saturday drove down to Lebanon for a family reunion on Sunday.
Left from the family reunion with a load of scrapple, Lebanon Bologna, and other
animal based goodies and drove back to Okemos, getting in late on Sunday. Monday
morning, I took Lindsay for her driver’s license test, which she aced. Monday
evening, I went with Molly and Mitchell to a Dropkick Murphys concert, a couple
of hours away in Farmington Hills. We only got back about 1:00 AM. I spent
Tuesday and Wednesday building a canoe rack for Joanna, then hauled it up here
on Thursday. We looked like something out of the Beverly Hillbillies, hauling the
canoe rack, three kayaks, a couple bicycles, and an assortment of other things in
our trailer. It’s probably a good thing today was kind of nasty. Gives one a
chance to recharge the batteries.

Haven’t had much luck with odonata photography this year. You
need two things for good odonata pictures; sun, and no wind. Most of times I’ve
been out lately have been cloudy, or windy, or usually both. I got out a bit on
the Susquehanna in less than ideal conditions. No dragonflies, but I got two
new species of damselflies; dusky dancer and powdered dancer. The dusky dancer
is particularly nice since they don’t range into Michigan.

Stream bluet.

Powdered dancer.

Dusky dancer male.

Dusky dancer female.

Dusky dancers mating in the “contact guarding” position. There are eggs coming from the female’s ovipositor.

I finally got the basement to a stopping point. The cement floor
paint needs a minimum of seven days to harden without any traffic on it. So I took
advantage of the opportunity to play a bit. I went out odanating a few times,
but without much luck. There was a quick afternoon trip to nearby Legg Park, a
trip to the Bunker Natural Area, and a little walk in the Huron River at Island
Lake State Recreation Area.

I have to say that so far this has not been a stellar odanating
season. The trip to Harris only produced
some meadowhawk pictures. Not too many other species were flying. The Bunker
Natural Area had a nice mix of species, but nothing would cooperate with me.
Everything was very skittish and I couldn’t get anywhere close enough for good
pictures. The walk in the Huron River was fun, but the temperatures were cool, the
sky overcast, and it was real windy. Exactly the opposite of what is required
for odanate photography. But, it was still way better than painting a basement.

Blue-tipped Dancer, Legg Park

Male meadowhawk, probably red-faced, Legg Park

Female meadowhawk, probably red-faced, Legg Park

Mating meadowhawks, Legg Park

Bunker Natural Area restored prairie.

Bunker Natural Area cup plant.

Stream bluet, Huron River.

Unknown damselfly eating a less fortunate bug on the Huron River.

Life is looking better right now, once you get past the fact that Little Hands is still the president. I finally got the basement to a stopping point for a couple
days. At least the rooms I’m immediately working on. The walls have been
painted and the floor sanded and treated with acid. Now I have to wait at least
24 hours before I can put on the primer. Possibly as long as 48 hours. Painting
should be done by this weekend, with a seven-day hardening time after that. But
the end is in sight for this first part. All this because some mental midget
thought it was a good idea to carpet the basement of a house in a floodplain.

Once I get this part of the basement completely done it is
on to the laundry room part. Which means moving all the shelves and unanchored
cabinets into the finished part, then removing mounted cabinets and counters
and humping them into the finished part. But for now, I get to kick back for a
couple days. Maybe even getting in some odanating.

Life hasn’t been all
breathing dust and paint fumes. I accompanied Lise to a business meeting over
in Oshtemo. On the way back we hit the Michigan Audubon Haehnle Sanctuary near
Jackson to score a yellow-crowned night heron. Been doing a good bit of driving
with Lindsay as she practices for her driver’s license. She’s doing great and I
suspect she will kill the test on her first try. I’m working on the second
measure of Scots Wha Ha’e on my bagpipe chanter. I’m only a couple pages from
Amazing Grace. Sunday we went with Molly and Mitchell to the Detroit Institute
of Art. The DIA is pretty amazing. Their collection has over 65,000 items in
it, some quite stunning. Detroit is making a comeback and the DIA is an
anchor that comeback.

Diego Rivera Detroit Industrialism murals (DIA website picture).

I can’t believe how fast the summer is zipping along. I have
been incredibly busy. Too busy to find writing time, yet alone birding or odenating
time. I wanted to stay busy in retirement but this is ridiculous.

For starters, there are some sad times at the Schools’
household. Not just because Little Hands, our national embarrassment, is still
the President. Sparky, our pet lizard with moderately more reasoning power than
the current president, died last Friday. Not sure why. There were no obvious
problems. She seemed healthy in the afternoon, was walking around and
exploring, went to sleep in her favorite corner, and was dead in the morning. So
when something like this happens you start questioning yourself. Was it
something we did, or didn’t, do? I thought we took care of her. She had food
and water, got out for exercise. We seem to be decent parents. Molly survived
childhood and seems to have turned out OK, so what happened here? Sometimes there
just aren’t any good answers. Bad things happen with no reasonable explanation.
Like the current administration.

I’ve been putting a ton of time into rehabbing the basement.
For some naïve reason I thought tearing out wet carpet and painting the floor
would be a fairly straightforward and simple job. Shouldn’t take too long, like
kicking the Talban out of Afghanistan. Overwhelming resources, a couple weeks’
time, and “Mission Accomplished.” Redoing a basement is right up there with a
land wat in Asia. Plan on being there for longer than you expect with no end in
sight.

Not that there hasn’t been some play time. Lise and I biked
up to see the Meridian Township July 4^th fireworks. Except that for
some reason Meridian Township decided to celebrate on July 1. And, drum roll
please,…..Lindsay has decided to get her driver’s license. She has her learner’s
permit and we go driving most days. It’s worked out surprising well. I haven’t
screamed at her too often and she hasn’t tried to slit my throat. And, we’re
still on speaking terms.

Meridian fireworks.

Not too much going on around La Casa Schools. I’ve been
painting the basement and Little Hands is still the president, making our
country look like a banana republic. Pretty quick fall from the leader of the
free world to the laughingstock of the world. Can it get any worse? Probably,
and he’s the person to lead us there. Pathetic.

We were in Bloomington and West Lafayette last weekend. Lise
had to go to Bloomington for some project related work. The project is doing
signs for what was a Monon Railroad switchyard that is being converted into a
recreation area. She met with a gentleman that has a collection of over 10,000
Monon Railroad pictures. He spent a whole career on the Monon Line and had some
great stories. He knew many of the people in the pictures, and nuances of the
pictures that are going to be lost to history when he passes on. It was an
interesting afternoon. And I got to take pictures of a pipe.

Buried stream outflow into Clear Creek.

After Bloomington, we hopped up to West Lafayette for a
couple of nights. Quite unexpectedly we got a whip-poor-will in Sue’s backyard.
That brings me to 238 species for the year and Lise to 230. Finally got out to
do some dragonfly pictures too, at Prophetstown State Park.

American rubyspot.

Blue dasher.

American amberwing.

Widow skimmer.

I spent a lovely Father’s Day driving with Molly back from
St. Louis. We flew there Friday for her to take procession of a 2004 Volkswagen
bug. Baby blue, rag top, five speed, turbo. This zippy little number doesn’t
drive like any VW I had in the past. It was a gift from Kasey, Molly’s uncle
Stefan’s girlfriend. Kasey and Stefan made sure we did St. Louis right and needless
to say, Molly is one happy camper.

The newest addition to our family.

Kasey teaching Molly how to drive stick.

Feeding the camel at Grant Park.

Feeding a goat at Grant Park.

Little bitty goats. Lots of them.

Little bitty goats. Lots of them. 

Little bitty goats. Lots of them. 

Little bitty goats. Lots of them. 

Little bitty goats. Lots of them.