Northport Is Getting Ready For You

New “Welcome” banners went up in the village today. I like them. Bright blue and white, featuring a sailboat, they are nice and fresh and coordinate well with last year’s new signs. The inclusion of the speed limit sign in my photos above was not an accident, either. What is a vacation for if you don't slow down?


Enhancements to the marina began by moving the harbormaster’s building temporarily onto land. Then, as good luck would have it, Bruce was on duty at the bookstore the day I walked down to the bank at just the right moment to see the tugboat and work barge coming into harbor to drive the pilings for the new harbormaster house. I couldn’t stay to watch the whole procedure. Here is what I did have time to see:





Windows have now been installed at what will be the new Garage Door Bar and Grill next door to Dog Ears Books. I went through the opening where the “garage door” will be to take this shot looking back east. The window on the left opens out onto Waukazoo Street. The entry is at the corner of the building. On the right is the “garage door,” which will open onto the patio in fine weather to facilitate indoor/outdoor dining.


This morning I made my first visit and purchase of the season at Northport Nursery but neglected to take pictures there, having too many items to accomplish and check off the morning to-do list. Next time I go back (to buy plants for the bookstore window boxes and seedling vegetable plants for home) I’ll take a few shots of the nursery stock, seedlings, flowers, etc. Promise!

I am now halfway through Danielle Sosin’s The Long-Shining Waters, this year’s National Milkweed Fiction award-winning novel, set in 1622, 1902 and 2000. I find I'm relating most closely to the 1902 sections, and I wonder what responses other readers will have, but I need to set the novel aside for a few days to read Gene Logsdon’s The Contrary Farmer and re-read Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, two commitments that must be honored in a timely manner. My friend Gloria in Traverse City wasn't kidding when she named her bookstore So Many Books, So Little Time!

You may notice that Danielle Sosin and Bonnie Jo Campbell are both on my bookstore calendar with the time given simply as whatever o’clock rather than in “from...to” format. That’s because they are fitting their visits between other engagements and doing, in essence, “drive-by” signings (I’m just pleased that they will be here at all), so I’ll be more than happy to take reservations for their books from anyone who can’t slip into their brief windows of opportunity.

All over town and countryside, trees are leafing out. Here is the big beech tree you remember when you come down the corner and turn onto Waukazoo Street. It is beautiful in every season, but doesn't it look particularly lovely in its early spring color?


Coming next on Books in Northport: a guest book review by Bruce Balas.