Sometimes We Even Get Outdoors

That is, Sarah and I get out in the morning, and she explores and takes account of her domain while I water the garden. Sometimes we get rolling early and visit the beach before work. Evenings are outdoor time, for sure, and occasionally an expedition for the whole family. But summer also means long indoor stretches for the working team that we are. Sigh! It’s been very “warm” lately, too, and this past week sometimes not even a puppy visit could rouse Sarah (in background) from her summer torpor. Dogs are very wise about conserving their energy and slowing time down.

While the hours may go slowly for Sarah in the bookstore, however, the summer speeds by for me. When July arrives, the days and even the weeks start to blur into one another. What day of the week is it? What week is it? One thing is certain: they keep rushing past. I’ve been swimming once in Good Harbor, and another time we made it to Maple City for dinner, with a scenic drive afterward. I can report also that (1) wherever you go in Leelanau County right now, the lines for ice cream are pretty long, and (2) it finally rained overnight on Sunday. Big storm, with plenty of thunder and lightning. Next day the heat wave continued unabated.

The world of books keeps a pretty fast, hot summer pace, too. Ellen Airgood was interviewed by Linda Wertheimer for NPR’s “Weekend Edition.” If, like me, you missed it on July 17, you can go online and read it or stream it from the NPR site. Bonnie Jo Campbell also continues to rake in the positive media attention. I could not be more pleased about the attention these Michigan novelists are getting this summer.

In Northport we are gearing up, both at Dog Ears Books and the Leelanau Township Library, for Loreen Niewenhuis. She will be in town on Tuesday, July 26, with A 1000-Mile Walk on the Beach, a book the distributors can hardly keep in stock. And the following Friday the perennially popular mystery writer Elizabeth Buzzelli will be at 106 Waukazoo at 4 p.m. with Dead Dogs and Englishmen. Emily Kincaid and Deputy Dolly ride again!

And that’s not all--.


Brand-new this season is West Michigan Pike, another magical antique postcard tour from Christine Byron and Tom Wilson, the folks you brought you Vintage Views of Leelanau. WMP tells in words and pictures the story of the first shoreline drive from Chicago to Mackinac, (There are also West Michigan Pike posters, bookmarks and bumper stickers, and the bookmark is free when you buy the book.) My own family first drove north from Chicago to Traverse City in 1962, and half a dozen years later I was living in Traverse City and visiting my parents when they camped at Interlochen State Park, so I find it fascinating to see all the familiar places along the way in much earlier times than I ever saw. Byron and Wilson (a.k.a. Christine and Tom) have reproduced old postcards, travel posters, informational brochures, business cards and the like. An intriquing promotion for the Occidental Hotel in Muskegon (and don’t you love that name, Occidental Hotel?) reads in part, “The hotel has 320 rooms, 280 of them with private baths.” Younger generation, take note!

Also hot off the presses and just in Monday morning is The View From Sunnybank, by Traverse City’s Dee Blair, the first volume of collected newspaper columns (90 in this book, with future books to come) from this talented gardener and writer. The unassuming author says modestly that this is a “perfect bathroom book,” as the two-to-three page chapters are short and sweet. I’ve loved Dee’s writing for a long time and still remember my only visit to her garden (on the Friendly Garden Club’s annual tour one year), so I’m more than happy to have this book and share her knowledge and refreshing viewpoint with others.

My own garden—mostly vegetables--has had its successes and failures this year and has been a learning season for me in that regard. Lettuce, arugula and chard have loved the shade and have been very happy in their little wooden boxes. Kale and spinach in the sun, on the other hand, were pretty much disasters. Why do I ever plant spinach at all? It doesn’t want to grow for me. Chard cooperates, spinach no.



Dinner al fresco Monday evening. Storms held off. Sarah danced attendance. Sarah loves company, and company loves Sarah. It was all good. We were outdoors!!!

Northern News of Snow and Books

Sun on a metal roof causes the snow to begin to slide. When it freezes, caught at the edge, this is what you get.


In the morning, still frozen mid-fall, snow and ice from the roof frame the dawn of another cold, sunny day.


Here at the bookstore on a cold, Sunny Saturday, light reflecting from a windshield in front of the store took words from my window signage and threw them appropriately onto the correct wall. Can you see it?

There's big excitement in the future (rapidly approaching) for Dog Ears Books. In case you haven’t noticed my announcement in green over there in the right-hand column, a couple important bits of news are author events starring Ellen Airgood on June 17 and Loreen Niewenhuis on July 26. I’ll have more to say about these events as spring unrolls, but mark your calendars now. Ellen’s visit is on a Friday, and her book party, the Leelanau Launch (!) of South of Superior, will be from 4 to 6 p.m. Loreen’s later summer Tuesday in Northport will begin with an hour at Dog Ears Books, from 4 to 5 p.m., and continue with a slide show and talk at the Leelanau Township Library on 7:30. Signed copies of A 1000-Mile Walk on the Beach are already available at the bookstore now, so you don’t have to wait until summer to read about Loreen’s adventure, but I’m hoping to have good crowds for both of these talented Michigan writers when they come to Northport.

For right now, the chicken books are in! Chickens, bees, gardens! Plus all kinds of bargain-priced “new” used books on all manner of subjects, so what are you waiting for? Come on down, and let’s compare notes on our winter reading, shall we? We're open Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to 4.