(My) Earth Day 2024 in Northern Michigan

How green is the woods, at last!
 

Out in the Woods, Foraging

 

Earth Day breakfast salad

Sunny and I are out earlier and earlier these days. I find my treasures, and Sunny finds hers. Mine on Earth Day were leaves of the toothwort plant for my breakfast salad. Sunny didn’t turn up any “new” skeletal remains on Monday, but she’s already done pretty well for herself this year in that regard.

Her latest score

  

In the Bookstore, with Bags

 

The first people in the bookstore door on Earth Day came for book bags, and I was happy to accommodate, quite pleased with the look of the new bags, glad I went that route instead of t-shirts. After all, plenty of other businesses in town have t-shirts (very attractive ones), but mine is Northport’s only bookstore, so…. 

Also, with book bags, one size fits all -- unless, that is, a customer buys too many books for a single bag, but then the fix is as simple as a second bag.

 

 

Earth Day Reading

 

If I want to be righteous and largely ineffective [my emphasis added], I can hold onto my rage and resentments. You have the same choice. You can target me and others for our blind spots. Or you can get about the process of transforming yourself and one another. 

 

-      Chuck Collins, Born on Third Base: A One Percenter Makes the Case for Tackling Inequality, Bring Wealth Home, and Committing to the Common Good

 

Born on Third Base might not be an obvious choice for Earth Day reading, but it certainly worked for me. As Collins points out in his foreword, earth’s natural ecosystems are the basis for all wealth, so even the richest people alive (and those to come) are dependent on the health of the planet. Collins wants the 1% to realize that their self-interest is at stake in narrowing the wealth gap. He also wants the 99% to realize that, in order to protect our home communities, we need to forge alliances with the wealthy, and he has suggestions for how to do that.

 

…I urge us all to proceed with empathy, adopting powerful tactics of active love and nonviolent direct action to make this happen. Instead of a class war of shame, I advocate an appeal to common humanity and empathy.

 

I want to add here that partisan antagonism is no more likely to reform our troubled world than is class antagonism. Collins points out that no one responds well to being targeted, blamed, shamed, ridiculed, and treated as an enemy. It’s a stark choice: stand apart and feel superior and watch the world go to hell while blaming others -- or recognize the fears of, as well as contributions made by, those on “the other side.” I say we need to acknowledge our common humanity and reach out, because no one is right about everything, and no one is wrong about everything. 

 

It was, after all, President Richard Nixon who declared the first Earth Day in 1970, spurred to it by the massive Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969. It was also Nixon who first proposed the Environmental Protection Agency realizing that regulation was necessary to protect natural resources. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if today’s Republican Party were to rediscover their stake in the common good? How might that come about? Will demonizing help? Something to think about, because Earth Day isn’t something to put behind us until next year. Every day needs to be Earth Day.

Our beautiful home

Looking Ahead

Meanwhile, on the nearer horizon, this Friday, April 26, is Arbor Day, and in Northport a new tree will be planted in Marina Park, down at the south end near the little sailing school building, with the Tree Committee, Northport students, and community members all on hand for the 10 a.m. planting. 

 

The following day, Saturday, April 27, is not only Independent Bookstore Day all across the United States but also, here in Leelanau Township, the kickoff day for Northport Omena Restaurant Week. As there are five participating food purveyors within easy walking distance of Dog Ears Books, I figure Saturday should be a double-header day in Northport, eh?

Explaining Myself

Will be open on Monday, 4/22, for Earth Day!

Bookstore Notes

 

Maybe I got some ‘splainin’ to do. “Disproving skeptics for over 200 dog years”? What does it mean?

 

Well, when I opened Dog Ears Books in 1993, many people told me, shaking their heads sadly, “No one reads books any more.” The people uttering the gloomy words had voluntarily entered a bookstore and were happy to be there, but each one believed he or she was the last of a dying breed, the earth’s last living reader. 

Original Dog Ears, Waukazoo Street, 1993

Fast forward three decades, and I don’t hear that particular line as much. Many people still say, however, “Bookstores are going the way of the dinosaur” (or words to that effect), because while it’s become obvious that reading has not died out, doesn’t everyone order their books online or read on their electronic devices? 

 

No, not everyone. 

 

My bookstore would not be the self-supporting business it needs to be if the skeptics were right. So now here we are, coming up on 31 years later, and I am so confident going into the 2024 season that I have gone out on a limb and ordered canvas book bags emblazoned with my business name, logo, and that line about the mistaken skeptics, confident that yet another year will continue to prove them wrong and keep me here on Waukazoo Street, just up the block from where I started in 1993.

Back on Waukazoo Street since -- 2006?

Committing to a bookstore in a small village at the end of a peninsula means life in the slow lane for all but a few summer weeks. Nevertheless, it’s a life I chose with my eyes open, telling a new Northport landlord in 1997 that I was “in it for the long haul.” And almost 31 years later I have no regrets, because besides making a modest living, I meet interesting people all the time, and many have become my friends over the years. It’s a rich life.

 

Reminder: If you come to the bookstore for a book bag on Monday, 4/22, and bring a copy of our ad in this week’s Leelanau Enterprise, your bag will be $11 instead of $12. In-person, Earth Day special!

 

Outdoor Notes

 

First leeks

First spring beauties spotted, their petals furled, on April 12^th, by the next day opening their faces to the sun. Before that, wild leeks were already turning the woodland floor green. On the 14^th I saw my first trillium – again, flower bud closed tight. It won’t be long, I thought, until they are blooming madly, and in the meantime the first Dutchman’s breeches began coming shyly onstage. 

Spring beauties

I’d been thinking this Sunday would see a riot of spring ephemerals in bloom, but then our yo-yo temperatures took another plunge, snow threatened, and the little buds pulled their heads back underneath the covers for the chilly weekend. But soon!

First Dutchman's breeches

 

Dog Notes

Giving me a look!

Here’s a question: Do dogs understand the cycle of the seasons? Wild animals appear to do so, but dogs have been companions of humans for so long that maybe their seasonal sense has atrophied. Does Sunny remember last summer? Does she realize that another summer is on the way? Sometimes, when she has that “Oh, mom, you’re so boring!” look on her face, I would love to remind her of the fun she had the evening before and the fun that awaits her in the morning. If only I could explain! There’s a downside to living in the moment.

 

But co-evolving with self-centered humans, dogs have had to learn patience. No wonder we love them so! And isn’t it a joy when we can make them happy?

Meeting with friends!

The Mood Wasn’t Right

Sunny and a plethora of leeks

Lame Excuses

 

In the past two or three weeks, I have begun and discarded at least four posts for Books in Northport. Titles were: Tough Tourism; The House That Had Everything; “You Should Write a Book”; and Where do I want to go? Abandoned, all of them (though the draft beginnings still reside on my laptop desktop), and I know such finicky self-judgment is probably misplaced, as the nearly formless meanderings I occasionally throw out into the world, posts without any central theme or narrative thread, are often more popular and gain more comments than others I labor over to achieve a “finished” feel.

 

Leaves of dogtooth violet, a.k.a. trout lily

Ah, but then someone visiting my bookstore says, “I always read your blog,” and a note from a friend (received two days after a post finally went up) mentions that she has been looking in vain on Books in Northport for something new, and I know it’s time to kick-start my online presence. You don’t have to be “in the mood” – or inspired – to write! You just sit down and do it! And in the case of a blog, call a draft post good enough and hit that publish button!

Random Fungus (until someone identifies it for me)

 

Outdoors

 

Beginning with Sunny Juliet never hurts (see again opening image), because most people love dog stories or photos, my girl is lively and photogenic, and we get outdoors a couple times every day. Even in this morning’s light rain, we were out for a good hour, and as usual there was so much going on (every day at this time of year bringing signs of new life) that I was pulling my phone out of my pocket over and over to photograph my finds. The rain had decided me against taking the camera, but by Saturday, or Sunday for sure, the sun will be shining and those spring beauties – all over the woods! -- will have opened their petals to the light. 

Spring beauties are biding their time.

Plentiful though the wild leeks are, I never harvest them for my kitchen. If you do, never take more than 5% of a patch, and try to harvest where no one else has taken plants before. That will leave enough for coming years, as leeks are slow to mature and proliferate. 

Leeks close up

Toothwort leaves -- no flowers yet

 

We all have different tastes, in food as well as in books. Toothwort, now, is a different story for me, and I look forward to those peppery-spicy leaves and flowers in spring salads very soon. 

Everything is beautiful in its own way, isn't it?

 

That fungus close up looks almost like a rose.

In the Bookstore

 

Thursday, between customers (all from out of town and all gratifyingly appreciative), I worked with the advertising department at the Leelanau Enterprise on an ad to run in next week’s paper. Since Monday, April 22, is Earth Day 2024, I’ll depart from my usual schedule and have the bookstore open that day – if I’m lucky, with my beautiful new canvas book bags to sell, in keeping with Earth Day’s theme this year, “Planet vs. Plastics.” My regular customers know by now that any plastic bags I put their purchases in have been donated for re-use by other customers, but we really do need to eliminate plastics from our lives wherever possible, in the Great Lakes and across the nation. Agree?

And there will be, as there are just about every week, new books and “new” used book additions to store stock. As for me, I’ve been reading a lot of books set in the West lately, books full of mountains and dry washes, scarce water and hard living. I also made my way through a new memoir – what I call a “grief memoir – by Amy Lin called Here After. Although her husband was so much younger when he died than was mine, there was much that resonated with me in her experience. This, for instance: 

 

We shared a language that was all our own. I am now the last speaker of it.

- Amy Lin, Here After 

 

What must it be like for older adults who have to leave a country they've known all their lives and go to make a new life in a strange land with a whole new language? I am blessed to be able to remain in familiar and beloved surroundings.

Finally, Sunny's Mystery Treasure

Smaller than my hand...

Something's -- someone's -- partial skull, but whose? 

January Daze: This, That, and Another Thing or Two

Aripeka Evening

Younger Sarah in a Warmer Season

No, we are not in Florida, but we were looking at old photos of winters past one recent Sunday morning, and the one seemed worth sharing again. We also looked at some cute old pictures of Sarah, and I took David on a virtual tour of my trip to Arizona last spring.

January seems to be a time for looking back, but for the present, please note winter hours at top right. New book orders will be taken through Saturdays of each week, with orders going on the following Monday in order to arrive by the end of that week.

Now, a few other timely topics in brief.

January Special at Bookstore

“This” is a special offer at Dog Ears Books, good for as long as supplies last. Buy our $9 book bag (the beautiful canvas one featured in the right-hand column) along with a $15 calendar (Leelanau Township scenes by Karen Casebeer, also over there on the right), and the price for the two items together, a $24 value,will be a bargain $20 + tax. Your calendar and bag will remind you on a daily basis of your local community and what every person means to its success, and you’ll feel good every time you use the bag and don’t have to take paper or plastic. I’ll have a different special in the month of February, so stay tuned. Because --

It's Winter—and (Almost) Everyone Wants Money

“That” is money, so if you don’t want to read this section, scroll down to the next.

People who don’t write letters don’t enjoy picking up mail, either, I’ve noticed. For them, an empty mailbox is good news: “No bills!” Having grown up in a letter-writing family, my heart is always light with hope as I turn the key to see what waits within, and often there is something delightful. Letters and cards and postcards from friends, along with seed catalogs, are always welcome, as are, my readers will recall, the little typed notes from that anonymous mystery poet, “H.” One Saturday morning I received a beautiful New Year’s card from one of my favorite publishers, who addressed me on the envelope as “The Excellent and Incomparable” and who included a handwritten personal note inside. That made my day! The next week there was a handwritten letter from a friend, and she had enclosed a tea bag, too, since we couldn’t be sitting down at a table together. My heart was warmed!

But most of what has filled the box lately has been mail from businesses and organizations looking for money. Everyone, it seems, has a hand outstretched. I don’t take the importuning personally. It can’t be personal, because if they knew my life at all they’d realize they’re barking up the wrong tree when looking to me for money in January.

Of course, it isn’t the “wrong tree” when it comes to bills. Bills must be paid. Phone bills, electric bills, sewer bills, tax bills, bookstore bills, credit card bills, propane bills, etcetera, etcetera. There are no medical bills in the mail because everyone from hospital to dentist now demands payment at time of service or beforehand, and there are no cable or “dish” bills because we opted out of television years ago, but there are still plenty of bills. More than enough.

What I call the “wrong tree” mail is that asking either for charitable donations or subscriptions or looking to me as a new customer for whatever product or service someone is trying to sell. Thank you, I made my December donations, and that’s all I can do for now, both because of the aforementioned pesky bills and because in our household we can’t seem to break the habit of regular meals. During most of the year, I make charitable donations in the form of memorials, as occasions arise.

I’ve renewed my subscription to Book Source Magazine and am a new subscriber to the London Review of Books, because they offered me a fabulous deal. New York Review of Books subscription has run out, but a friend and I will exchange London and New York, so we’ll both have the benefit of both. As for making a decision about health insurance based on advertising that comes in the mail, how foolish would I have to be? And people who want to sell me advertising or offer themselves as paid consultants to my business—sorry! Wrong tree!

A Couple Backward Glances at the Blog

As we sink into winter, a couple of my old posts bobbed up. They don’t appear on the all-time greatest hits of Books in Northport, but they’re things I enjoyed putting together, and a few readers either discovered or revisited them last week. The first addresses the question of the relation of “blogging” to “writing,” and that post engendered a pretty lively conversation when it first appeared. The other, on fiction, essays, criticism, etc., was in itself almost a review of a couple of books that gave me plenty of food for thought.

Where We’re Going, Will We Need Roads?

Ah, yes, you guessed it: I’m not thinking about roads but about the ever-uncertain future of printed books and actual, physical, “bricks-&-mortar” bookstores. Here’s a recent contribution to thoughts about it all. The writer says there is evidence that the disappearance of bookstores lowers the market demand even for e-books and means that fewer books will be read in any form. Once again, my mantra: I’m here now, I’m here now, I’m here now.... And isn’t “now” all we ever truly have?

January 2013: Sarah at edge of woods