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| Bright yellow rubberized raincoat cheers me up. |
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| Standing water |
It’s shaping up to be a rainy day today in northern Michigan. Is
this good or bad? Lake levels, going by the shore of Grand Traverse Bay, still
seem low; on the other hand, inland fields are full of rain and snowmelt
puddles the size of large ponds. Is the ground saturated? Tricky question where
so much soil is clay, because clay forms a barrier that traps water so that it can't move further down, except
where it can run downhill, as a lot of it is already doing this season, heading
for little creeks that eventually feed into Lake Michigan.
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| Running water -- |
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| -- headed for the Big Lake |
We had very welcome sunshine on Monday and the warmest temperatures
so far this spring, with open water appearing on Lake Leelanau and remnants
of ice (turned a punky green) gliding slowly toward the Leland River,
the outlet for the whole 8,607-acre (North and South combined) inland lake.
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| North Lake Leelanau |
It wasn’t until evening that I had a chance to see the
disappearing ice on Lake Leelanau because I spent most of the day indoors at
the bookstore, climbing up a ladder and back down again, moving the ladder,
pouring paint and spreading it on my new wall, as well as on a couple areas of
old stucco wall (above the front windows and where the old woodstove used to be
years back) that never got painted the last time around. In the photo below you
can see, up at the left, a small bit of dirty beige yet to be covered. The
stucco areas, at least, and maybe the new wall, too, could use a second coat,
and that’s my job for today. But what a cheery change! And doesn’t the new wall
look just the color of sunshine?
A peek through our new interior door into Clare's gallery space shows you her new wall color, too. We're still waiting for first crocuses, but Dog Ears Books and Red Mullein Gallery are already colorful.
Out in the woods on Sunday I did run across one very bright spot of color on the ground and would have taken longer to ponder and photograph the sight, except that Sarah discovered something more interesting to her: a fairly fresh, predator-ravaged dead skunk. "Leave it!" and move on seemed the wisest course of action. I've reordered the Audubon North American mushroom field guide, but I don't expect to be bringing these bright red cups to the table. Something about their color shouts "Stop!" almost as loudly as the odor of skunk carcass shouted "Leave it!"
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| Mystery fungus |
Author/book note: Those who missed Loreen Niewenhuis last Thursday and/or
those who want to see and hear her again, along with a slide/video show of her
latest adventure, will have a second chance in July when she comes back to
Northport as part of the summer author series at our wonderful local library. I
also, of course, have the story of her adventure at Dog Ears Books now – even a
few signed copies, while they last.
