Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Pictured Rocks

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Julie, Abbey and I joined eight friends for a hike along the North Country Trail along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The trail along Pictured Rocks is about 45 miles long and covers a wide variety of terrain.

We took the shuttle from Munising to Grand Marais on Friday morning and exited the bus to a hoard of black flies. Fortunately, that was the last we saw of those nasty creatures. We had purchased some Repel Lemon Eucalyptus insect repellent that worked wonders on black flies and did pretty good deterring mosquitoes too (although it needed somewhat frequent reapplications for the latter).

On the first day, we crossed behind the Grand Sable Dunes and enjoyed a wide variety of wildflowers and bird life. The forest floor was carpeted with spring wildflowers that had stopped blooming in Michigan's lower peninsula weeks before.

Fortunately I toted along my binoculars, but I regretfully left the bird book in the car. I also had now way to identify flowers, so I picked up a small Michigan guide when we past by a ranger station at noon.

By the end of the first day, we were camped near the Au Sable Light Station.

The second day was mostly beach hiking in the morning, then back into the woods for the afternoon. While we had about a dozen miles to hike, Julie, Abbey and I got started early and walked at a rather leisurely pace. When you hike with a three-year-old, you get plenty of time to stop and reference the field guide. You also get plenty of time to watch birds through your binoculars.

By that evening, the clouds had rolled in an we got a few sprinkles of rain around dinner hour.

The second half of the trip was a dramatic departure from the gentle beach and forest walking of the first two days.

Our family left camp at dawn and stopped on a bluff over looking Lake Superior for breakfast. As we we cleaning up, a frantic hiker passed us and said that he had just come from the next camp don the trail and that there was a black bear in the campground. We quickly packed up and headed onward to see if we could find he bear, but he was long gone by the time we got there.

Later that morning, we started climbing into some rockier headlands. Now we were in the area for which the lake shore is known. Small cliffs gave way to higher and higher ones, and drama of the scenery became more intense. That night we camped at Mosquito Beach, which proved to be a misnomer.

The fourth and final day continued the climbs over rocky headlands. I filled my camera with images, too many to show all of them on this blog.

Bright sun, blue waters and woods full of colorful birds and flowers made for a beautiful walk.

By 2:00pm, we were exiting the woods. As we got near the road, Abbey surprised us all as she saw the car, then turned around and ran back into the woods crying. We quickly soothed her with promises of pizza and Phish Food.

The company was good, the weather cooperative, and Abbey successfully completed her first backpacking trip. It was a good walk and has filled my mind with memories.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Trail Work

Today we lead another trail crew up in Newaygo County to continue working on what is now known as the Birch Grove Trail. While Tom and Larry sawed through some huge fallen cottonwoods and mowed a section to be built in the coming weeks, another eight of us built a nice stretch of sidehill bench.

It was a beautiful day in the woods. Sun, blue sky, and warm, late spring temps.

We'll be celebrating the opening of the Birch Grove Trail at National Trails Day on Saturday, June 2.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Unique Garden



Here's the most unique garden I've come across in a while. I tripped across the Garden Barge on the WorldChanging website in a link to a New York Times article about the floating garden.

The recycled old barge (there are plenty of those floating around the Hudson River!) has been retrofitted with solar panels, wind turbines, greenhouses and hydroponic growing medium. It's a cornucopia of cool, high-tech ideas that explore the concept of sustainability.

The project is organized by the well connected and well-funded New York Sun Works.

Now I'm not completely sold on all of the gimmicks on the barge truly being sustainable over the long haul, but it's interesting to see boundaries being pushed.

For another, perhaps more realistic, look at sustainable gardening, check out the work of Ecology Action. This might work better for those of us who don't have access to a barge and a million dollars.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Time to Eat

The garden at home is in full swing with early crops. The lettuce is just beautiful this year.

Earlier this week, we picked our first lettuce and some early chard. Tomorrow we will also be picking spinach (middle of this picture below, taken two days ago), and the broccoli raab is not far behind.

I have been having a slight problem with some invisible, nocturnal pest. It seems like this pest is most fond of seedlings before their true leaves sprout, so often the plants recover. But he or she seems to also really like broccoli raab and kale that is larger. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem very fond of lettuce or spinach.

I set out slug traps, but they only proved to be a waste of perfectly good beer.

After posting this, I'll be going out to the garden to take another look for the culprit. I'll let you know if I find anything.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Spring Wildflowers

Julie, Abbey and I got out into the woods both yesterday and today. The extreme cold and extreme warm weather earlier this spring has lots of wildflowers blooming at the same time right now in Kent County.

Yesterday we stopped by the Rogue River State Game Area in the late afternoon and I took this picture of a dwarf ginseng, trillium grandiflorum, and the peeking peeper.

Today we took a short walk with some folks from church at Blandford Nature Center. There I snapped the pictures of the Jack in the pulpit and the woodland phlox.

If you live in west Michigan and like to take in the spring wildflowers, get out there quick!





I See Some Work on the Horizon

I stopped by Perkins earlier this afternoon to water some seedlings and was surprised to find that the entire plot had been tilled! Just breaking up the heavy soil at Perkins on a sunny weekend has resulted in a much drier garden.

But it will be a week at least yet before I can start getting things planted out there. We plan to till the garden a second time in about a week so that the soil is more workable for planting. If it stays dry, we may be able to plant before the projected date of May 18. I sure wouldn't mind getting some early corn in.

Last week, I planted some lettuces, spinach, broccoli raab and chard, and all are coming up except the chard. I hope to put in some snow peas at Perkins this week.