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Perkins Update

I'd be surprised if we received as much as an inch of rainfall in Grand Rapids during the entire month of August. But it appears the tomatoes at Perkins have tapped in to the shallow aquifer below. Today I picked a whole mess of maters, and Julie and Abbey are busy canning them right now. Abbey has memorized the ingredients for a quart of canned maters.

The dry weather also made it ideal for picking shallots. They did pretty well at Perkins and are on the list again for next year.

The pumpkin vines all dried out while we were on Beaver Island, so this year's crop will be modest and the carvers are small. We'll probably eat them and buy something more impressive to decorate the front porch for Halloween.

The sweet corn is excellent given the drought. While ears are small, kernels are big, sweet and juicy. We'll certainly be bringing some ears up to Wheatland this weekend.

The row cover continues to amaze me. Pac choi grows on, and vigorously. The broccoli and cabbage I direct seeded under the row cover looks better than any transplant I've ever planted and the broccoli stands more than 15" tall.

Today I seeded in some more late lettuce and spinach. It's supposed to be a steamer tomorrow, but after that the weather report calls for all low to mid 70's, great temps for growing greens.

The electric fence continues to do its job, with the racoons only getting one ear of corn while we were gone and one squirrel trespassing to bury some nuts in a squash mound. Now if it would only keep out the flea beetles, squash bugs and cucumber beetles...

Beaver Island

We're back from a week on Beaver Island. The week was so relaxing that the camera rarely came out. But I did snap a picture of Abbey on her first fishing trip. She out-fished me two-to-one.
UPDATE - Here are some photos from the first few days of our trip, taken by my friend Eric Doyle.

Perkins Update

While some things have been a real challenge this year, other things are going amazingly well. The new electric fence means that we have un-nibbled lettuce this year. Add to this the discovery of a good variety of buttercrunch and a good variety of romaine and we have some serious lettuce available.

Carrots are also doing amazingly well in the hard, clay soil at Perkins. I tried five different varieties to see what works, and the four that have been in long enough are all producing reasonable carrots.

Even the sorry-looking eggplants I reported on earlier are now bouncing back.

But we're still waiting for the first of the broccoli and we discovered clubroot in one corner of the garden. Next year I'll just have to get out there a spread 50-pounds of lime between the first and second tilling.

But the best surprise of all has been the value of floating row cover. Below are two photos of cucumbers. The scraggly ones planted by the trellis were planted two weeks before the big, healthy-looking ones in the other photo. But without serving as the singles bar for disease-spreading cucumber beetles, the later cucumbers have surpassed the earlier ones and promise to produce much healthier fruit. The same results appear to be happening with the pac choi and mustard greens planted under row cover and protected from flea beetles.



Things we've eaten from Perkins so far this year:
Mixed salad greens
Radishes
Garlic scapes
Arugula
Chard
Spinach
Mustard Greens
Broccoli raab
Carrots
Snow peas
Shell peas
Purple bush beans
Golden zucchini
Green onions
Cipolini onions
Basil
Dill

As for our venture into selling our surplus produce, we've almost paid for our seed costs. This week, some surplus basil and green onions will be sold to the chef at the Amway Grand for use at Cygnus 27 and the 1913 Room.

Fighting Critters

While the excessive rain has probably been the biggest challenge to gardening this spring and early summer, I've been taking on a couple of other pests as well.

I went to the garden one evening in mid June to find that some rabbits had snatched three broccoli plants and snacked on some Swiss chard. Fortunately, they had not yet found the romaine and bibb lettuce.

Thinking back to the previous year and the ways in which my full-sized broccoli consistently got nibbled away, I decided I had had enough. I drove on up to Family Home & Garden that night and plunked down the cash for the materials for a solar-charged electric fence.

I got half of it set up the next night before some thunderstorms rolled in, and then the rest set up on the next day. Upon being plugged in, the fence put out a decent charge. If you're wearing sneakers, the charge is not much, but if you touch the fence while simultaneously touching the ground with a bare hand, the shock is unmistakable and has you impulsively snatching away your hand from the fence.


The second battle is with the bugs. A few weeks ago, I put floating row cover over some newly planted cucumbers. Protected from the striped cucumber beetles, the covered plants took off and grew more vigorously than the uncovered plants seeded two week earlier.

With this success, I decided to put floating row cover over some other crops planted this weekend. I planted a row of pac choi and a row of mustard, two plants viciously attacked by flea beetles this spring. Given the hoards of European cabbage moths flying about the garden, I also planted some fall broccoli and cabbage under the row cover as well.

So now my thoughts turn to how to fill up the little remaining space in the garden bed, and how to use the space that will soon be vacated by spinach, onions, and other greens. During the next week, I think I'll maker a summer planting of the following crops: peas, romaine and bibb lettuce, spinach and some large Spanish radishes.

Recovery

The rains continued into this week, with another good dumping on Friday, but since then it has been sunny, dry and windy - in the end, good conditions for drying things out.

So this weekend was dedicated to catching up on weeding and seeding. Saturday I finally got the winter squash and pumpkins planted (Butternut, Sunshine, Hubbards, pie pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns). I also planted a second sowing a few other items - purple bush beans, soy beans, cucumbers, and golden bush zucchini. I replanted two varieties of corn that got flooded out (Spring Treat and Luscious). Lastly, I planted another variety of carrots for later harvesting (Sugarsnax).

Lots of weeding was also in order. Among other things, I had to find the basil buried among the weeds. Just a few more things still need weeding, most of them flowers, so I'm feeling just about caught up. I'm certainly getting good use of my scuttle hoe these days.

Here's what you're seeing in the photo:

• Upper left corner is broccoli, with some small zucchini sprouting to the right and some pumpkin mounds along the top of the photo.
• The white thing is some floating row cover over newly planted cucumbers. The eggplants are to the immediate left of the row cover.
  
• Left of the row cover is some very small basil starts, to the right are beans.
• In front of the row cover are onions, with the shallots to the left, and some radishes (and tons of weeds) to the left of the shallots.
• In the foreground are various greens - Tatsoi mustard, pac choi, arugula, lettuce mix and some small romaine bottom right.

Perkins Update

An update from the People's Republic of Perkins is long overdue. To say it's been a challenging year for gardening in west Michigan is darn understatement. But tonight we took the first major cutting of lettuce and spinach, so I can't say all the trouble has not been worth it.

To begin with, spring is about two weeks behind this year. Our last frost came the week before Memorial Day, and I didn't get peas planted until May. I usually plant my peas in late March!

We did, however, have great weather on Memorial Day weekend for planting. Cool temps, nice breezes and clear blue skies. I got many things planted on target and the cool weather helped the greens germinate well. Shortly thereafter, I planted the tomato (30 plants!) and pepper starts.

But then more trouble came. First were the bugs. Last week I noticed two expected pests, but in near epic numbers. Midweek I noticed that there were the flea beetles taking up residence on my eggplants. I also saw their telltale bite holes on some pac choi and tatsoi that had sprouted. I was going to spray on Friday, but there was rain in the air and more predicted for Saturday, so I just went out to the garden to check progress on in the evening. Indeed, the flea beetles were making progress.

As I was commiserating about the flea beetles, another gardener shared with me that the week's 80-degree temperatures were also bringing out the cucumber beetles. She had them all over her cucurbits and melons. My summer squash, melons and cucumbers were not up yet, so I was not too worried, but I still could not believe that the beetles were that heavy already.

I planned to spray a little rotenon this weekend to deal with the flea beetles, but regular thunderstorms made spraying less than feasible. And apparently flea beetles don't mind eating in a storm. By the time I sprayed today, my eggplants were quite decimated.

The other problem has been, ironically, rain. Too much of it. We've been getting daily dumpings of 1-2 inches since Friday. Warm weather and rain has been great for the weeds, but not real good for the rest of the garden. The corn is looking terrible, so I'm thinking another planting is going to be in order this year. The onion beds look like rice paddies.


All the water is making it so that weeds cannot be controlled by pulling or hoeing, so the garden is also becoming a jumble of seedlings and weeds. Thankfully, today's forecast is calling for dry skies for a few days starting this Tuesday. Hopefully I will be able to get some of the more critical weeding done some evenings this week.


But, like I said, getting that first cutting of fresh lettuce and spinach has been a modest reward for this year's work. The peas are also coming along nicely (although weedy), and the radishes are plump and mild.

I'm hitting the catalogs tonight and putting in an order for more seed for corn and chinese greens and some floating row cover. If things don't come up the way they should, there's still plenty of time to plant other things. After all, a pack of seeds is only a couple of bucks, so we'll just try again.

Big Shots

Today was too rainy for working in the yard, so I went out and did some maintenance on my adopted section of the North Country Trail in the Rogue River Sate Game Area. The birds didn't seem to mind the rain and were chirping away. I wished I wasn't so busy, I would have liked to watch them.

It was only about 40 degrees, and raining off and on. I had to keep moving to keep warm. So I guess it was good that there were a number of fallen trees across the trail that required me to swing my ax.

Other than the birds, the woods were silent in their wetness. As I swung my ax into a fallen oak, the blade cracked through the woods. Each swing was like a gun shot going off. Crack! Crack! Crack!

Just me, the birds, the dripping rain and the sound of my ax.

At one point, as I was rummaging through my rucksack, I saw some tiny hepatica pushing up the leaves nearby. I had to look twice. The woods are late coming into spring this year.

Everything was so brown and gray. So when I saw these tiny hepatica closed up from the cold and rain, I was quite pleasantly surprised.

As bold as they were, pushing back last year's oak leaves, I thought they too were big shots. Braving the icy rains to bring forth the promise of spring.

Spring rain and birdsong
in a brown and gray woods.
Soft leaves under my feet.
Sharp ax meets hard oak
like a shot from a gun, cracking
through the woods.
Birds,
dripping rain,
the sound of my ax.

Look! There are some tiny hepatica pushing back last year's oak leaves!

They too are big shots,
braving the the icy rain
the promise of spring.

Ken's Video

We did a little trail work on the North Country Trail up by Highbanks Lake in Newaygo County this past Saturday. My friend Ken Knight shot this video.


Making a Difference: Building New Trail from Ken Knight on Vimeo

First Planting 2008

Today I planted a few seeds in the cold frame. In went:

• Arugula (some seeds I saved from a variety that originated in Italy a year ago from some seed shared by another community gardener)
• Broccoli raab
• Allstar lettuce mix (for baby greens)
  
• Wildfire lettuce mix (more baby greens, but this mix is mostly reds)
• Swiss chard (Bright Lights)
• Spinach (Space)

If thing progress like they should, we'll be eating fresh salads the first weekend in May.

Yet it's hard to believe how long winter is hanging in there this year. Last year, we had early tulips blooming at this time and the garlic was 3" high. Don't believe me? Look here.

Now if we can just melt out the remaining couple of inches of snow...

New Hampshire

I went to New Hampshire this past weekend for a little late winter hiking. I arrived shortly after noon Thursday and quickly made my way to the trail, climbing up the Nineteen Mile Brook trail from Pinkham Notch to Carter Notch, a distance of 3.8 miles. The picture above shows the view back down the trail towards Pinkham Notch.

This hike is usually doable in about two and a half hours, given the 1,900 foot elevation gain. But with all the snow, it took me about four hours. Maybe being an out-of-shape flatlander also had something to do with my poky pace.

I arrived at the Carter Notch Hut about an hour before dark and found four other hikers there for the night. Up in the notch, the snow easily exceeded six feet in depth.

The next morning, I was going to head off to Imp Shelter, about seven and a half miles down the Carter Moriah Range. As I was leaving, I was was joined by three of the other four hikers from the hut, all of whom were also planning to climb Carter Dome. The hike up the Dome from the south is a steep, icy pitch and two of the hikers joining me on the climb had no traction for their boots. The third had crampons, but he was a woefully unprepared and overly enthusiastic young man with a fondness for the opportunity to use his ice ax. Needless to say, all three of them made me terribly nervous as we climbed. I had to repeatedly remind the enthusiastic young man that is is not a good idea to climb directly below another hiker on a steep pitch. If I would have lost my footing, I would have taken him down the slide with me... not to mention the 12 crampon points on the bottom of each foot.

Thankfully, we all made it to the top of the steep pitch safely.

From there, we continued our way through a woods that was increasingly covered with ice from the previous weekend's rain storm on the summits. The ice was magical, as were all the fresh pine martin tracks crisscrossing the trail.

Yet the ice on the trees, combined with the six-foot deep snow, made the hiking more like following a hobbit trail through the tree top branches. It made the hiking really slow going. Finally, by noon, we were on the top of Carter Dome.

An hour later we climbed the summit of Mount Hight, where we had lunch. At that point, we had been hiking for three and a half hours and hadn't even covered three miles. The steep climb and the bushwhack through the tree tops slowed me down greatly and had me reconsidering my plans to hike to Imp Shelter, four miles of which was likely to be more bushwhack through the treetops while hiking solo at elevation. I thought the more prudent thing to do would be to descend and to make the hike in another winter when the snowpack was not so heavy, or when I have a companion or two to help break trail.

So I ascended with the others, down through Zeta Pass, and out to Pinkham Notch. I arrived at the car a little after 4:00pm, this time making four plus miles in two and a half hours.

That night I camped at Sugarloaf Campground II down by Zeeland Road. I got in just early enough to pitch my tent and make my dinner before dark. The night was mild, and temperatures inside the tent never dipped low enough to freeze my gear.

I got up early the next morning and headed up to Crawford Notch where I made reservations for the next two night's stays. By 9:00am, I was changed into fresh clothing, repacked, and hiking my way up the Avalon Trail to the Field/Tom notch via the A to Z Trail.

At the notch, I ran into a number of other hikers, including one sanctimonious fellow who lectured me about the importance of wearing snowshoes and not ruining the trail with post-holing. He must not have seen the snowshoes upon which I was sitting.

After the blowhard left, I hiked up to the summit of Mount Tom, which was shrouded in mist and clouds. Given the lack of views, I didn't stay long, returned to the notch, and descended down the west side of the ridge on the A to Z trail towards Zeeland Falls Hut.

Again, the trail was in the treetops and I need to beat back snow covered spruce branches for the next mile and a half. Tedious work!

I arrived at Zeeland Falls Hut in the late afternoon, rather soaked with sweat and melted snow from the bushwhack. The hut had about two dozen people staying in it (Saturday night), but it was a great crowd of friendly folks.

Sunday morning I was to hike with Tom and Renae from southern New Hampshire. I headed out on the Lend-a-Hand Trail a few minutes before them and said I would wait up for them at the summit of Mount Hale.

When I got to the summit of Mount Hale, it too was in the clouds. I waited around for forty-five minutes, taking pictures and snacking a bit, but Tom and Renae never showed. So I descended the Hale Brook Trail and walked out Zeeland Road to the highway.

I was going to hitch back up to Crawford Notch (10 miles or so south), but there was already another hitchhiker on the road. Minding my manners, I allowed him his space. But he had a HUGE pack and cross country skis, so car after car passed him by. Finally, forty-five minutes later, one of the other hikers from the hut came out and offered me a ride back up to the notch. We picked up the other guy as well.

That night I stayed at the Shapleigh Bunk House, which was empty except for one other woman. I ended the trip by taking in the Brad Washburn photography exhibit in the Highland Center's Thayer Hall.

Overall, it was a good trip. While the skies were not particularly clear, nor the views long, I did get to bag another two 4,000 footers in the winter(Tom and Hale), I met great folks, and I got to wander among the tracks of spruce grouse, snowshoe hare and lynx for a few days.

Snow depth at the beginning of Nineteen Mile Trail. Later the blazes would be right by or even below the snow.



View of Carter Dome showing the western slide.



Upper Carter Lake, the water (and trout) source for the hut.



Kyle from Flint (bare-booter) on the shoulder of Carter Dome. The Carter Notch Hut is in the notch below.



Ice tree on the ascent of Carter Dome.



Kyle, his dad Chuck, and the enthusiastic young Chris on the top of Carter Dome.



Birch in ice above Zeta Pass on Mount Hight.



Closeup of rime ice on a wind-bent icicle on Mount Hale.



Lonesome summit of Mount Hale.



Piles of snow in Crawford Notch.

Perkins 2008

It's a dark, January night... a good time to think about what will be growing in the People's Republic of Perkins this year. Here are my thoughts so far. Now to make sure there is a) the space in my 2,000 square feet, and b) enough time to plant all this and still have time to join some friends for a hike of the Coastal Trail in Lake Superior Provincial Park over Memorial Day weekend.

Here's the list in alphabetical order with some comments. The plan is to grow for our family, and to have 3-5 households with which we also share produce for a small fee.

Arugula, Astro II - I've not done this one before. Reportedly it is mild. I also have some seed saved from last year's Arugula crop, which was from imported seed from another gardener's father's garden in Italy.

Basil, Genovese - Typical sweet basil. Does really well at Perkins.

Basil, Red Rubin - Purple basil, which I have not grown before. Similar to Genovese in leaf shape.

Beans, Butterbeans - Edamame soy beans like at the sushi bar. Just steam them and eat like peanuts... really...

Beans, Royal Burgundy - Purple green beans. They are purple on the vine, but turn green when you cook them. They taste just like normal green beans.

Broccoli Raab, Spring Raab - Mix between a green and a broccoli. Tiny broccoli, lots of leaves. Steam and eat it all. A little on the bitter side, but this variety is quite mellow, especially if I pick it early in the morning.

Broccoli, DeCicco - Heirloom variety. Good flavor, but smaller heads. Early (if rabbits and woodchucks don't get it first).

Broccoli, Gypsy - I have not grown this variety at Perkins yet. Pretty standard broccoli.

Cabbage, Lynx - Fairly standard green cabbage. Have not grown this variety at Perkins yet.

Cabbage, Regal Red - Fairly standard red cabbage. Have not grown this variety at Perkins yet.

Carrots, Mokum and Carrots, Sugarsnax 54 - two different varieties, as I have not tried growing carrots in the clay soil at Perkins. Other gardeners, however, have had some good success.

Cilantro, Santo - The standard stuff. Will plant throughout the season to try to have with some regularity (but probably in small doses).

Corn, Luscious, Seneca Dancer, and Spring Treat - Three varieties so that it is available throughout the summer (if the raccoons don't get it like last year). All sweet corn varieties.

Cucumbers, Olympian - Have not grown this variety at Perkins yet. Cucumbers do well out there, but so do the cucumber beetles. This variety is more disease resistant than those I have done in the past, so I am hopeful.

Eggplant - Variety to be determined, but it will be an elongated, Japanese variety.

Greens, Joi Choi - Like Bok Choi, a Chinese green. Great in stir fry or just steamed up. Have not grown this variety yet.

Greens, Tatsoi - Probably the most mild mustard green. Good in stir fry or salads. I have grown well at home, but have yet to try at Perkins.

Kale, Toscano - Have not grown this variety yet. This is the sweeter "dinosaur" type.

Lettuce, Allstar - A nice mix that regenerates very well for big harvest.

Lettuce, Claremont - A Romaine type I have not grown yet. Other gardeners have had good success with Romaine at Perkins.

Lettuce, Sylvesta - A nice, green butterhead type. A new variety of a type I had great success with last year.

Lettuce, Wildfire - Another nice mix, but with more reds. Another gardener did very well with this at Perkins.

Melon, Honey Orange - Honeydew with orange flesh. I am the first to admit that I am not very good at growing melons, and Michigan can be a little too cool and short of a season for melons, but I'm compelled to try again this year...

Onions, Evergreen - Bunching onions. Have not grown this variety yet.

Onions, Purplette - Cipolini onions. Pink. Have not grown this variety yet.

Peas, Caseload - Shell peas. These will only be shared if a large crop.

Peas, Snow Sweet - Snow peas. Should be a small amount for sharing. Good in salads.

Pepper, Apple - Sweet, red pimiento pepper. Does excellent at Perkins.

Pepper, Gypsy - One of the finest sweet peppers. Light green and orange. Does excellent at Perkins.

Pepper, Habanero - The infamous hot one. Good for making salsa. Does excellent at Perkins.

Pepper, Italian Relleno - Great roasting pepper. My personal favorite. Does excellent at Perkins.

Pepper, Tiburon - A rather mild chile. Prolific. Does excellent at Perkins.

Pepper, Yankee Bell - Thick-walled green/red pepper. Have not grown this variety at Perkins yet.

Pumpkins, Baby Pam - Excellent pie pumpkin. Does excellent at Perkins.

Radish, Nero Tondo - Spanish radish. Fall planting. Stores well. Big and black. Have not grown this variety yet.

Radish, Pink Beauty - Early spring radish. Have not grown this variety yet.

Shallots, Ambition - Have not grown this variety at Perkins yet. Shallots are good keeprs, so I'm hopeful these will extend the garden eating season.

Spinach, Space - Does excellent at Perkins (until the rabbits find it). Can be grown throughout the summer.

Squash, JWS 6823 PMR - Butternut. Lousy name, but great taste and super keeper. WAY better than acorn. Does excellent at Perkins.

Squash, Sebring - Golden zucchini. Does excellent at Perkins.

Squash, Sunshine - Bright orange, Japanese variety that looks like buttercup. Have not grown this variety yet.

Swiss Chard, Bright Lights - Multi-colored and grows throughout the season, especially early and late. Does excellent at Perkins.

Tomatoes, Black Cherry - People just rave about this cherry tomato. "Black" heirloom. Does excellent at Perkins.

Tomatoes, Amish Paste - Sweet, and just fine for fresh eating. I have not grown this variety yet.

Tomatoes, Piriform - Italian heirloom. Have not grown this variety yet.

Tomatoes, Olpaka - Paste tomato. I've had good success with these at home, but have not grown this variety at Perkins yet.

Tomatoes, Pruden’s Purple - Big and pink. Heirloom. Does good at Perkins.

Thoughts? Comments?

Cannonsburg Ski

Mid-January graced west Michigan with a good amount of snow after an early January melt (which even provided 60-degree temps for a Monday evening walk across town!).

While our beautiful snow is now melting (I'm writing this on a rainy Monday night), we had a good foot and a half of the white stuff on Saturday, and a couple of inches of it were fresh. That was a good thing, because Matt Hahnfeld was leading a cross-country ski outing for the Western Michigan Chapter of the North Country Trail Association at Cannonsburg State Game Area.

It was a good event in the sense that all six who showed up were competent skiers. This allowed us to ski about nine miles in three hours. Temps stayed in the 20's, so conditions were about perfect.

Here's a video of the group (minus me and Hahnfeld) coming down a hill. Some were daring enough to ski right across the footbridge. The first skier is Georgia. Let's just say she's "retired." A real inspiration!

Top Walks

I was just reading Will Self's column for today and he listed his "favourite winter walks", so I got to thinking about what were my favorite walks of 2007. Here are some of them.

Carter Dome Loop (NH). In February, I had the opportunity to take a 10 mile solo hike and snowshoe up and over Carter Dome in New Hampshire's White Mountains. I blogged about this hike earlier. The most memorable thing about this hike was the brilliant blue sky and the absolute stillness and silence on the top of Mount Hight.

Millennium Park, Chicago (IL). In late winter, early spring, I had to go down to Chicago for a meeting with the folks from EPA Region V. A colleague, Chuck Hoyt, joined me for the trip where we took Amtrak to Chicago and back. There was no time in the morning, so we had to take a cab instead of walking. But after the meeting was done, we had enough time to walk from East Lower Wacker Drive back to the Amtrak Station via Millennium Park. While I have been to Chicago a few times recently, I had not been to this section of Millennium Park since the bean and other public art were installed. If you're ever in Chicago, make sure to check out the Cloud Gate sculpture and the Crown Fountain (photo courtesy of christopherdale).

Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore (MI). I blogged about this hike earlier also. Current memories include fields of forget-me-nots, incredible bird song, good company, and of course the fact that this was Abbey's first backpacking trip. Forty-plus miles and three nights out. Not bad for a three-year-old!


Holden Beach (NC). The memorable walk during this June vacation was down the beach to the south and back. The fact that we overshot our beach house on the walk back by nearly a mile was actually the best part. I enjoyed Julie and Abbey's company as we back-tracked on the road in the dark, peeking into lit-up beach houses full of vacationers. While down on the beach, we chased ghost crabs, walked in shallow tidal pools, and watched the pelicans glide on as the last minutes of daylight waned.

Raven Rocks (NC). A few days after the Holden Beach trek, Julie and I found a nice surprise in Raven Rocks, a state park in North Carolina where old limestone cliffs have been worn away by the Cape Fear River. It was a nice break from driving across the state. Abbey slept for half of the walk and Julie and I got to have a nice, quiet walk in the woods.

Loco Pops in Chapel Hill (NC). This walk was with Johnny and Candace Waken later the same day as the Raven Rocks walk. We walked down East Main Street in Chapel Hill on a hot June night to get us some Loco Pops. While the chile mango and lavender chocolate popsicles were great, it was the company of friends that are not seen nearly enough that made this walk memorable.

Monroe Mall (MI). On the days when I am fortunate enough to take the bus to and from work, I typically transfer so that I can walk the length of Monroe Mall from end to end. The morning walk is nice, with a stop in at Four Friends for coffee, but I particularly enjoy the evening walk as it is less rushed and often imbued with the colors of the evening sky.

To Cathy's House and Back (MI). On Thanksgiving, Julie, Abbey and I walked the little more than three miles to my brother Bill's girlfriend Cathy's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Both the walk there on a sunny, 20 degree afternoon and the walk home on a cold, clear night were memorable. The walk made me wish that more days allowed the time for walking from place to place when in one's home town.

Dérive

Those who know me know that I like to walk. I'm not quite sure why I do. If I had to hazard a guess, I would suspect that the act of walking purely has a positive physiological effect on my body, and hence my spirits.

Exercise and deep breaths fire off the dopamine. Without a thought, neurons connect and disconnect. Something totally subconscious happens at the most physical level.

I'm rather addicted to the sensation that comes from a long walk. A couple of hours is good, but walking for days or weeks at a time are certainly better.

It used to be that I liked hiking. Then, I thought that it was being out in the woods that gave me the charge. And while the woods are certainly nice, I've learned that it's not so much a hike in the traditional "drive out to the woods and check out nature" sense that gets me going. It's just the simple act of walking.

Which is good, because of late I've come to not only define myself as a walker, but also as an urbanist. While I grew up in rural-cum-suburban southern New York, my adult years have been spent living close-quartered houses on postage stamp sized lots in a mid-sized, midwestern city. I've grown to love being close to my neighbors (even when they frustrate me), being where I can walk to the store and the letter carrier walks to my front door, and having most modern amenities close enough that I don't spend a huge portion of my waking hours trapped in the confines of a car.

So the two have come together quite a bit during the last ten years of my life, and it's gotten to the point that I don't know which I prefer more... a walk in the woods, or a good trek across town.

When I was up in Glen Arbor, Michigan a few years back, I was digging around in the Cottage Bookshop, an excellent independent bookstore, and I came across Rebecca Solnit's Wanderlust. In this book, Solnit looks at walking from many angles... historical, sociological, philosophical, psychological, political, artistic, and so on.

Reading that book as I wandered the beaches of Sleeping Bear Dunes (walking barefoot may be the best form of walking!), I began really thinking hard for the first time about why it is that I like to walk.

Last week, I picked up Psychogeography, by Will Self. Self has me thinking about walking in new and different ways, and has me wondering if I really do understand why I like walking, and if I really understand what I am experiencing as I walk.

Psychogeography is a term that was interjected into modern thought by French situationist Guy Debord. Debord had a fondness for taking long walks as an act of protest, as a way of intentionally reacting to the modern society around him by making whimsical yet deliberate choices not to follow the conventional route from place to place. The dérive was the term he gave to these long walks where he attempted to refine the relationship between external geography and the internal self.

So now, along with Solnit's tremendous amount of information about walking, I have Self's commentary and Debord's half-baked theories rattling about in my head. All this gives a guy a lot to think about as he walks around town.

Last night I took a good long walk with my friend Eric, from Creston through downtown and into Heartside. It was a rainy, uniquely 60 degree January night. The company and the landscape ensured that my walk was interesting, but so did the simple act of wondering about the meaning of the walk itself.

To Your Health!

The change of the years always brings new things. Resolutions, the post-holiday season, and new digits that have to be hardwired into the brain before writing checks.

For us, this new year brought new snow, a new tradition, and friendships both new and renewed. To celebrate this rather arbitrary holiday, Julie, Abbey and I joined ten other friends at a cabin in the Waterloo-Pinckney State Recreation Area. We typically gather with this group earlier in December, but the cabin was booked; so we moved our plans to the New Year's holiday and started what appear will be a new tradition.


As we do most years, we enjoyed a long hike on Monday. The hike Julie, Abbey and I did was a little bit shorter than the others', as little legs needed a shorter loop.

The temps were in the mid thirties and the birds were singing. In fact, some chickadees were even prematurely singing their spring song.

Monday night about an hour or two before midnight, the snow began to fall. This was no ordinary snow, but a real dumping, complete with thunder and lightening. When dawn broke and I ventured out doors in just my Sorels and my bedclothes to take a pee, I found 15 inches of fresh white snow had blanketed the world over night.

Indeed, the new snow was an excuse for the gang to help Abbey make a seven-foot-tall snowman, complete with cookies for eyes and raisins for his teeth.

The whole weekend was relaxing and enjoyed in the company of a dozen, easy-going, nature loving folks. Our friend Andy did an excellent job of reserving the cabin and making sure this event went smoothly. Even while he was visiting his family in Poland earlier this year, he was thinking of his hiking friends in Michigan. That was evident in the kindness he shared by bringing each of us a little 100ml bottle of one of Poland's finest treats for sipping by the campfire on a snowy, late December night.

Na zdrowie!