The Story of My Life

As told by a House Wren

So you decide one day you want to move somewhere new.

So first, you have to find a house.

And you're excited to check out the new digs.

But you decide some nestorations are in order

So you just jump right on in.

Small at first

But as your confidence grows, you can tackle bigger jobs.

And bigger jobs.

Sometimes when you think you've got it.
SUCCESS? <<<<CLICK HERE

Oops.

BUT

Do you give up?

Nooooo!!!

Not until the very end.

The very biggest task of all.

And even though you get it done, there is always this...it never quite turns out as well as you thought.
Because after all, it was YOU doing it.

So you can either be sad about the lack of perfection.

To Dream the Impossible Dream <<<<CLICK HERE

Or just say "Whoo Hoo!"  and have a happy life.

I choose a happy life.

 Whoo Hoo. Amen.

And the wren says "Amen" too.

Amen.

You Should See the Ones That Get Away!

really terrible picture of a Common Yellowthroat

I LOVE taking pictures.
love it LOVE IT.
LOVE.
IT.

Really.

I know when it started.  On the the farm, as a kid,  Mom let me take pictures of her flowers with the Polaroid. Then, later, when Polaroids were almost a thing of the past (unlike now, when they are trendy again), Dad gave me his, and I took a couple of pictures of some woods and fall foliage near our house in town.  One semi-blurry picture of greens, reds and orange did it for me.  I kept that picture in a scrapbook and enjoyed looking at it for years. Even though I continued to really suck (sorry) at taking pictures for a really long time (half of the pictures I took from my only trip to Europe during college had my finger in them, or were blurry, or had no focal point or were mostly of someone else's back taking the same picture I wanted to be taking....you get the idea), I still WANTED so much to show others the beauties I perceived in my world.

When I got an iPhone, I took a lot of flower pictures, mostly.  I have never been great at people pictures, and because of a long story I won't go into here, for a long time, I told myself that pictures of family members weren't really all that important, especially, especially compared to spending time with those family members themselves.  Then, several years later, my wonderful husband did something that changed my world.

One Christmas, I opened a mysterious package. By mysterious I mean I am often pretty good at guessing what I might be getting for Christmas. Comes from a past of shaking, measuring, sneakily unwrapping corners (None of which I do anymore. Believe me. Really). But this present totally caught me by surprise. A shiny new Nikon Coolpix P510...probably the best point-and-shoot ever made, big attached zoom, lots of fun features...I could go on.

I started crying.  It was like a homecoming I never expected.  I just kept saying, as a way to explain my tears, "I never knew I wanted it."  But apparently, I did.

I have no idea how many pictures I have taken with this camera...a hundred thousand, maybe.  I've stored 3,312 (as of right this moment) of my favorites on Flickr, others on Facebook and Imgur (I'm not an Instagram or Snapchat type of girl). Its zoom lens makes a funny whirring sound, the result of being dropped a couple of times.  But it still serves me well.  It is my constant car buddy.  Every day that I come home with pictures to download feels little like opening that present one more time (See what you unleashed, Bob?).

But.

In spite of ALL those pictures, almost every day, there are the ones that get away.

Last week, TWO black bears on two separate roads had the nerve to run across the road in front of my car without pausing and posing for a picture to commemorate the experience for both of us.  I've had the same thing happen many times with coyotes and wolves, a fox, numerous raccoons, gray squirrels, grouse, turkeys (ESPECIALLY TURKEYS), pheasants, and those darned white crows down the road a piece. Certain birds tease me with glimpses as I drive, calling with their little siren songs (Mr. Common Yellowthroat, you KNOW who you are!), but never showing themselves long enough for me to get a shot....even when I'm driving with my window open, camera ready in one hand...talk about distracted driving!

Anyway.

I LOVE IT!

Every day and every day and every day is an all day treasure hunt for me.  Just today, there was a discussion on Facebook of the famous three white crows of the Bruce Crossing area, and I chimed in, sharing the pics (not super ones) that I have taken of them so far.  This led me to look for them as I headed toward Ewen to pick Jordan up after driver's ed this afternoon. AND I SAW ONE.  Right there between the Jousma and Gem Hill roads.  Taunting me alongside the road.  I pulled over safely, took aim, and he was (of course) GONE, deep into the trees on the south side of the road.

Story of my life.

But only most of the time.

The rest of the time, I've had time to do THIS <<<<click if you want to see some pics, since this post isn't going to contain any more added the usual way (I know that's a tease, but you know, that's the subject of this post, in a way).

Hope you don't mind.

Happy First Day of Summer!!!

(6/21/2016 Edit)  I have been feeling bad about not including my usual plethora of pictures to this post, even though it was supposed to be pictures I DIDN'T take.  Sooo....here's pics of a little one who DIDN'T get away today:

I don't know if it's a trick of the light, but his eyes are BLUE

I didn't get the shot where he turned his head a and looked at me with those big eyes before sauntering down the road to his mama

Ode to a Smell

I was going to call this post "Ode to an Odor,"  but I thought that sounded a little obvious.  What do you think?

Anyway, yesterday, I went to work on a Saturday.  >>>>GASP<<< I know.  I never do this.  But I did.  Several reasons.  It was Jordan's birthday on Friday, and he really wanted to go shooting.  I like to go shooting, too, but when Jordan and I go together with Bob, it becomes an argument with who wants to shoot which gun next, and I didn't feel it was worth it (they had a good time without me, and when I got home late in the afternoon, they had guns taken apart and were happily cleaning them together as a necessary male bonding ritual).  I love my menfolk!

Another reason I wanted to go to work is because lots of people in the area have bugged me about not being open on Saturday.  So I was.  But I guess they weren't bugging me because they wanted to actually stop in and see me, because, for the most part, I was alone.  That was okay, because of my next reason for really wanting to go to work.

Listen to me:  "really wanting to go to work."  Those words never used to appear in my vocabulary, at least not in that exact order. But being creative is so much fun!!!  I am having so much fun with copper these days.  I made Bob and Jordan each a bracelet for Father's Day and Birthday, respectively, and I think they turned out neat.

Jordan's and Bob's

I now have a big selection of pendants, brooches, rings, earrings,

some of the latest 

and my current personal favorite: Doodads!  I want to start to do something that could be, but doesn't have to be, jewelry.  My first attempt at that were to make Hummingbees.

I think they're much cuter in person

  They are a cross (nicest possible combination of the two) between, of course, a bee and a hummingbird.  What are they good for?  Smiles...that's it.  They can just sit on their perch, or perch on your hand, and make you a little happier than before you had a Hummingbee.  That's all.

Saturday, I was inspired to make Fishies.

well....I think they are cute

I had these assorted gemstone beads that didn't match up with anything or each other, but they make cute fish.  So, what are they good for?  I really don't know. I just know from personal experience that creative people are happy people, so by the time I had strung up 16 or so Fishies,

there's a song about little fishies, but I can't remember it

I was a bunch more happy.  Easily amused am I.  Never doubt it.

The third reason I wanted to go to work on Saturday was because the weather was BEEOOTEEFULL.  I rolled down my window and leaned my head out and took pics and SMELLED the smells.  I don't know if it is the buttercups,

or the daisies

or the lupines

or what that makes it smell so good around here.  It's a subtle smell, but it is lovely.  I would like it for my cologne.  Anyway, it would just have to smell good around here, with as many flowers as there are blooming like crazy everywhere.  Lately, the biggies are the ones I said, plus more, including lots of hawkweed (both nice native yellow and naughty invasive but beautiful orange stuff),

good morning, young sir

dewy, dewy, dew

not invasive

columbine

and birdsfoot trefoil,

which makes the most delicious honey I've ever tasted (thanks to our few-miles-away neighbor, Leslie McBean). There are other things blooming, too, depending on where you are, like blackberry

bushes teasing about a late summer haul of berries to come, and boggy plants like wild calla lilies and irises.

Of course, even with all this beauty, I never stop looking for BIRDS.  The bubbly bobolinks continue,

and savannah sparrows are feeding babies lots of yumminess (if you are a bird).

Bluebirds are rarer, but pop up here and there,

kingbirds survey their territory and guard it from any intruder (and they can back up that claim in a second, I've seen them fight off crows and eagles and hawks viciously).

not a kingbird...do you have a guess?

Anyway, with a drive like that to and from work, who wouldn't want to go?

I already have plans to go to work next Saturday!  It's the first annual Copperfest in Ontonagon, and just maybe there could be a few people who feel the need to leave town with some copper jewelry to commemorate their day.  Or a Hummingbee.  Who knows.  I know where they can find one.

picture by Audrey J.

Happy almost-officially-summer to you!

People, People, People

I am not a people person.  If someone says, would you rather attend a party, OR..., I will take "OR...." pretty much every time.  Which is funny, because there are lots of people in the world I like a lot.  A LOT. And several that I LOVE TO PIECES.

I think someone like me, and ESPECIALLY ME (or more grammatically speaking, I) was born to live in the UP.

Privacy is one of my favorite things (and yes, I know this is a BLOG I am writing). So the UP is perfect for me.  Because I can get lost whenever I want.  I can go to our camp and not worry about seeing anyone there except for my family (who are among those humans that I love to pieces).  I can go for a drive, or drive to work and maybe see 5 (on a busy day) other vehicles. I can do all the curves of the Military Hills area like a car commercial, hugging the curves, pretending to drive fast (although the speed limits on those curves are plenty fast for me) or straying across the yellow line into the passing lane, just a little, randomly (exciting stuff, right?) and it doesn't matter, because there are no other cars in the whole area with me.

nobody is coming

I know that in the UP, getting away from everyone is as simple as taking a few steps off the trail. It's as simple as staying in your house, because people will not stop by uninvited.  Neither would you think of showing up uninvited to someone's house.  They might have taken a few steps off the trail themselves that day, or are just staying home in their jammies and like the alone time.

Maybe that's why I like to blog.  Because then it's my choice, always, when someone stops by.  And by stopping by I mean, I can still be in my jammies on a Sunday afternoon, and it's going to be okay, since stopping by my blog means you are just reading about it, after all.

So from what or whom am I trying to escape?  Maybe it's hurt.  Maybe I am running away from the indifference of friends or relatives I have known in one of my two or three past lives who never saw my value as a person because I was not like them, or because my priorities about how I lived my life were different than theirs.

I wonder and worry sometimes that I am the intolerant one.  Because I was the one who moved away from those people, in either a big or a small way.  I was the person who knew I couldn't survive without becoming my own person.  I was the one who separated myself from the local gossip mill.  I was the one who decided that materialism wasn't a big priority in my life. I was the one who decided that it was absolutely time to leave my job of many years. I was the one who kept to myself, and to my small immediate family and extremely small circle of beloved friends instead of spending time with people who were neither of those to me. I was the one moved, ultimately, to Paynesville.

the rain stays mainly on the bluebird in Paynesville

So where does that leave me?  Actually, in an almost constantly surprised and delighted state of mind, because I have started to discover a whole new group of people I really like, and to whom I can relate.

Some are casual acquaintances, people with whom I do business in some way.  We talk about commonalities, and find that there are many. What a big gratifying surprise.  Like the guy who stopped at the shop to see Bob the other day, but since he was busy, told me the story of why he moved to the UP and how he "fell in love" with so many things here.  I'm finding more and more that I am definitely not alone in that regard.

Or some who are relatively new acquaintances but who I know are going to be lifelong friends. People with whom I can share stories of experiences that are close to my heart, and laugh and cry about them together, while cementing a bond based on mutual experiences, values, and respect.

So why am I just now, at this time in my life, having these kinds of experiences?  I've always been a late bloomer.  Maybe I just wasn't ready to relate to people on this level.  Maybe I needed to truly find myself and my own voice first.

Or maybe I was in the wrong place for these things to happen.  Maybe I needed to take a few steps off the trail....

Mrs. Bluebird, looking as thoughtful as I feel today

Don't be afraid to step off the trail.

be careful not to step on the trilliums