The Road WAY less Traveled

I took the longcut to work today.

Why isn't that a word?  It should be.

After dropping Bob off at E-TC school this morning (he's subbing for music, and I am an evil woman, because that makes me smile....forgive me please, O love of my life?), I took the truck (my car has alternator problems), into the forest.  There is a longcut (yes, I'm going to use this non-word, because I LIKE IT), from the Ewen Cemetery (Cemetery Road) that connects to Forest Road 730, which comes out on M45, which is the highway I take to work.

I am so glad that daylight savings time is over.  That means I can stand to get up earlier, because it won't seem like the middle of the night.

I am not a morning person.

I am NOT a morning person.

But, if I can get up and drive through a forest as the sun rises, well, I may just have a change of heart.

Because. Wow.

Here it is, November 4.  The sun up here is tracking way farther south already, hinting at some seriously short days to come.  In spite of that, and the lack of foliage, the forest is beautiful.

It was just a little foggy this morning.

Cemetery Road is paved at first, then goes to gravel (read clay, mud, or sharp rocks that eat your tires).  Before it becomes the forest road, there are quite a few camps.

I would love to show you some more of the cute little cabins and well loved (pick one or more) toys, tools, big sheds, outhouses and other buildings, funny signs, garden gnomes, little fishing dudes sitting on wishing wells, and other doodads, but I don't want to seem snoopy by stopping and taking pictures (I just drive slow and stare...duh).  Some people (like me) would appreciate complete privacy at camp; others would probably invite everyone in for a beer (even at 8 AM), and I don't know who is which.

Once you cross into the Ottawa, there are roads but no camps, logged and unlogged areas, and nature, nature, nature.   I was completely alone on the road this morning.  So I could take my time (and I did...soooo late for work), and see what there was to see.

even naked trees are beautiful

it's for sure not endive....I don't KNOW what it is!

more mossy stuff (unidentified)

I could see this hole a long ways away.  It looks STRANGE in the center.

At least some of it.

I KNOW there are so many critters I don't see, even driving slow.  It was warm enough to keep my windows down and listen.  I heard a Red Squirrel cheeping at me.  I looked and looked for said Red Squirrel, and here is my best picture:

No, I don't see him, either.  If you spot him, PLEASE let me know.  He was RIGHT THERE.

I also got several BAD pictures of birds.

bad chickadee....he taunted me and then wouldn't sit still for his portrait

bad woodpecker....he had things to do and places to be

Worthless, but noisy, and fun to watch.  This is why you need to drive over and join me some morning, or any other time (Work?  Who needs it!), for a falk in the worest. or a frive in the dorest...either one...I'm game.

Anyway, all good things must come to an end, and I came to the beginning of the forest road (I know that seems backwards, but that's where the signs are), and onto highway 45 for my drive north.

don't worry...I stayed on the road

I was north of Rockland this morning when one more thing slowed me (to a complete stop, actually) down.

Rumble in the Jungle!

can you see eagle number two?

Five or six eagles, plus one crow (brave soul) fighting over some roadkill.  I see that a lot here.  If a deer dies, sometimes it takes days, but the scavengers will make it disappear.  In the summer it's mostly Turkey Vultures, but now, the Bald Eagles are the supreme beings. I have seen a fox, ravens and crows, and a Rough-legged Hawk fighting over their yummies in this manner, too.  Thank God there are no hyenas in the UP!  Anyway, the eagles posed nicely for me, at least when they took a break from fighting.

just minding their own business, feaking their beaks (Look it up.  It's a thing.), when....

vicious surprise attack!

What did I tell you?  Rumble!

temporary truce (and more feaking)

even more

gorgeous 

am I right?

Anyway...today's Rumble even topped the reason I was late YESTERDAY.  Even though yesterday's distraction was cuter, I think.

don't wake me, can't you see I'm mostly NOCTURNAL?!!!

getting ready to attack!

or slay me with cuteness

I even made a movie, as the porcupine started to move.  But then I felt guilty, because either I scared him, and he was coming down the tree to hide, or he was a vicious attack porcupine, rushing (at .00005 mph) to get me.  You decide.

Anyway.

I am in awe.

Quite often, actually.

I hope wherever you are, you are able take time to be late for work sometimes, just so you can see the stuff God put out there for everybody to see.

PS:  I got to work (late) and was supposed to meet some guys about the heat in our shop.  They came in twenty minutes later than me, something like an hour late.  I am beginning to think it's the way things work around here.  I call it Yooper time.  And can you blame anyone?  Too much distraction (porcupine!!!!). It's good to live in the UP!

Turning the Corner--Four Months Later

If I go up the road to the north, and turn left at the first intersection, I am on Blacksmith Road.

There is no blacksmith.

I need to find someone to tell me the story on a lot of things around here. Like where the blacksmith lived, when there was a blacksmith, and where he

So much time has past.

For us, it's only been four months.

You can tell when you drive around here that a lot of things have changed.  Many, many people have moved on, in one way or another.  The original settlers built beautiful homesteads.  Lots of buildings, big and small.  So many of them still stand...some but barely.

The going is tough.  If you check the demographics, people here are working hard and not making a very good living.  But they keep on trying.  They are creative about how to make money, and how to feed their families. They have gardens, raise many kinds of livestock, horses,

and Jesus donkeys....

ducks, geese, guineas, and have beehives.   I suspect that people around here have helped restart the pheasant and turkey populations.

girl pheasant sneaking up to our bird feeder--she has camouflage

he thinks he has good camouflage

or if he stands still, I won't see him

 People feed deer, sometimes so they can look at them,

boy deer

girl deer

they spend most of the night in our yard, mom and baby

but mostly so they have a healthy population to hunt.  There is one farm I enjoy driving by that has lots of fenced in areas that they move around, almost daily, in order to get fresh grazing areas for pigs, chickens and goats, and various other small animals.  They also have a big white dog, who, I assume, protects everything from the various predators that roam the area.  I think she is a Maremma, like our friend Sadie, here.

I would love to have chickens someday, and a big white dog like Sadie.  But that is down the road a ways, and around a few corners, too.  I have many many acres I could use for growing stuff at our camp, and also a smallish fenced in garden here in Paynesville, that has been totally taken over by the prairie.  We planted some asparagus plants at our camp, because that's a crop that seems to take time to establish.

We have time.

I guess.

If you know me, or have read this blog, you know I'm not patient. And even though we've accomplished a lot in four months, we have a lot to do.

But I think we've turned a corner.  This has been a good week.

Bob even felt lucky enough to buy a lottery ticket.  

Some of the happy things that have occurred this week is that Bob is now, finally, a real attorney in the state of Michigan.  The judge who swore him in yesterday even gave him his first case here.

I have a new piano student.  He is 60-something. His name is Ed. I can't wait to work with him.

Bob has been subbing at Ewen-Trout Creek.  Really.  Today he was the PE teacher. Unfortunately, he only got to work with the older kids today, not the costume-wearing-amped-on-Halloween-candy little ones I saw running about.

I have been working in the shop.  I have composed three piano pieces inspired by the weather. Really.

I've also stocked up on my favorite to make, quirky crocheted item, my soon-to-be-famous-and-worn -by-EVERYONE-who-is-SOMEONE-armwarmers.

I have four kinds of soap for sale, that I think smell DELICIOUS.

cucumber oak, chocolate coffee, macintosh apple, shave and a haircut

I've started printing greeting cards with my favorite bird characters on them.

find the non-bird

AND, this week, I became a professional author.  Really.  Check out http://pioneersettler.com/how-to-crochet-scarf-no-pattern/  If you want.  I even got paid (which I know you know, since I said professional).

I also got two checks in the mail this week I didn't expect.

And I bought new boots, so I can make it through the drifts this winter. Because I LOVE winter :)

I should have other good news to report in my next post as well.

Whew.  I feel better.

Hopefully, turning this corner means things will get a little easier around here. Or else I may just have to start raising chickens.  Or become a blacksmith, if Bob doesn't beat me to it.

Oh, How I Wish You Were Here

I wish you were here.

I do. Every day.

I want you to see where I live now, to understand what it is about this place that every day makes me exclaim out loud about its ever-changing beauty.

I want to show you my new home, my little house in the middle of the old Finnish farmlands of Paynesville, surrounded by ancient tree-covered mountains.  I want to cook a meal together in my funny green kitchen, sit on my new comfy (green) couch and talk about anything and everything until everyone else goes to bed.

I want you to drive to work with me and see what I see every day, the breath-taking valley, the Ontonagon River, or just north of Rockland, my first view of Lake Superior, whose shade indicates the weather for that day, gray and stormy, or clear, clear blue.

I want to take you bird-watching with me, so we can see the white crows by Bruce Crossing, or look for early Snow Buntings, or maybe a Snowy Owl.  I want you to help me find the blue pheasant that Bob saw, and drive the forest roads and show you all the different types of forests.

I want to count the eagles with you.

I want to show you the clear white of the Aspens in Aspen Meadow.

I want to show you the mother deer (birdseed eater), who watches me with huge calm (but guilty) brown eyes through my kitchen window as I make supper.

I want to show you our shop in Ontonagon, which has already inspired me so much to get in touch with my creative side, which has remained dormant for so long.

Mostly, I want to see your face, and know that you are fine and happy, and growing more and more into your own self, into the wonderful, loving person I know you are.

And I want to tell you that I think about you every day, and wonder if you are truly happy in your world, which is very different than mine.

I want to talk to you about things that you and I love and dream about and are inspired by.

And I want to give you my blessings to go wherever and be whatever makes you feel as happy and fulfilled as you can be.

And I hope that in the midst of your life sometime, you will find the time to want to see and know this place where I am now...so far away from you.


Oh, how I wish you were here.

Every day.

Not Everyone's Cup of Tea--or Coffee

Sometimes, I feel the need to explain some of my weirdness to other people

This is one of those times. 

A weird thing about me is that when I walk into a new place, I can usually sense something about it. I call it a vibe.  There are a lot of different kinds of vibes for different places. 

One time I visited a house in Iowa that was made into a museum.  It stood on the edge of a little town, overlooking the town and thousands of acres of mostly prairie.  Supposedly, at the time the house was built, the man owned a lot of the little town and the prairie surrounding it.  

All of this, I learned one hot Sunday afternoon by listening to a high school girl/tour guide rattle off the story she had memorized about the history of this house/museum.

The story she didn't tell, I could tell by walking through the house.  In the 90's outside, but I was FREEZING walking around, and I couldn't stay long.  Because the house had a really, really bad vibe. It became more apparent in two places:  upstairs in the second floor foyer area, which was a sewing and sitting area for the women of the house, and in the basement summer kitchen area. Don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful house, with a lot of original furnishings and other items which were appropriate for the time period.  But something was very wrong.  I don't know what happened there. But someone was very unhappy.  Or something bad happened there.

I don't believe in ghosts.  Of course there are spirits, everyone has one.  But I think people have somewhere to go after they die, so there is no reason to hang around.  But energy sometimes stays in an area, and I think I can sense it. I've noticed that houses, roads, forests, fields, places of business, all can have a vibe. If you don't believe me, I'm okay with that.

Mostly every new place I go impresses me in some way.  When we were looking for a house when moving to Michigan, some places, although they looked okay, were not somewhere would be able to live.  Not happy places at all.  

Our shop in Ontonagon has a happy vibe.  So did my house in Carroll.   My house in Paynesville is just sorta neutral, which is okay, too, because that means we are free to influence the energy there all we want.  We'll be happy, so it will feel that way.

Do you think I'm crazy, yet?

ANYWAY, all this explanation has to do with the pictures I took yesterday.  As I was driving home from Ontonagon, I was thinking about a Michigan photo contest I read about.  It was too late to enter it, but I was thinking about where it would be possible to take an iconic picture of this beautiful fall scenery.  I decided to drive around in Rockland, which is a cute little historic town.  Driving past the Catholic church, I noticed something strange ahead...twin houses backed up against the forest at the edge of town, and driving down that road, a deserted cemetery.

I stopped and took a few pictures, just because everything looked so overgrown and interesting.  Not any kind of vibe, especially.  But it reminded me of another cemetery whose entrance I drive by every day.  I had thought to drive in there one day, but noticed just a narrow rutted two-track disappearing into the forest. Anyway, after seeing the little cemetery in Rockland, I decided that it was the day for me to explore Irish Hollow Cemetery. 

I am so glad I did.  I have never seen a cemetery quite like this.  Just a twisting path through the forest, gravestones and markers scattered here and there. Family plots, fenced off by black iron.   

But the vibe.  I thought to myself that probably the area gets some traffic close to Halloween, but honestly, it wasn't a scary place.  Even though it is close to a busy highway, it is hidden.  And so quiet.  A place you could go and think about the people who lived in the area so long ago.  A place you could pray for them quietly, walking the moss covered paths between one family plot and another.  And nothing else.  Restful peace. It confirms what I know.  That no one is there.  Proof that our spirits, our souls, our energy has somewhere else to go.  And so it does. 

God bless all the souls represented by the memorials in Irish Hollow. The bodies of many children are buried there.  At some time, there was probably a vibe of sadness, energy left over from mournful humans, but it's not there, now.  I felt blessed to walk there in the forest and read about the people and imagine what their lives had been.  And pray for them a little, too. 

If you get creeped out by cemeteries, you probably won't want to see these pictures.  But I think there is astonishing beauty here in the forests of the UP, and I think the people wanted their family members to rest in a beautiful place.  So look if you want.  I hope I captured some of the quiet:

This is the setting.  Just forest.

Interesting that the first marker I saw had my name on it.  Someone's infant daugther.

I think this is a lightning-struck tree among the stones

Love bears all things....

The rugged cross

More children

Roses

Family plot

Heavenward

Staying on the path

I think you can see that my pictures were taken on an overcast, gloomy day.  But there is one that I think is sorta inspirational.  I didn't notice it until I looked at the pictures at home.  But just as I took one of the pictures, there was a beam of sunlight just beyond it.  It looks almost fakey, but it wasn't.  

I think it reminds me that I was alone in this cemetery yesterday.  Everyone else had already found the light waiting beyond.  

Amen.

Distracted Driving--Nothing Rhymes with Orange!

I wonder how many poets there are in the UP.  I am definitely not going to be one of them.

Because nothing rhymes with orange.

I wish you were here.  I truly do.  Because if you are reading this from some cornfield state, like Iowa, you will not be getting the full effect of this post.  If, however, you are already IN the UP, you can stop reading now.  If you want. Because unless you are a hermit, you've seen it, and you know what I am talking about.

I drove myself to Ontonagon today, something that is always going to be pretty risky.  Because I AM a distracted driver.  Big time.  Normally, I am not in a hurry, unlike today, and I can pull over and take pictures of whatever strikes my fancy.  My fancy gets stricken (struck?) by quite a few different things, actually, not the least of which is birds, as anyone who has read my post knows.  I did see a turkey, five pheasants, lots of little birds which cannot be identified by someone driving the speed limit, and a whole murder (Look it up. It's a thing) of crows today, by the way.

Today was kind of a gloomy day...chilly, a little windy, but what really struck me (I mean really, really STRUCK me was

ORANGE.

I mean

ORANGE.

Honestly, orange has never been my favorite color (right up there with blue, somewhere). Well, today, my favorite color is orange.  So much so that since I knew that I couldn't stop to take pictures on the way to Ontonagon today, I was wondering if I could post about it, maybe, by writing a poem. It distracted me almost the whole drive there. But, as you know, NOTHING rhymes with orange.

So, believe me, you are lucky.  Because I am pretty sure I am not a poet. You are lucky because the person I was supposed to have an appointment with this afternoon in Ontonagon cancelled.  So I was free to take the long, slow way home today.  And I was careful, because I was REALLY distracted, trying to find just the right shades that represented just a teeny little fraction of a percent of all the beauty that distracted me today.  So I didn't have to write a poem, after all.  Instead, I pulled off the road, carefully, a whole bunch of times, just so I could show you THIS:

What did I tell you?  Is orange your favorite color yet?

How about now?  I take a picture of the Ontonagon River bridge every few days, and the scene is always different. Today, that ORANGE.  Wow.

A whole crayon box full of oranges here...a couple miles out of Ontonagon

Like FIRE

Although I have to say, I like YELLOW, too!

I don't know what to say.  Old houses are beautiful and picturesque and sad all at the same time. That orange tree in the background, though...WOW...that's not sad.

Unfortunately, it WAS a gloomy, chilly day, and the light was not good for taking pictures by the time I got most of the way home.  I did take a few more that, while they don't exactly fit the orange theme, are pretty nice. 

Still a few reds mixed in here

Ontonagon River looking upstream

A marsh on One Mile Road.  I expect to see a moose here any moment.

I actually think this is my favorite picture of the day.  So many beautiful autumn colors.  

So now you know why it's so hard for me to drive anywhere these days.  

I wonder what will distract me tomorrow?