UP Dreams

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

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?

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Happy Autumn!

Just toodling around in the shop in Ontonagon today.

The ride up here from Paynesville was funny this morning. All I did was gasp and say, "Look at that!" about a million times. I don't think Bob was annoyed....I don't think....

I have never in my lifetime seen this kind of autumn foliage color. The maples have been at it for quite a few days. Every shade of red imaginable, and a few you haven't thought of.

Now the aspens are starting to turn too, and they are every shade of yellow from a neon lime yellow, to old gold.

On Sunday, we got in the car, camera ALWAYS in hand, and explored the roads in the Paynesville area. I don't know if I can explain the topography in this area and do it justice. There are mountains, but they are OLD.

Most are covered with forest, but every forest area has its own look. In the Paynesville area, there are lots of hardwoods, mostly maples, interspersed with pine and spruce. There are a lot of aspens, birch, some oak and hemlock. Probably others I haven't identified. Some forests are older than others, depending on when they were cut some years ago. Some have a wild weedy look, others look planted and maintained. Some let in a lot of light, others have a dark look, like where Hansel and Gretel or Red Riding Hood could get lost. There are a lot of fields, of hay, old homesteads, which feature quite a few old barns and some houses returning to the earth slowly, in a picturesque way.

Something that surprised us as we were driving was to see sand on the tops of the mountains. Bob heard on the radio that it's because when Lake Superior was new, the waters of the lake covered the tops of these old mountains, sometimes to a depth of 600 feet. Talk about climate change! The ice age people who mined copper in the area did so along what was then the shoreline...miles and miles inland of where the lake is now. It's hard to imagine.

Anyway, as we were going through the Ontonagon River valley today, we were talking that we are looking forward (because we are naive non-Yoopers, I know) to seeing the snow in this area. It is going to be gorgeous, covering the pines. Although we hear that Ontonagon county does a fantastic job of keeping the roads cleared in the winter, and Bob will ALWAYS tell me the road conditions are "not too bad" regardless, there will be times when I will need to help pry his fingers from the steering wheel when we get to our destinations of Ontonagon or Paynesville. I will just have to learn to keep my mouth shut and not yell, "Look at that!" too many times as I enjoy the beauties of God's creation in this continuing journey.

I hope everyone else is getting to spend a little time enjoying nature as the seasons change. Don't forget to notice how beautiful it is!

Sort of related pictures:

These two skunks were out looking for SOMETHING on Sunday, before winter gets here!

This Eastern Phoebe was cold in the frosty weather and should have flown south a while ago, I think!

White-crowned and Savannah Sparrows continue to hit the feeders to stock up for their long flights coming up very soon!

These kinds of birds clean up the feeders every night. Wouldn't want the seed to get stale!

Happy autumn, everyone!

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Beautiful Autumn

Nothing earth-shattering to talk about today.

Except that Autumn is a wonder around here!

We finished closing up our camp today. It means no camping out there until next year, but I hope we are able to still spend time out there, because the changing seasons bring with them such incredible beauty.

I want to share what I saw today.

After cleaning up our campsite, we drove through the property. Two places we are always sure to check out are the meadow that is halfway north in our property and at the west border.

We call it Aspen Meadow, because it is where the aspen forest on the north 80 acres starts.

I like how the yellow leaves of the aspens move and glow in the sunlight.

I like how the aspens are so thick, you could walk just a little ways into them and never be seen.

It's either Bigfoot, or BigBobPete.

The open part of the meadow has patches of alders, which are happy to grow in the dense red clay.

I like these three old sister alders.

We also made a trip to the southwest corner of our property, where Shane Creek crosses through, and a blocked bridge marks the entrance into the Ottawa National Forest. Bob wishes they would open the bridge, so four-wheelers wouldn't tear up our section of the creek.