When Lilacs Last In The...

...Boatyard Bloomed. (Sorry, Walt.)

Actually, not fully out, here on the last day of May.

Chilly, gray, and damp. Prepping for travel tomorrow.

Covfefe. 

The Path

It is now possible to walk completely around the house without walking on gravel, which is important when you are walking barefoot, which some smaller people do. About thirty flags, some pretty big and heavy, sourced from Foxtower Road. Dug in, leveled, and backfilled. Fortunately, it was a cool and breezy day, with occasional clouds. Meanwhile, Sue got a lot done.

It was a beautiful day.

Gold Plater

Or, rather, polished old-timer.  

Sails hanked on, deck and coach house scrubbed, topsides waxed and polished. Almost ready to go.

Two breweries on the Island now, and this one in Gore Bay expanded, but closed while we were there. Pax was thinking about applying for a job but then realized they already have growlers.

Beaver work, right on the path between us and Tysons.

Heliotropic

Shift of direction. From cottage to boat.

But not a lot done. First trip to Gore Bay we removed the shrink wrap but then found no key in the "Never Remove The Key From This Place!" place. (We suspect Mark, Norm's assistant, as the culprit, and have high hopes of tracking it down.) Second trip, with the spare key, the power washer failed to work. (Ice damage, I think, and repaired now, I hope.)

So we decided to roust the sails out of the cabin where they were obstructing progress and pretty much everything else, only to meet an abrupt squall from the south which make hanking on sails nothing but foolhardy.

Above, Tyson's creek is still running merrily, though probably not enough to entice spawning trout. Also of note, mosquitoes have made their grand entrance and are now very annoying.

Taste of Summer

Sunny and warm.  Bi-annual Manitoulin Trade Fair in Little Current, just as an outing. (Delicious grilled sausages for lunch there, btw.) Scenic back roads home.

Then, with the trailer hooked up, south-west to Foxtower Road (just a little ways towards Gore Bay beyond the dump and down Pleasant Valley) where we muscled up a load of limestone flags (some with coral fossils still attached) that had been scraped up from the escarpment as part of a drainage ditch improvement project. 

Little Current, with swing bridge in distance. Photo by Sue

Farm, with stones, near Sheguiandah.

Finished porch, awaiting grandkid-made pendants which will be hung from the cedar slab above the couch.

New flagstones in rough position prior to digging in.

The idea behind the new stone path is that it should be possible to walk barefoot from the front deck or from the sandbox, or really all around the house, without it feeling like you are walking on a bed of nails.

Farmer's Market and Finished Porch

Second market of the season in Gore Bay. Limited offerings, but we did pick up some ginger cookies, rhubarb, 3 tomato plants, a whitefish fillet, and some Purvis fish dip. Pax and I got in a good walk too, around the bay from the now defunct Gordon Lodge, to the market, and then to the marina.

Sue finished caulking the porch battens, doing all the touch-up paint work, and final cleaning. And then we got to sit out there after work and before dinner, completely bug free.

Mosquitoes are slowly replacing black flies, which is actually good.

Whitefish on the menu tonight.

All Day Drip

And once again a little fire in the stove.

A trip to the dump an absolutely necessary, but it is never a good idea to go there on a rainy day, as one might imagine.

On the plus side, the peas planted previously are prospering.

Soixante-douze

But who's counting?

Giant, teenage mutant inukshuk just erected at neighbor's place. Only in Manitoulin?

Maja's garden in Mindemoya. She makes a living off this garden, plus a few other minor resources, by providing subscribed, thematic dinners.

Out to Mum's for a celebratory breakfast. Then porch work.( It is almost done. We are closing in. It will look good. And we will be glad when it is over.)

A few breaks in the clouds this morning, but drizzle all afternoon.

Here's a little something John sent today:
"Be your own light. Find your own way—
It should be easy with all those candles."

Perfectly Fine Day

Sunny and pleasant. 

Vernal pool

Non-rolling stone  

Painting battens and staining boards (for the porch). Various bits of yard work. And before you know it, not enough time to go to the dump.

All quiet again, after the long weekend. Few people about, even at the Falls. Real summer season still quite far away. Wind calm. Quite quiet, actually very quiet—in fact the only sound right now is the call of an ovenbird off in the distance.

Washout

Long weekend a pretty soggy affair. Light rain or drizzle all day. I am no longer allowed to complain about dry weather. 

Sue got a lot of sewing done; I moved some logs and read a few chapters of my current book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind.

Murray and Elaine have gone back to Windsor and their concert schedule so Pax and I now walk the shoreline forrest trail all the way from their place to ours. Doing that illustrates how much the forest changes year to year. Trees are down blocking the path and requiring detours in three areas. Left to its natural state the forest here is nearly impassable, though somehow the deer are able to move through it quickly.

I think we are burning more firewood this year than any other. Though the supply is limitless, some fall splitting will be in order.

Additional note: I think I just deleted yesterday. In the blog, that is. One slip of the finger and a whole day gone. That’s revisionist history if anything is.

No, apparently yesterday still exists. That bodes well for the future.

Laid Back Sunday Morning

Steady rain from the pre-dawn hours; continuing, with few pauses, all day. North wind bringing in a noisy surf, sometimes indistinguishable from or intermingling with, the drumming on the roof. No thunder so Pax okay.

That being the case...coffee, newspapers, an omelet, a little music, some sewing, a dog walk, and of course, a fire in the stove. Embers all day in fact rebuffing the north wind.

During an afternoon hiatus we were able to finish painting the ceiling. 

Pax and I encountered no one on our walks, but we did enjoy being part of the tranquility and naturalness of the dripping forest.

Thought About Work...

...then thought better of it.  After all, it's the long weekend.

Sue met with her sewing expert friend in Gore Bay while I met with environmental pal, Therese. Apart from that,  we stopped in at the Burt Farm, took Pax for a walk along the east side of Mudge bay, and drove up to the west arm overlook where we ran into Al Carruthers, who got there on his quad. (He beat us home, btw, by taking the eroded, rock-strewn vertical track locally known as Woods' Hill.)

Bright and breezy, though cool and still moderately afflicted by blackflies.

Too Cold to Paint...

...at least in the morning. Temp in the 30s with a strong north wind. But flat calm and in the 50s by afternoon, so some painting did get done.

The big lake has been fluctuating substantially, so I can't determine the actual level. This evening, in the calm, it is quite high. I was hoping the rain and cold and wind would knock down the black flies, but their numbers, while not high, remain at annoyance level.

This is a Canadian long weekend, so the place is populating up a bit. Just hoping the Tetrazzinis aren't planning on fireworks.

Good Soak

Just when  I was starting to worry that we were headed into a repeat of last year's drought.

The big system that came through last night gave us only a spatter lasting less than a minute.

This morning we heard from neighbors in Whitewater about the storm that hit there. Many trees down and much of the town without power for a long enough time to cause Walmart to dump all its frozen food. No damage at 275 N. Esterly, although Vi had some big limbs come down.

Good day for working on the porch, although working on the porch should probably not be described as good— it's hard on the appendages. It does feel good, however, to know that all the primer has been applied.

It felt even better to have our first nice outdoor shower, after work.

Greetings From Sunny Manitoulin

Fun in the Sun, our new tourist  promotion—the Merry Month of May, Never a Cloud in the Sky. (Just don't mention blackflies.) MUCH warmer today, and even a little humid. And sunny. Did I mention sunny?

Work, such as it was, was dedicated to the screened porch—any other outside work prohibited by the flies.

In spite of his illness Murray has been busy with his new ATV—in the past few days he has dropped five big poplars which have been threatening the lane. He shoots an arrow with fishing line attached over a high limb, pulls a rope up, runs the rope through various snatch blocks and eventually back to his quad, and then uses the ATV to jerk the tree down. It seems to work like a charm, with no danger to the participants.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saving Arcadia
Heather Shumaker
Wayne State University Press, 2017

A review by Jim Nies

Some books are hard to read because it’s impossible to sit still while reading them—they make you want to get up and start doing things. The book Saving Arcadia, by Heather Shumaker, is that kind of book, at least for me. I squirmed in my chair the whole time reading it…wanting to be outside getting stuff done.

Arcadia in this book refers to an area in the state of Michigan, along the Lake Michigan coast, from Frankfort up towards Traverse City, just south of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Back in 1969 the biggest energy company in the state, Consumers Power Company, began buying land there.

For local businesses, cottagers, and farmers who called the place home, not selling was not an option— resistance was met with a bigger offer or the veiled threat of eminent domain; and over the next several years Consumers ended up owning more than 6,000 acres of lakeshore—giant dunes, forest (hemlock, pine, beech, black cherry, and maple), and dozens of farms which, since first settlement in the 1860s, had been adapted to growing the most suitable crops—sweet and tart cherries, apples, peaches and grapes.

Consumers wanted to flood the whole area for a pumped storage hydro plant. But Consumers was not a nice company. Eventually, like its role model Enron, it started doing especially bad things, and eventually the corporate edifice came tumbling down. Consumers Power found itself in deep financial trouble and in court.

That left over 6,000 acres of beautiful Michigan land, and the people who lived, worked, and recreated on it, and those who farmed it, pretty much up for grabs. The buildings were bulldozed, some logging contracts were let (diminishing the forest by selective cutting), and short-term leases were offered on farmland, resulting in inappropriate, quick cash crops like corn rather than long-term investment crops like cherries. Over time things like garlic mustard and spotted knapweed invaded and  “No Trespassing” signs faded to illegibility. The place was a shambles, and rumors of condos and golf courses kept people awake at night.

Some twenty years after Consumers Power began buying Arcadia land, Rotary Charities of Traverse City (a few miles north of the property) decided to establish a new organization, The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy. With the little startup money provided by the Rotary this fledgling organization hired a director and a small staff. By the end of its first year the Conservancy had 492 members and a backlog of projects. By its fourth year of operation the organization had more than 2,300 members and was able to hire a “land protection specialist” (our author).

In late 1999 Ms. Shumaker, finding time between other chores, pieced together aerial photographs (this was pre-Google) of the southern portion of her responsibility and was stunned to see a huge contiguous piece of vacant property—two miles of shoreline, 700 acres of dunes, 2,000 acres of forest, and 3,300 acres of farmland. She, and eventually the whole Conservancy, began to concentrate intense, tireless energy on this remarkable preservation opportunity.

What an effort, what a story. Intense fundraising, endless negotiations with Consumers Power, countless meetings, and always work and more work to bring more and more people into the picture.

Big donors came forward, and several foundations gave their backing, but the need to raise over $30 million remained daunting. Over time, thousands of people from all walks of life got behind the project—affluent cottagers, farmers, birdwatchers, hikers, bikers, grade school kids; especially families whose love of the land went back generations. The staff at Camp Arcadia, a long established denominational family camp set itself the goal of raising $20,000 and, remarkably, did so by putting on a $100/plate locally sourced harvest dinner.

Of course, there’s a difference between working to buy a piece of land and actually owning it and being its steward, and as time passed the Conservancy adjusted to its new role. Area farmers worked with the Conservancy to write conservation easements and eventually bought back the farmland once taken by the power company. Hundreds of people stepped forward to volunteer as stewards and to help on reclamation projects.

This huge preservation and restoration project has brought all kinds of people together, gathered them into a caring community. Throughout Arcadia there blossomed, as Shumaker says, “hope once more.”

Saving Arcadia is a great story, well told. For many readers it might, as it unfolds, bring forth a quiet cheer or secret tear. And for many it will make us antsy to get going on some projects of our own.

On top of that, it’s just good to be reminded in these divided times that a group of people can come together to accomplish extraordinary things.

Mix of...Stuff

Sun and clouds.  A very brief shower. Warm in places, cold in others, with a fire in the stove right now.

M'Chigeeng for some paint. Porch work. Removal of a big balsam that was causing eye sores along the road between us and Donna and Al. Etcetera.

And here is a rough draft of just the first part of the review of the book I just finished, Saving Arcadia. Tomorrow I will plan on posting the complete, edited review.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Saving Arcadia

Some books are hard to read because it’s impossible to sit still while reading them—they make you want to get up and start doing things. The book Saving Arcadia, by Heather Shumaker, is that kind of book, at least for me. I squirmed in my chair the whole time reading it…wanting to be outside getting stuff done.

Arcadia in this book refers to an area in the state of Michigan, along the Michigan coast, from Frankfort up towards Traverse City, just south of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Back in 1969 the biggest energy company in the state, Consumers Power Company, began buying land there.

For local businesses, cottagers, and farmers who called the place home, not selling was not an option—any resistance was met with a bigger offer or the threat of eminent domain; and over a decade or more Consumers ended up owning well over 6,000 acres of lakeshore—giant dunes, forest (hemlock, pine, beech, black cherry, and maple), and dozens of farms which, since first settlement, had been adapted to growing the most suitable crops—sweet and tart cherries, apples, peaches and grapes.

Consumers watned to flood the whole area for a pumped storage hydro plant. But Consumers was not a nice company. Eventually, like its role model Enron, it started doing especially bad things, and eventually the corporation came tumbling down. Consumers Power found itself broke and in court.

That left over 6,000 acres of beautiful Michigan land, and the people who lived and recreated and farmed it pretty much out in left field. "Now what?" everyone wondered.

Black Flies

Yes,  there are always flies in the ointment. The black flies (aka no-seeums) come first but only last a week or so. Though tiny, they have a big bite and leave welts. Once they are done it's the mosquitoes turn, but since conditions have been dry, they may be minimally annoying this year. Once the skeeters are gone it's the horse flies, which, although nasty, can be managed by wearing, socks, long pants, and a hat. After the horseflies....

Porch work has begun (mostly Mimi). Stain, paint, battens. Also more garden planting—beans, and in pots, cilantro, basil, and the hot peppers grown last year at Pinebox.

Cocktails on the lower deck this evening.

Bright, intense sun. No humidity and no wind. We could use a little rain.

Trillium Grandiflorum...

...in the maple forest along the north shore of Lake Kagawong.  

Cold and cloudy morning, but warmed by a small fire in the stove and a dose of Bubba’s World Famous Waffles. Sun back out by one, so a trip to the maple forest where Mud Creek meets the north shore of Lake Kagawong—and where it is possible to walk among a possibly uniquely massive spread of Trillium grandiflorum. But we were early this year, with only some of the flowers open and some still in bud. Which means we can look forward to returning in a week or two. (Trillium breaks bud and flowers forth before the maples have fully leaved out, thus blocking most of the sunlight from the forest floor.)

Lake Kagawong at Mud Creek.  Photo courtesy of Sue.

BWFWs.

Another Perfect Day

Bright sun, temp in the sixties.  

A few light, passing showers last night, but otherwise, since we've been here, sunny skies. Oddly enough, things are dry.

Lots of mergansers this year. Sometimes I hear voices—people talking—only to realize it's just the ducks gabbling. 

First boat in the marina. 

Pile being whittled down to size.

Visited the fibre art showcase this morning at the Park Centre, but found it lacking in excitement. The farmers market guy with the hot sauce was providing lunch, however, and his homemade quiche was very good.

Regarding dinner, fired up the grill for the first time.  

No Fire In The Stove This Morning

And windows open this afternoon.  

The sand in our part of the bay is a bit grainer than what people normally expect.

And, on the water at last.

Almost done gravelling, too. Thing is, we have a lot left over, maybe a third of the pile. I'm pretty sure that  no mater what your order from Randy Noble—in my case 5 yards—you get a dump-truck-full. But no worries, because there's always a need for gravel, and over time every chunk and chip will find a good home.