Hunting at night

Today I noticed some leaves had been chewed off my tomato plants. This indicates that a tobacco hornworm is getting nice and fat. I looked and I looked, but I couldn’t find the worm. My friend and gardening expert Barb told me that if I went out at night with a black-light flashlight and shined my plants that I could find the worms because they would glow. So tonight, I covered myself to ward off mosquitoes with long pants and sleeves and a hood and mosquito repellent on hands and face, and I went out to the garden with a black-light flashlight to hunt tobacco horn worms. The mosquitoes buzzed around me like little Fokker-tri planes, trying to get blood out of my nose and eyes. It took a while, but I did find that hornworm. Only one. I tossed it to the chickens, who didn’t care because they were asleep. 

Fresh Grief

There are days still that

I long for someone I lost long ago. My heart aches for that presence and the face that I loved so. We are parted by a chasm that cannot now be breached. The knowledge that my loved one is forever out of reach Floods my heavy heart with sadness and waves of fresh grief, And no matter how far I search, how many days I wait, That loved one is forever gone and this is just my fate.

Getting it Wrong

It seems no matter how hard I try to make the right decision - no matter how long I take to ponder and weigh and question - I still get it wrong. Still grieving from the loss of Cody to coyotes, I decided to foster a mama and her six kittens from the Lenawee Humane Society, with the option of choosing my favorite kitten for adoption. It was a hard choice because all the kittens were good ones, people friendly and healthy, but I finally decided on the little black and white cow cat. When I returned the kittens just before Christmas, I kept her. When she was ten weeks, I was required to return her to the shelter for spaying. But she was still a question in my mind. She liked to climb the furniture and my legs with all four sets of claws. Me, well, I would eventually heal, but the furniture! I had worked so hard to earn the money for new furniture because our old furniture, besides being out of date, was clawed up by previous cats, especially Musi who insisted on being an indoor cat. Musi was terrified of being outdoors. She scratched upholstery, walls, woodwork, carpets - everything. I tried all different kinds of solutions, but to no avail. At the age of 4 years and 6 months, Musi was diagnosed with a brain tumor and I had to have her put to sleep. My next cats were Cassie and Cody. They loved out doors. I trained them not to claw the couch, but that was the old couch. It was being replaced, so I wasn't concerned with the damage. By the time my new couch and chair were delivered, they only scratched the rugs that could take it and survive. But this cat would not have the option of clawing trees outside. She would have to be an inside cat because of the coyote pack that had moved into the neighborhood. I couldn't put her outside when she was feeling wild and crazy. Shadows of Musi. I kept envisioning my fine furniture clawed and damaged. I asked myself how would I feel about this two weeks from now? So today, when I went to pick up cow cat (CECE) from the shelter, I told them I had changed my mind and would not be proceeding with the adoption. They said, no problem. She would probably be adopted by the end of the day. I cried all the way home. I cried on Tim's shoulder. I felt her absence as if I had forgotten a member of the family. I called the humane society, but the little kitten was already adopted. Now I don't care much about the couch and chair.

How to Work in the Garden

When I go out to work in the garden, I put on a T-shirt and capris and flip-flops, slip cell phone in pocket and head out the door. Stop. It’s too hot for capris. Go back in and put on shorts. Head out the door. Stop. If I’m gonna be getting some sun, it would be better to be wearing a tank top so I don’t get a farmer’s tan. Go back in and put on a tank top. Go out the door. Stop. Go back in and get a hat to shade face and put on some sunscreen. Head out the door. Stop. The shorts have pockets that are too shallow to keep cell phone from falling out. Go back into bedroom and find a pair of shorts that have deeper pockets and put them on. Head out the door. Stop. Can’t use the shovel when wearing flip-flops because I need shoes with a harder sole. Go back in and put on Keens. No wonder I don’t work in the garden more often.

I finally got rid of the enormous house fly that was buzzing our home and annoying us greatly for about a week. Life would be great if I had a flyswatter, but I don’t, so when the fly showed up in the living room window, I got a towel and I snapped it. Bull’s-eye. The fly fell to the carpet, dead. I picked it up with the towel, but when I opened the towel to drop the dead fly in to the wastebasket, surprise! The fly had only been stunned. Probably faking. It flew into the kitchen window. I used the towel to capture it again. I held the fly in the towel and squeezed tight to make sure that the fly would be dead this time, but when I opened the towel, it wasn’t. It flew back into the window and got behind the window and crawled on the screen. I shooed it into the upper part of the window, and then I took out the screen. It flew away into the wide world. I hope I never see it again. This is just so you know that there’s a giant housefly somewhere in the world that is very difficult to kill and is probably reproducing.

Harley's Last Day

Today we bid a fond farewell to our rooster, Harley. He was a fine and peaceful bird as far as people were concerned, but he had established a reign of terror amongst the hen population. Submissive hens were provided for and herded benevolently around the yard. His favorites had no feathers on their backs. But those who rejected his stern attentions became the objects of his wrath. Lolly had to avoid letting him get anywhere near her, or she would be attacked. Cinnamon was targeted whenever she dared to leave the coop. He also had a “gang of three” who would join the attack and peck the helpless victim on her head. Finally I couldn’t take the violence anymore. I grabbed Harley off of poor Cinnamon and put him in jail. This would be the fenced area in the coop on top of the laying boxes where we raise baby chicks until they are big enough to integrate with the hens. And there poor Harley stayed while we decided what to do with him. Meanwhile, within a couple of days, peace returned to the flock. Cinnamon and Lolly rejoined the other hens, and other than a few minor skirmishes, harmony is restored. So if you read all this, you are probably wondering what we decided Harley’s sentence would be. Return him to the flock after a while? Keep him in solitary confinement indefinitely? Send him to freezer camp? No. A guy Tim works with has a friend who was willing to give Harley a home. He’ll have to deal with turkeys and guinea hens, but he’ll be free-ranging and that’s what he wants. Bye bye, Harley.

Hunting With Cassie

My last cat, Musi, who passed with a brain tumor, hated going outside. She was timid of pretty much everything. I thnk it might have been because I got her as a kitten around Thanksgiving, and I seldom went outside because it was cold, so she wasn't introduced at the beginning of her life to the wide-open sky. I missed having a companion on my woods walks. Then I got these two kittens in July, I took them out for a little while almost every day. They because accustomed to being outside. Yesterday I woke up to a beautiful snow. Cassie and Cody went with me into the winter wonderland. They ran through the snow, chased each other, pounced on weeds, climbed trees, and stayed fairly close to me. It was great.

I just now walked into the backyard to shut the chickens into their coop, and I heard a frantic, terrified squawking coming from the other side of the run. I ran towards it, yelling "Hey!" and an enormous redtail flew off into the woods. A big pile of red feathers by the fence. I was afraid of what I would find, but Cinnamon, our young Rhode Island red, had already hidden herself in the coop under the nesting boxes. I picked her up and carefully looked for blood, but there wasn't any. The hawk had defeathered her back neatly but hadn't broken the skin.

I'm so glad I went out there just in time. Ten seconds later and a hawk would have had a chicken dinner, I'm sure.

In the photo, Cinnamon is in the foreground.

Covid Experience

      I have not written about this past year because I really don't want to remember it. At first having everything shut down and wearing masks and attending church online seemed like an adventure - an experience. I like experiences. But then it became tedious. At first I knew no one who was sick or had died. Now, a year later, I still don't know anyone who has died, although obviously many have. But plenty of people I know have been sick and recovered. Including myself. 

My daughter and her son were sick with covid in October, but neither were seriously ill. We assume her two-year-old had it too, because he puts his mouth on every singly object in the house, but he would be asymptomatic.  They didn't get him tested. 

ON Tuesday, November 17th, I was feeling quite tired. My MIL and daughter and grandsons were over for dinner.  On Wednesday morning I woke up planning a trip to the grocery store, and then I was going to drop off some groceries for a friend who was quarantined and couldn't get out. I felt extremely weak. After just a few minutes, I realized I wasn't going anywhere.  In the afternoon I developed a headache and started running a fever. The next day I started blowing my nose and coughing. 

I called my doctor and described my symptoms, and she recommended I go to Chelsea for a covid test. 

I had already done this once when I was in Chelsea for a mammogram. I had a sore throat and this was when my daughter was sick, so I took the free test to see if I had it. We have to be careful because Tim's mother is in her 80s and frail. It wasn't bad at all. 

So I go tht nose swab test again. This swabber was not as delicate as the other one. It brought tears to my eyes.  We had to wait 5 days for the result. 

Over the next week my fever disappeared, but my weakness was so intense, I could barely stand up for 30 seconds before I collapsed into a chair. AS long as I was seated in the lazyboy, tilted back and relaxed, I was okay. I only had a fast-beating heart when I was climbing the stairs to my bedroom. I had achy muscles but not too bad. I lost my sense of smell on the third or fourth day, and that's when, even though I hadn't got my test results back yet, I knew I had the thing. 

It was fortuitous that my quarantined husband was there to take care of me. He waited on me, hand and foot. We tried to avoid him getting it, and he never did, even though he had been to the same places I had been to and was exposed to my germs often. 

The only time my worry meter started rising was when I started coughing up blood in my mucus. It was also coming out of my nose. I called the doctor and she asked me if it was bright red. I said yes. Then she asked if it was liquid pure blood or mixed with mucus. I told her it was mixed with mucus. She said it was likely that it was just irritation from all the coughing and nose-blowing, and gave me a prescription for prednisone to stop the irritation. She said to call back if it got any worse, but it didn't.  It was during this time that Tim bought me a pulse oximeter, so we would know if my blood oxygen was getting low.  It stayed at about 94-95. 

There was also this weird smell. It was in my nose. 

Tim asked me, "What does it smell like?"  

I couldn't tell him. I said, "It doesn't smell like anything I have ever smelled before, so I can't describe it. It will forever be to me the smell of COVID." I'm sure if I ever smell it again, I will recognize it. 

Looking back, I realized there were only four possibilities of where I could have encountered the virus: 1. Walmart on Friday when I went there to get my prescription. 2. Church on Sunday,  3. Lowes, although there the possibility was "Low".  and 4. the Big Boy restaurant where Tim and I went for a late breakfast after church. 

It took eight weeks to get back to normal, even though I felt fairly good after five weeks. There is no day that you turn a corner. It’s more like one day you wake up thinking the worst is over and you’re getting better, and the next day you realize it was all a lie. It seems like it takes forever. Don’t compare how you feel today with how you felt yesterday or even the day before. Compare it with how you felt two weeks ago. Then you will see that you actually ARE making progress.

My daughter and others told me it takes about eight weeks before one feels back to normal on a permanent basis. That was pretty close to what I experienced. I went back to teaching at about six-seven weeks and I could have used another week.

Suggestions:  Take vitamin D, zinc, and silver colloidal, use a vaporizer at night and take hot showers to breath in steam during the day.  Don’t fold laundry or vacuum or load the dishwasher for a long while. Let somebody else do it. I know it’s hard to watch your house go downhill, but don’t. Give yourself complete rest. 

Patience, patience, patience...  This is the perfect excuse to be a couch potato and watch old movies. Milk it for all it's worth.

Continuation of camping report, Sept. 2019

Leaving Onaway State Park and moving to Fisherman’s Island:

September 4th: 

In the morning the skies were gray and there were still whitecaps on the lake from the wind. This was our moving day, so we got up and got going. We’re heading over to Fisherman’s Island on the other side of Michigan.
We stopped for gas in Alanson and I walked across the busy highway 31 to a bakery called Dutch Oven Shops. Pastries! Expensive, but worth it. My favorite thing was the huge cherry turnover that was almost the size of half a cherry pie. Tim and I split it. I give it a 10 out of10.
A short while later we passed the Oden Fish Hatchery and turned around to go back and see that. Took the hike. Very enjoyable, made for visitors. Free. I recommend it.
Arriving at Fisherman’s SP, we found our site: #70 on the southern loop. Its incline didn’t look like much, but it was enough to make it difficult to level our trailer. We repositioned the camper twice before we could set it up. That’s my only complaint. Some of the sites are too small for a trailer, but ours was spacious enough. Only a few could be considered level. A short walk down a beautiful north woods path leads to the Lake Michigan beach. When I read up about Fisherman‘s island, the explanation was that, when the level of the lakes went down, the island became a peninsula, but I’m here to tell you that the island of Fisherman‘s Island is now an island again. As you probably know, Lake Michigan is exceptionally high this year. The camp ground is a beautiful forest with large trees and many white birch, my fav.
We were visited by a young raccoon that came inquiring about a possible meal? We politely declined. He didn’t seem scared of us, though he maintained a respectful 10-foot distance. I think some campers might have unwisely entertained him.
We went into Charlevoix for dinner. We were headed towards a restaurant called Terry’s, but ended up eating at The Village Pub (because it advertised walleye) instead. We were told that Terry’s is one of the best restaurants in town, but there was a 45-minute wait to be seated there. The food at the Village Pub was good; the fish was a little over done. It was expensive, but Charlevoix is an expensive place. You have to be prepared for it.

After we returned to camp, we went down to the official SP beach to watch the sunset at about 8:15. There were no clouds in the sky so I wasn’t expecting much, but just as the last little piece of sun dipped below the horizon, I saw the green flash. I have read about the green flash but I’ve never seen it before. I wish I had been taking a movie. I could hardly believe what I was seeing and might’ve even gotten a photograph if I had been ready.

The next day we decided to take 31 S. We drove down around Torch Lake and we checked out some lots for building that were for sale because we were wondering exactly what it would cost to have a lakefront lot on Torch, the “third most beautiful lake in the world.” I called the realtor. A 1 acre lot was priced from about $400,000-$700,000, depending on how much of the lot was buildable. Our dreams are crushed. But not as crushed as the realtor’s when I didn’t follow through on the lot.
On the way back to camp we stopped at Friske’s Fruit-and-everything-else stand. I can approve of their cherry turnovers.
Back at camp Tim went for a dip in Lake Michigan, but I could only force myself in waist -deep. Too cold. We grilled brats for dinner.
That night clouds cancelled my sunset plans.
Sitting by the campfire, we heard what sounded like a large tree crashing to the ground north of us. Later that night while in my sleeping bag, I heard another tree falling. It was a little scary.
Rain rain rain rain...

Friday morning it was still raining. I took a quick shower in my bathing suit outside the camper. Tim didn’t want to overfill the gray water tank.
Still raining so we went into Charlevoix to look around. Great stuff but, of course, all high priced. We thought about dinner at Terry’s, but according to the menu posted out side the restaurant, dinner for two will cost you no less than $60-70, and we had spent our wad on the fish the night before. We decided my home-made chili at the campfire would be every bit as good.
We drove south on 31 to Bier’s Art Gallery. That was the highlight of our day. Such beautiful works of art! I totally enjoyed just looking around. We bought a small brass figure of a lion by Scott Nelles, because it was one of the few things we could afford and I wanted something from that place. Afterwards we popped back down to Friskes again so Tim could get a cherry turnover this time.
Back to camp for chili. The clouds are finally breaking up.
Our little raccoon visitor is back, quietly, unobtrusively surveying the perimeter of camp. Then he came right up to Tim who was sitting by the camp fire, but skittered away quickly as soon as Tim noticed him.
Now I am on the beach, waiting to see if there will be a sunset tonight or not. It’s one of those maybe things: mostly cloudy with a few breaks here and there. A thin rose-colored glow on the horizon suggests maybe there will be something to see. The sun peeks through the crack for a minute, and then goes to bed. It’s over. Nothing spectacular.

Saturday: time to go home.

Last night I finally learned the secret of how to be comfortable in a sleeping bag. Most nights I wake up entrapped in my sleeping bag, the thing wound around my like a python, giving me a severe case of claustrophobia. But this night I tried something different. You put the slippery side in. That way it doesn’t wrap itself around you as you change positions in the night. Hallelujah!

Before we broke camp, I climbed a steep path - and by that I mean a heart-attack inducing path - that lead to the top of the ridge behind our site. I wanted to see what was up there. Turns out there is a beautiful trail that follows the top of the ridge. I went back to camp, changed into my Keens, and got my camera, my phone, and my husband. We found a less strenuous way to get to the path behind the water pump. The trail is twisty-turny and up and down, but it’s great! I highly recommend it for hikers. I understand the trail head is by the entrance to the camp and leads to the camp beach, a distance of about 3 miles as the crow flies, but not as the path winds, according to the camp person who drove by and stopped to answer our questions.
After returning to camp, we finished packing everything up and left about 11:30. All said, Fisherman’s Island is a favorite park for me!

Camping at Onaway SP last week - Julie  Reporting

Sunday: arrived at Onaway State Park. Adequate sized spot, but crowded close to other campers. On Site 23, we are across the road from sites on the lake. View of lake somewhat blocked by trailers. Can’t see sunrise or sunset from this side of the lake, so walked to the beach area to watch the sunset.

The lake is rocky with what looks like angular pieces of limestone. Not good swimming lake for that reason, here, but the swimming area is sandy and looks nice. If it wasn’t so cold, I would go swimming.

That night our large group of neighbors were having a great time, and I was tired and wanted to sleep, but I could hear every word of their loud conversations. They talked standing right next to my tent. I think it was about ten when they quieted down, so that wasn’t too bad. However, by 6:00 am they were up and talking as they were breaking camp. After they left it was reasonably quiet again. That morning, being Labor Day, most of the campers cleared out, and now the camp is peaceful, although the weather is a bit cool. Tim and I went to see the falls. They were nice. We continued over to ROGERS City on Lake Huron. Traveling up the coastline, we stopped at Hoeft State Park to give it a look see. I loved this park, mostly because of the golden sandy dunes and the jewel-tone blues of the lake and paths running throughout. I put it on my list of parks to visit in the future.

We also checked out Cheybogen SP. lots of room between camp sites. We didn’t have time to do much more than take a quick look and move on because I was hungry.

We drove up to Mackinaw City for lunch/dinner and explored the touristy strip on the main road. We ate at Pancake Chef. I had the patty melt. I had to remove the onions that weren’t grilled because I don’t like raw onions, but other than that, it was very good. Tim said his hamburger was tasty. After that we got ice cream in waffle cones and walked around. We bought a large decal for the back of our trailer: silver plate metal in the shape of Michigan. So far Michigan is the only state we’ve camped since we got the trailer.

On the way back to camp, we drove by Aloha State Park and pulled in to check it out. Nice, but basically a big grassy parking lot by the lake. The lake is stony. I didn’t get out and look at the beach. Not my kind of camp ground. (Update: several people have kindly informed me that the lake at Aloha is stoney next to the shore, but gets sandy as you go deeper. Also that the swimming beach is sandy. Thank you to them.) (I still prefer widely-spaced wilderness woodsey campsites to grassy close-together campsites. I'm a nature fanatic.)

Beautiful evening on Monday. Lots of lakeside sites available now.

Tuesday we woke to pouring rain. It’s a good thing our noisy neighbors left on Monday. Their tent sites were underwater. FYI: Don’t reserve site 24.

Tim and I took showers. I would give the showers a rating of 10 for cleanliness, a place to sit, powerful hot-but-not-too-hot showers, two hooks (3 is ideal), BUT the shower drains were slow and pretty soon one is standing in two inches of water with people’s hair wads floating around one’s feet. So they get a 9.

The sun came out and it warmed up. Tim had no interest in going to Mackinaw Island, so we stayed at camp. We got out our new toy: an inflatable kayak. Although it was supposed to be suitable for two people, it really wasn’t. So Tim and I took turns kayaking the lake.

Clouds moved in and the rain returned. We had hobo dinners for supper, but the potatoes didn’t get done so we had to finish them in a frying pan.

That night there was more rain, but mostly there was wind. All night the wind whistled through the trees. Condensation appeared on the inside of the tent part of our hybrid camper and the wind shook it off on us occasionally throughout the night just let us know who was boss.

More to come...