Photo Challenge: Summer Sunshine’s Invitation

The summer sunshine is inviting you to explore a woodland trail…

Huron National Forest, Michigan to

Photo Challenge:  Shiny

 

to listen to the whisper of a pristine brook

Corsair Creek

to contemplate the changes that time brings to Nature.

Discretion, the Better Part of Valor

Today, I saw this big guy wading on a beach along Lake Huron, the second most northerly of the Great Lakes.  The water looked inviting for a swim, until I put my foot in.  Then, I could see that the crane was the wiser of us, as he stuck to wading.

testing the waters of Lake Huron

The Music of a Different Drummer

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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, no matter how measured or far away.

–Henry David Thoreau

On the 200th anniversary of Thoreau’s birth, this view from northern Michigan’s forest primeval.

Pigeon River Forest, Michigan

Poetry of the Earth

The poetry of the earth is never dead

–John Keats

Newburgh Lake, Michigan

Photo Challenge, New Horizon: So Long as We Can See Far Enough

The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon.  We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Photo Challenge:  New Horizon 

 

Photo Challenge, Relax: Shall I Compare Thee to an Autumn Day

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” wrote Shakespeare.

If the Bard had lived in Michigan, he might have chosen an autumn day, with crimson leaves set against a blue  sky, as his model for ephemeral beauty.  There’s nothing quite as relaxing as the balmy breeze of a fall day, with the radiant colors reflected in a lake’s mirror.

 

Photo Challenge:  Relax 

Newburgh Lake, Michigan

Post-election Comment, Courtesy of the Bard

A post-election comment, courtesy of Shakespeare.  And with a pic from the oldest undisturbed forest in Michigan, where the trees started growing about the time that the French explorers founded the tiny fort of Detroit in the early 18th century.

And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearnèd luck
Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long.
—Shakespeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream

Hartwick Pines, Michigan

Photo Challenge, Chaos: Rising Waters, Roaring River

“I raise my wine cup and drink to the roaring river,
My heart as full as the rising waters.”

Photo Challenge:  Chaos   

Tacquahmenon Falls, Michigan

Tacquahmenon Falls, Michigan

 

Photo Challenge, Local: The Treasure Chest of Living

There is a local park that I often visit, in all four of Michigan’s seasons.   As “the home should be the treasure chest of living,” I have received many gifts among these woods and lakes on sunlight-dappled afternoons.

Photo Challenge:  Local

Kensington Park, Michigan

In autumn, as in summer.

Kensington Park, Michigan

A sentinel watching for the approach of fall.

The road less traveled by…

And what would a home-away-from-home be without friends and acquaintances?

 

 

 

Saturday Shakespeare: Thy Eternal Summer Shall Not Fade

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Au Sable River, Michigan