Happy Fall ~ and some more of the UP

~~~ Which means.
Winter is coming.
The Brothers Odd are getting prepared.

 

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

The last stop of the first day of our whirlwind Tour was a place called Brunette Park, Michigan. At first glance it didn't look very special at all. Sandy beach, winds, waves, blowing sand, beautiful skies, and sunshine.

We walked east along the shoreline towards the trees and something began to change. There were Rock outcroppings to walk on instead of sand.

I decided this was a brilliant spot to break out my Infrared once more and use the Chrome Filter.

When we got to the rocky shore, I photographed the rocks we were walking on. To me, they were nature's works of art. If I didn't know they were rocks that I was walking on, I'd have thought they were abstract art.

I commented to Em that I'd love to have the shot below in large print on my wall. 

What looks like raised veins of white is sand that had been deposited on the rocks by waves.

We spent a lot of time here just sitting and watching the waves. The sounds of the water were so calming to me.

If allowed, I would have found a dry spot and just fallen asleep.

I did look up and my son was out playing in the water. It looked as if he was literally walking on water which I mentioned when he came back.

To which he quipped, "Oh of course! You doubted me?"

We all laughed. 

Just before we headed back to the car, I looked behind me at the pines. They were covered in some of the most intriguing Lichen I'd ever seen.

They were so beautiful and intricate.

Yeah, the kids thought I was a little funny getting excited over something like this.

But there I was, touching it and  admiring it with a beautiful lake and red rocks behind me.

Well, that is me. I like the odd things. I'd go back just to take more photos of the Lichen.

And this Lichen had a common name:

Old Man's Beard!

How cool is that?

We all slapped as much sand as we could off our feet and Jer announced that this ended our first Tour Day.

We had to go to Houghton and grab something to eat and head to the Hotel 3 hours away and get some rest before the next big day.

I'd planned on finding a spot at night along the lake shore and filming the Milky Way.

Guess who was too exhausted to think about getting up and going hiking in the middle of the night???

Yup. We all slept until just before dawn.

And we had quite the adventure come Sunday morning.

Yeah. I'm gonna leave you hanging.

Good Weather!

So the weather was good for

For studying photography 

[which is a great hobby with

no creative boundaries]

Thursday morning was filled with fog and rain as the afternoon wore on, the temperatures started to drop quickly.

They went from 40 to 30 in two hours with winds gusting to 50 mph. Thankfully, we are in a hollow here so we are getting the wind but not to the extent those on the ridge are getting. 

Oddly enough, my shovels, and skis blew down on the porch. A water bucket I had out there took off for parts unknown.

I assume I'll find it in a few days.

So I decided to work with High key photos before returning to experimenting with macro images.

I saw a photographer I follow on Flickr use a broken ornament as her subject for a macro shot. The shot was so beautiful and so well done, that I stopped and studied it. 

Instead of breaking anything, I picked some weeds when I did chores to practice macro while avoiding the cruel weather.

Wednesday while hiking I picked up 'Old Man's Beard' seeds. Okay they are actually a wild Clematis that grows in the forests not an old man's beard.

The shape has always fascinated me, so I put it in a plastic bag and brought it home to study.

Old Man's Beard aka
Clematis vitalba

Here is a piece of Yarrow I got from the garden next to the porch. I can't believe that the dried flowers held up with the snowfall and all the weather we've had.

I placed the dried yarrow on top of a wooden block on my laptop keyboard and brought up a fractal I'd made years ago as the back drop.

Behind the scenes, it looked like this.

I don't have an iPad, but I do know of folks who place their flowers on top of or use an iPad photo to make a backdrop for macro photography. Ingenious really as you can control the brightness behind the flower.

I don't have anything like that. It worked for this shot and was handy as an experiment. I've done this with toys and had great results.

The shot below is the remnants of the Flea Bane flower in the winter. I put crinkled up foil behind the plant and a red ribbon below it.

Meanwhile in the Christmas Village, Mini-Me and Charlie spot something going on. Looks like a couple of Boo Monsters grabbed a snow mobile and 'eye' spy the Grinch hiding behind a tree and the Vampire Lady from Halloween on the balcony.

Huh. The Christmas Village has so much to see and so much going on!

The rest of that day ... and Sunday

It was a dreary cold windy morning... I traveled along the Kickapoo River and its backwater ponds. People would say it wasn't a beautiful warm spring day and maybe they would have avoided hiking. But I don't mind most weather. 

I will say I won't hike in storms. But drizzle, overcast, cold, breezy? That all works for me. I can even find interesting things to explore in poor weather.

The photo below is one of the ponds I haven't been able to get to before. I had some considerable brush busting to get down to the edge of the pond. Unfortunately, with the harsh wind, no waterfowl or even turtles were out.

The sky started breaking up when I got to the Kickapoo River. This river often turns back on itself and has been dubbed The Crooked River. Kickapoo means 'wander here and there', it fits this river perfectly. It is mostly a quiet unassuming river.

However it can become a raging river when there is heavy rain. The river often expands and floods extremely quickly because it resides in a steep valley.

Canoeing and kayaking along this river is a great past time. I would love to kayak it again.

By the time I wandered down to this spot where Camp G used to be, the sun was starting to show itself. 

This is not far from where I found a tiny skull in the grasses. Most likely a young 'possum skull. It reminds us about the hardships of life.

Back at the ponds with the sunshine out, I spotted some more ducks. I moved to a wet trail with a lot of cover on the eastern pond and got a shot of this duck. May...be a Blue Wing Teal? I'm not up on my waterfowl, but that is what I found when I looked it up.

More of these at another pond???

I stopped once more at a well hidden little pond to see if the turtles had come out to enjoy the sunshine.

They did! I was so tickled!

By now it was early afternoon and bicyclists, dog walkers, and a few teenage type humans were wandering down the blacktop path. I was standing there watching the turtles and listening to the waterfowl in the next pond over when the kids walked by and gave me a funny look.

You know, that look when they see an older person staring off at something that they can't see and they give you the roll of the eyes.

I smiled thinking maybe one day they too can slow down and just look to see what they can see.

I'd found so many cool things while just wandering slowly on my long hike.

I now know where to go back to photograph hundreds of Cinnamon Ferns...

Below is something called 'Old Man's Beard' which is actually a type of wild clematis. A plant I never knew existed. It actually is considered an invasive species and I don't know much about it. It's scientific name is Clematis vitalba.  I'll have to see if I can find these while they are blooming.

On the way back to where I parked, I took a back route around a bluff to  see the magnificent wintergreen tree root that grows horizontal along the bluff.

 

Seen from below, this looks odd and very cool.

Below the tree is a really neat fern that stays green all winter long. It is called a Rock Polypody [common name].

Along the bluff are little nooks and crannies that tell stories of eons of erosion and water.

My Lego Minifigures would fit inside those tiny tooth like features. Jason wasn't with me to tell me the why or how they were formed. But I just think of them as great little hideouts for gnomes, trolls, fairies, and spirits. 

Why not?

And that was that. I made my way back to the parking lot and past kids with their parents getting ready for an afternoon stroll now that the sun was shining.

My feet were tired, I was relaxed and happy. I was ready to go back home. The only thing that was a negative was that I was aware of all of the things I felt I was missing.

However, I also realized how lucky I was to have this time.

And now on to Sunday's fun! Digging and prepping, raking, transplanting, and picking up more gravel.

Quiet Time

Time for some chillin' off the farm.

I could have stayed home as the temps were supposed to be in the 80's again, but I thought I'd make my own breezes again. This time I promised myself to just pedal until I found something interesting and then stop and look at it. 

This was not a work out, it was a pleasure out. I took my ancient camera that I had converted to Infrared. I put on the hot filter to shoot in normal colors and traded off with some infrared filters of 665nm and 850nm. The 850nm presents in black and white with the greens becoming white and blues are dark.

One of the places I really enjoy stopping at is the pond that is near a place called Star Valley. Okay, it was a place called Star Valley. A community lived here from 1901 to 1962. In the 60's, the government started a flood control project called the LaFarge Dam Project. People's homes/farms were purchased and those who refused had their land appropriated.

There still is a lot of resentment over those actions as the project was abandoned in the 1970's.  I've referred to the project over the years. You can check out one of those posts here: Dam Hike & Forest Wandering.

By the time I got to the Star Valley Memorial after riding about 5 miles, I was so chilled out that I could have laid on the bench and napped. Instead, I sat and just let my mind wander while I ate an apple. Funny thing is, I never thought a bit about my schedules for the next week. 

I knew then, that this was exactly what I needed.

Here is the pond in color, then in IR Black and White, and lastly in 665nm.

The presentation of the foliage and the pond reflections are startling in IR. I guess that is what the biggest appeal to me is. The wild colors are pretty much up to the person who processes IR. I happen to like a pink tint to the 665nm foliage. Sometimes the Black and White is more appealing. I love how the clouds and the reflections stand out.

I couldn't resist bringing my mini-me and Charlie along. In real life, I couldn't do this!

The colors were starting to turn in various places but nothing spectacular quite yet. The sumac offered some beautiful reds.

Bridge 16 is in the background of this shot.

Here is some different colors and a different variety of Highbush Cranberry.

Fully mature Nanny Berries! They turn black ... 

Last but not least was some curious vines I'd seen before but never stopped to investigate.

I've seen it flowering in the spring but had no idea that it is a type of wild clematis, with a common name called Old Man's Beard.

It was a pleasure to have some solo time. It was a beautiful afternoon and oddly enough, I never saw another person on the trail. There was no sign of hikers, bikers, or equestrians. 

Fall is coming. It will be here eventually....