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The girl grandchild said it first -- "this is a bloggable moment."  We were in the parking lot of the sporting goods store, wrestling with a 10 foot 6 inch stand up paddle board, which was too long to fit comfortably inside my truck.  We made it fit, tying down the rear door with the boy grandchild's belt.  I'm not at all sure that it was completely legal, but we got it home.

Ummm.  The water is still pretty cold.  Low 50's in the shallows, about 37 at the mid lake bouy.

The girl has done this before, but it's been a couple of years.  And it was just the one time.

Don't go out so far!

Remembering how to stand up.  Then it is the boy's turn.

 He's never done this before --

He gets the hang of it fairly quickly.  And then he doesn't, and then he does.... Those boat waves are tricky.

To quote the Grands, "Making memories."

Maintenance

It seems to be the time of year for home maintenance projects.  Our next door neighbors (south) had a tree fall in a wind storm last fall, and today the final touches got done on the replacement landscaping.  The new tree is called a river birch, and it looks quite nice.  It happened during our November blogging marathon, so there's a pretty detailed record of it.  Not to be outdone, we had work going on here today, as well.  I no longer feel durable enough to wash all of our outside windows, especially the ones on the second floor.  I got started on the outside windows last year, and only managed to keep the ones washed on the side overlooking the lake.  Young men did the washing today.

We also had a problem with the railings on the stairway to the beach, as you may remember.  Here's a photo from a cold day in April..

And here's a photo taken after the repairs were finished today....

I did a little bit of self-maintenance in the form of a bike ride with the other retired professor this afternoon.  Nothing too ambitious -- mostly it was a ride over to the Park Township offices where she has a couple of garden plots that needed watering.  The wind was unfriendly, seemingly a headwind from three of the four directions that we rode.  But it was a lovely day to be outside, so no complaints.  Here are a couple of bonus photos from the walk I took down to the bottom of the hill to get a picture of the stairs...

We aren't quite caught up on the minor repairs around here -- but progress took place today.  Good enough.

Gravy or Barbecue Sauce?

Earlier this week I got a phone call from OSLO, reminding me that it was nearly time for the annual brisket bash, and informing me that she would be happy to be here to help us eat it.  Frankly, I hadn't given it any thought -- I might go so far as to say that I was unaware that brisket on Memorial Day was a tradition.  She'd given me plenty of advance notice, so sometime during this past week I purchased a couple of briskets and yesterday, after my bike ride, and during some car races, I kept an eye on them as they slowly cooked.  They turned out fine -- one with gravy, one with barbecue sauce -- and today we gathered around the big table and  continued the tradition of eating brisket on Memorial Day.  OSLO brought rhubarb pie..... I ate a piece, adding to the sensation of having eaten too much.  The Grands took me out for a walk around the neighborhood shortly thereafter, but I still feel stuffed.  And sleepy.

There were showers/thunderstorms marching across the lake by then,  so they packed up and headed home.  Before they left I did this survey of the group -- if I were to fix just one kind of brisket, which should it be -- the one with gravy or the one with barbecue sauce?  The majority voted for the gravy.  OSLO and I prefer the one with the barbecue sauce.  I did the same survey last year (I guess it is a tradition) and got the same result.  Fortunately, I have another year before I have to decide what to do with that information.

Walk Bike Walk

The exercise plan of my (relative) youth hasn't been working that well for me lately, for mostly boring reasons.  That plan was simple -- bike lots.  It isn't as easy as I had hoped to put together a new one.  One that allows for the diffugalties of aging, and takes into account my personal quirks, preferences, limitations, etc.    The current iteration involves quite a bit of walking -- mostly in the mornings as I've mentioned here before, but also on an occasional evening to take advantage of the late sunsets.  I almost always carry my camera but hadn't used it much until recently.  Here are a couple of photos I took on a walk after supper one night earlier this week.  Rain was about to move in, but it was a pretty nice evening until it did.

 Some days a bike ride seems to be in order instead of, or in addition to, a walk -- even when the fog refuses to lift along the shoreline.  Yesterday was one of those days.

 It was noticeably clearer by the time I got to 160th and Quincy -- the Gold Barn blueberry farm.  (Still no blossoms on the bushes.)  It was a pretty nice ride, even with the slightly gloomy conditions.

Here's an odd take on landscaping, at least from my perspective.

 This morning our walking group -- still missing the recently retired professor -- ventured a little further off the reservation.  We walked down Perry towards the park where the soccer fields are located, next to the tennis courts, behind the fire station.

 Trillium in the low lying area next to one of the bridges on the bike path.  They're kind of a Michigan version of the lady slipper -- it is illegal to pick them here.  They're a wildflower and only bloom for a short time.

We found an area that was clearly marked as Park Township land, and ventured off into the woods for a while, hoping to find a path.  I think there's one there, but we didn't find it.  On our return trip we found another area, the Kuker-Van Til Preserve and hiked around it for a while.  We ran out of time and energy to explore the whole thing today.  It was a nice little surprise -- a hiking area within walking distance of our neighborhood.

I took some pictures, so I must have ridden my bike today.

The morning group walk is pretty predictable -- when a dog is involved, regularity (if you'll excuse the pun) is important. I'm a creature of habit myself, so this works out just fine for me. 9 am exercise. Today I had a morning appointment with my hair dresser, so exercise got put off until after lunch -- which should have been fine, but my body resisted. Or more likely it was my mind. Who'd have thought that a mere shift in the timing of my outdoor activity would be such a big deal? Gahrr.  Just getting out the door was hard.

I found an excuse to stop before I'd gotten very far -- I've been missing the yearly display of apple blossoms on the trees along the driveway at the house we no longer own. In a bit of good luck, there are three ornamental crab apple trees at the entrance to Tunnel Park.  I was on my bike, I had a camera, photo taken, mission accomplished?  Another day of cooler near the lake, but plenty warm inland.  It was both downhill and into the wind, a similar ride to yesterday, headed south towards Lake Mac.

Wind is hard to photograph, though water surfaces and dry grasses do a pretty fair job of demonstrating its presence.  I stopped near here to remove the sleeves from the jacket I was wearing -- it appeared to be summer just a few miles from home.

I'm still hoping for photos of lilacs from TT, but my lilac bush is still flower free.  These were along 160th, I think.  It wasn't an impressive display, but I was glad to see them.

Sunday is a day of rest.

Grandchildren -- also known as minions -- helped to make that whole day of rest thing possible.  Ours arrived yesterday primed to help out with spring chores.  They've been doing this for a couple of years now, and I honestly don't know what we'd do without them.  We'd have to hire men with machines, I guess.

Electric lawnmowers are very eco friendly, as lawn mowers go.  Not as good as push mowers, but much more energy efficient and less polluting than the usual two cycle engine on most mowers.  That cord is annoying, though.  They took turns mowing the grass and managing the cord for each other, leaving me to a low level supervisory position.  (I'm good with that.)  Then they went with us to the local Mexican restaurant for supper, something that never happens when you hire men with machines.

It's definitely the season of cooler near the lake, but people are beginning to show up anyway.  The older ones wear jackets or sweatshirts, the kids play in the water.

Today reached 70 degrees, near normal for this time of year.  The walking group is smaller this week than usual, as the recently retired professor is off somewhere.  The third member of our group has a bike, and she likes to ride, but doesn't much.  A lot of people are like that, I think.  I don't really get it, but I am aware that it is true.  So today she and I took a bike ride, just for fun.  (That is why we ride, isn't it?)  We visited the State Park, where they're still moving sand around, then rode along Black Lake through the cottage areas for a while. It was a nice change of pace and now and then I enjoy having company while riding.  Again I took a bike ride and took no photos, so you'll have to decide for yourselves if it really happened or not.  Next time I bike I'll try to take some pictures.

If I took no photos, did it really happen?

It had been a week -- again -- since I had last been on my bike.  Granted, there was a day or maybe two when riding was possible, but scheduling conflicts got in the way.  Even today was marginal, with temperatures running nearly 20 degrees below normal.  Fortunately my exercise plan doesn't count exclusively on biking -- and in spite of frost/freeze warnings for the past two nights, I've managed to log some exercise most days this week.  My only new photo in my camera is from an evening walk I took earlier this week.  I believe this is a hyacinth.  I could be wrong.

Anyway, I did ride today.  I checked the blueberry fields again but there is very little progress to report there.  I rode strictly for the sake of exercise, and hurried home to my warm house as soon as I felt I'd accomplished that bare minimum.  I felt colder on my bike than I did on my walk this morning -- probably due to the wind chill effect.  JB has explained the physics of riding into the wind to me a time or two, and I read it again yesterday -- in  another bicycle blog.  Here's the quote:

"Nothing to do but pedal, and knowing that wind drag increases as velocity squared, there really was no point in pedaling hard."

Mothers Day Weekend

It's the time of year when I complain about how cold the water is in Lake Michigan and how that keeps us cold here.  It was a little bit warmer inland yesterday.  

It's also the time of year when I report on the progress of the blueberry fields.  I took Greenly east --

There's not much to report.  They've just begun to bud out.

The dandelions are doing well, though.  And it did eventually warm up -- after I'd been home 2 or 3 hours.

I took today off from the exercise wars.  My daughter arrived in the early afternoon with the Centers of the Universe.  They brought me a very pretty potted plant for next to my front door, and cards and gifts.  But mostly they brought themselves, and hung out for the afternoon.  A good time was had by all.

Big Red

The lighthouse, not the dog.  (Big Red is the blog name of the dog who motivates the group's daily morning walks recently, for those of you who may have lost track of the minutiae* of my blog.)  It finally warmed up here today, at least briefly, and though I'd taken a walk around the neighborhood this morning, I couldn't pass up the chance to ride in shorts for the first time since we returned from Florida.  This photo was taken looking directly into the wind -- as you can see, it's tough to ride very far into the wind on days with a wind from the south-west.

 The annual pushing around of sand is going on at the State Park.  Snow/sand fences are still up, but they'll come down soon.  I still think that the removal of the sand dunes along the channel uglified that area, but what's done is done.

*I'm really proud of myself for having spelled minutiae correctly on my first try.

Destination Ride

It was my first May bike ride, which I had hoped would mean fresh legs.  Maybe it was too many miles spent walking this week, more likely it was the creeping effect of so many years on the planet, but the first few miles were hard.  I'd passed up a hike at Hemlock Crossing with the morning walk group (and dog) in order to ride -- it was finally a day when the temperature exceeded 50 degrees during the time that riding works best for me.  So I was a little disappointed, but I hadn't ridden far before encouraging signs began to show up on the sidewalk/path.

Wind from the east, I rode north along the lake for a while, turning inland at Ransom.  The alpaca farm is still along there,  just before 168th, with animals in black and white and brown coats.  There was enough wind to be a nuisance -- 14 mph, gusting to 24 -- but crosswinds are easier than headwinds.  In any case, it didn't reach the level of rude, much less ruthless.  When I got to 164th and Van Buren, the main road heading north angles back towards the lake, and the cross tailwind was my friend.  It was beginning to look like I had enough legs to get where I'd hoped to go.  The Port Sheldon Party Store.

My first trip here for the season is always a big deal to me, for no good reason.  As I rolled into the parking lot I was happy to be there, and amused myself with speculating whether or not I had enough left in my legs to get home.  This ride was only 2 miles further than my last ride, just last week, so that speculation wasn't serious -- mostly.  The ride home was uneventful, and easier than the ride out. I'm calling it a cross-tailwind for most of the way.    On a totally unrelated note, those of you who do Facebook have already seen this photo, but I'm putting it up here again because I like it.

My Grandson is taking a world religions class, and one of his assignments was to visit a church where he'd never been before.  (And write a report.)  Apparently I was the logical choice to take him, for reasons that were never totally clear to me.  (I was quite happy to do it.)   After some discussion, he chose the Episcopal Church here in town, and this past Sunday we attended their 10:30 service.  With Hope graduation going on that day, and Tulip Time underway, we figured we'd blend in with other visitors and escape notice.  It didn't exactly work out that way, but we had an interesting time.  Doesn't he look grown up?  Sigh.

Last Square Inch of Snow

I mentioned in an earlier post that our neighborhood had a contest going on for bragging rights to the last square inch of snow.  One of our neighbors put together a video from photo and video contributions from several neighbors, and posted it on YouTube.  That sounds like public domain to me, so here's the video.  The artist's name is Dan Joldersma.



Spring is here? I guess so -- it's a cold and rainy start, but it is pretty clearly no longer winter.  Here are a few photos I took on our morning dog walks this week.  It may take a while for you to find the second duck in the last photo -- she blends so well into the background.