Troubled Skies

Skies across the Thumb were troubled on Sunday afternoon as storms swept across Michigan. This view, taken on Richardson Road east of Pigeon, gives a glimpse of the cells that populated the weather maps, producing thunderstorm and tornado watches and warnings throughout much of lower Michigan.

Another image, this one looking west along the railroad that runs through downtown Pigeon, shows swirls and curves and wisps that may be beautiful, but the resultant winds are damaging. Even tonight, many in the Detroit area are without power yet.

Here's what the Weatherbug app on an IPhone was showing right about the time that these photos were taken. It's sort of a tie-dye weather pattern with many scattered cells. I've learned to respect those red and orange patches on weather maps. The cells are strongest there, with driving rain and hail sometimes.

Last year's August 1st Hailstorm

Sunset in Windmill Country

On clear summer nights this is what you see as the sun goes down in Huron County. A wind turbine, standing tall, silhouetted against the evening skies, punctuates the landscape.

Turbines have very vertical lines in a horizontal world. Maybe that's what causes people to wonder if turbines belong in a rural area. We are so used to running our vision across the landscape that when our eyes "bump" into the turning vertical structure, we are slightly stunned by the picture.

Still, their very height is majestic. Here, in machine form, this device draws power from the wind, power that went unharnessed and unused ten years ago. They really are quite something.

Amber Waves

We are rounding the corner on summer here in Michigan's Thumb, and we are headed to the Amber Waves of Grain time of July. 

Tonight, returning from nine holes of Golf at Bird Creek in Port Austin, I stopped to view this scene. A field of wheat, gently tilting toward ripe, not yet amber, but yellowing more by the day. Towering clouds, the remnant of a day of rain and thunderstorms. 

I expect that harvest times will be a bit pushed back due to the very cold spring, but then, watching the grain ripening fast may make late harvest a guessing game. 

Long Summer Days

I try to keep track of the times for sunrise and sunset in my daily art journal. A lot of the weather apps on mobile phones show those times routinely. Right now, at the end of June, the sun comes up before 6 am and goes down after 9 pm, making the days extremely long. All of that light is what makes things grow so fast in late June. Beans that were just showing on Monday have four leaves by Wednesday. The cut-and-come-again lettuce seems to always need cutting. It's a vibrant time of the year.

I always find that I get really tired this time of the year, too. I attempt to do way too much. With long days I figure that I should be able to get something done before breakfast and after supper. So I'm painting in my art journal before 7 am, working on my website in the morning, doing correspondence in the afternoon, and then weeding a garden bed at 8 pm.

Even long summer days require lazy time for a good book or watching a baseball game. As a matter of fact, that might be the best thing about summer days, that there is time for some lazy moments.

Summer's End

At the end of a Thursday that felt like a Friday, it feels like the end of the summer. At work today I finally wrapped up some things that have been hanging over my head. That always feels good. 

The lawn is mowed. The guest rooms are ready. The frig is stocked. There is a raft of company coming for the holiday weekend.

College and high school football is starting. Yellow and orange and burgundy chrysanthemum plants appear for sale. The days get shorter. The tomatoes ripen. 

At the end of summer there is such a nostalgic tinge to life. You want to hang on to what has been, yet it is time to let go and move on. 

In the almost dark of a warm night in late summer, even the crickets sing their bittersweet song of farewell. . .to summer. 

Copyright 2013

Wanda Hayes Eichler

Canada Thistle

Canada Thistle is the bane of crop farming. Weed that this plant is, it grows tall and sharp, filled with spines and prickles. One weed identification book that I use says that this plant is capable of reducing crop yields by 100% due to an underground rhizome that grows below normal tillage depth.

Yet there is a beauty in the purple flower with its spiny bracts. Contrasted with green, the pink-purple blossom is a showy flower in August.

I photographed this thistle, shoulder high, while out for a walk. Then I took the image to my computer's darkroom and brought out the gray green background using sketching tools and some cropping and dodging. I rather like the result, even though the plant is basically a weed.

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler

An August Prayer

Garden update: The hailstorm that took out my tomatoes on the first day of August was not so successful as it first seemed. The tomatoes are starting to ripen and it will soon be time to take a basket out to the garden because there will be so many orangey-red fruits to pick.

The red beets, shredded the night of the hail, now have leaves that are standing tall and the globes beneath the ground should be full of that earthy burgundy taste of roasted beets. There will be a few cucumbers, and the eggplants, poor eggplants, will blossom, but maybe not set fruit.

All in all, in spite of the hailstorm, it is time for an August prayer of thanks for the good food that comes in the last full month of summer.

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler

August Baseball

I have not been glued to the television broadcasts of Detroit Tiger games this summer like I have done in other years. After losing my Dad in May, this has been a summer of gardens and golf and quiet times for reading and knitting and doing art.

But I couldn't help but tune in the game tonight as the Tigers took on the Tribe in Cleveland. My friend Desert Jim has a bet going with his friend Idaho Jer. Jerry says that the Tribe, under the management of Terry Francona, will be a big force in the American League Central.

Jim and I are Tiger fans, so, at the start of the season, we disagreed. Jim agreed to a bet with Jer. I don't make bets (life is risky enough without going out on a limb here and there) but I definitely would be in the ballpark with Jim on this one.

So tonight Alex Avila had a great home run in the 9th inning and the Tigers won, putting them four games ahead of Francona's Cleveland Indians. What joy, especially coming on the day when Major League Baseball finally announced suspensions of players due to the performance enhancing drug issue.

I took a moment to dig out my last year's journal and discovered that one year ago today, on August 5, 2012, the Tigers beat the Indians 10-8 in the 10th inning with a walk-off home run by Miguel Cabrera. That one I remember since we were at Comerica Park in Detroit and got to see Cabrera's expertise as he was on his way to the Triple Crown.

My husband Ed always says that when you are at the ballpark and the game is getting long, you should tough it out because something really cool can happen. One year ago, it was the tenth inning that was getting long until the Tigers and Cabrera ended the game with gusto.

The Tigers play three more games in Cleveland and winning all of them would put them seven games up in the American League Central.

Ah, August baseball! I hope Idaho Jer is watching!

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Geranium Nut

I've been kind of a geranium nut this summer. There are red geraniums in big planters and little pots at the doorways to our house. Thanks to MiracleGro, I have teased blossoms from last year's pink geraniums, including the tenacious geranium which just doesn't want to quit.

Picking up my pen and ink and paints, I'm making geraniums the subject of art journal pages. I'm sure that the geraniums must stand a little taller when they see me coming with sketchbook in hand. And, when I stroll away from them, they are probably saying, "whew, I just wasn't up to all of that pencil and eraser stuff today. Glad that is over!"

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Big Fawns

The whitetail fawns in Huron County are getting much bigger as the summer progresses. These two did their "freeze frame" routine when I stopped my Chevy Volt last night. With the window rolled down and the car turned off, I whipped out my camera and watched these two. They were tall enough to stare me down over the grain field, yet they have not lost their baby spots yet.

Pretty soon Mama came on the scene and sent some kind of signal to the kids. Just after this second photo was taken, they all bounded away, across the fields.

These photos were taken on Stoddard Road, just off of M-25, near Lighthouse Park, but you can see deer almost anywhere in Huron County this summer.

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Swim Costume

Granddaughter Hannah has this really cool swim costume that makes her into a bumble bee. The costume has wings and a stinger. It has black and yellow stripes. There's a cool hat with two black antennae sticking up from the striped cap.

Hannah's "other grandma," Grandma Linda found the swim costume in Canada and brought it back for Hannah. With her pink water shoes, our old canoe, her Daddy and her Grandma Wanda, Hannah had a good time today, wading in Lake Huron.

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Sailboat Race

Every sailboat in the Port Huron to Mackinac Race that is on the shore course comes past the lake house. Today the vessels have been coming in waves. First we saw one, then three, then ten. That was at mid-afternoon. By evening, there were scores of boats, all upbound for Mackinac.

On a computer screen the sailboats look like grains of rice, spread out across Lake Huron. By morning, there will not be a sailboat in sight.

Copyright 2013

Wanda Hayes Eichler

Summer Storms in Windmill Country

Summer storms in windmill country have been dramatic today. A cold front swept across Huron County in mid afternoon. Between Elkton and Pigeon, the storm rose dramatically in swirls of clouds and sweeps of rain.

Thunderhead after towering thunderhead crossed Saginaw Bay, then marched east, headed toward the Verona hills and Lake Huron. Around 6 pm, my camera captured this image of the turbines and one huge cloud just north and east of Laker High School.

Along the Lake Huron coastline, violent winds tore down tree branches. My garden was hit hard. The red beets look like they were stepped over by the winds. The foliage on the tomatoes appears shredded, almost like it was hit by hail.

After days of hot and humid weather, the summer storms have arrived.

Copyright 2013

Wanda Hayes Eichler

New Moon In July

The new moon and the planet Venus put on quite a show last night. This image, looking almost due west, shows the crescent moon slightly above the horizon while Venus shines with an intensity that is almost brilliant.

I thought this was a pretty good shot, especially with a point-and-shoot camera like my trusty Sony Cybershot. Then I looked at Earthsky.org and saw an image almost exactly like mine, also taken in Michigan.

It's a small world, indeed, especially when all of us on this tiny planet with all of our tiny cameras are looking up at the same moon and stars.

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Big Thunderhead

A huge thunderhead towered over the Cooperative Elevator's eight story tall towers this afternoon. I followed this cloud across the county as I headed east from Pigeon to Harbor Beach. By Bad Axe the skies had thickened. By Verona, there was rain and by the time I turned south off of M-142 at the Parisville Road corner, the skies were blue again.

The white two story building at the far left is Main Street Cafe and Bakery, home of the best homemade potato chips ever. The brown one story building is the Pigeon Village Hall and also houses Winsor Township's offices.

Here's the same cloud with a wind turbine in the photo. I like the contrasts -- strong, definitive tower lines, graceful arc of the blades, and the puff of the storm clouds. This photo was taken along Richardson Road, between Pigeon and Elkton.

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Crop Circles

Ed handed me the key to the lawnmower on Saturday and I had a great time cutting circles around almost every tree on the south lawn.

It was like being the needle and thread on a giant green quilt. I had to think ahead about where the lines would intersect or cross. The pattern possibilities were plentiful, even as the lawn's boundaries and trees dictated the curves and shapes.

Give me an eighty acre corn field and a combine. Then let's see what the crop circles might look like. For good measure there could be a few wind turbines to cut circles or figure eights around. Now that would be a great mowing job to do!

Copyright 2013

Wanda Hayes Eichler

Beside Blue Waters

The Clark brothers are having a good time, playing on the lawns at Cedar Bluff beside the blue waters of Lake Huron. Finn confiscated the garden tools, with my permission, and dug a small trench today around one of the trees near the new garden.

"Look, Grandma. I put water in the trench here and it rolls down to the other side," said the budding hydro engineer as he poured what must have been the tenth sprinkling can of water into the muddy slit.

Max built a tepee using a curved piece of driftwood and some dead sumac branches. His structure, braced and eventually tied together, affords a place for one boy at a time to crawl and feel surrounded by the framework made by hand.

We planted garden (tomatoes, mostly), launched rockets (one went on the roof and by evening the wind brought it down), ate two meals outside (breakfast and lunch), did art in the studio, and read some more chapters in "Paddle to the Sea."

The boys are having a great time beside blue waters.

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Pyromania and The Charcoal Grill

Impressive! Here's the easy way to light a charcoal grill. You just need the proper equipment, like a flame thrower.

Uncle Patrick stands back and gives Nick some tips on getting the charcoal going for brats and chicken. It was a great meal, thanks in part to this display of pyromaniac prowess.

Copyright 2012
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Me and My Dad

I always wish we had taken more pictures when our families get together. Ed did snap this image of my Dad and me at the pavilion at Galloway House and Farm in Fond du Lac last Sunday afternoon. We had pie and ice cream at the Fond du Lac Historical Society's Ice Cream Social that day.

Our August days in Wisconsin were filled with wonderful fresh food meals, most eaten outside, and lots of conversations. Add in some wading in the lake, sweet nieces, bouncy grandkids, a little golf with my nephew and brother, and it all adds up to a good time.

Copyright 2012
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Dramatic Rains

Storm clouds over White Rock Shoal -- 10August2012

Our part of Michigan has been swept by dramatic rainstorms for the past two days. This image, taken at 6:49 pm last night shows the intensity of the cloud cover that continuously pounded the Thumb with rains, some so blinding that you almost had to pull over when driving.

The rain let up during the night on Friday. At dinner on Friday night, friends were telling us that they heard that the Bay City area received up to seven inches of rain. One Facebook friend reported flooded basements. At Graywood Farm, south of Pigeon, our rain gauge showed two inches. Here at Cedar Bluff, the gauge measured 1.4 inches since Thursday.

From extreme heat and dry weather to dramatic rains, the weather is setting records this summer.

Copyright 2012
Wanda Hayes Eichler