Bank Pond

Step out of your car at the Pigeon office of Bay Port State Bank and you will cross a bridge over a small garden pond to get into the bank. A waterfall bubbles and gurgles most of the year. The koi in the pond dart this way and that. Water plants and perennials ring the pond. In the winter it is soothing to see the moving water and know that beneath the surface of the ice and snow there is life.

Christner Tree in Winter

We have a tree that we call the Christner tree out on the south side of Cedar Bluff lakehouse. Our friends Jim and Joanne Christner gave us this tree when we first built our house. They even had Matt Esch's crew from Esch Landscaping near Pigeon plant the tree for us.

I really don't know for sure what kind of tree it is but I would guess it to be an ornamental cherry. The Christner tree blossoms a deep warm red-pink in late May or early June. It is a late spring show stopper. Here it is on a late winter afternoon. The red berries and the bare branches trace a serene silhouette against  the cold backdrop of Lake Huron.  

Snow Thrower

For those of you who live where snow is not, here's a January reality check. This is Ed with the snow thrower (notice, thrower -- not blower) last Sunday, January 9. He's clearing the driveway and walks at Cedar Bluff in late afternoon. The temperature was about 18 degrees above zero.

I saw a Weather Channel report where a guy was walking with a snowthrower and the guy had a little shell around him. Kind of like a personal tractor cab. That's what Ed needs when he uses the snow thrower!

Winter Gray Study I

Morning light reveals this study in gray. Adirondacks on the snow covered terrace.

Copyright 2011
Wanda Hayes Eichler

Queen Anne's Lace in Snow

Queen Anne's Lace with snow caught in its "nest." Photo taken along the path at Cedar Bluff on February 3, 2010.

Copyright 2011

Wanda Hayes Eichler

Christmas Swags



Christmas Swags -- 2010

 My mother, Vallanee Hayes, made a gingerbread people doorway swag for our farmhouse many years ago. The little stuffed gingerbread people are trimmed with rick rack and sewn together like a paper chain of cut out people. Christmas is kind of official when the swag comes out of its box each year.

This Christmas (our tree is still up so I'm still in Christmas mode -- sorry) Ed and I made a reindeer swag for Max and Finny. I did the cutting and stamping and inking. Ed did the critiqueing and encouraging.

Finny and John and the Reindeer Swag -- 2010

I used artist trading cards (2 1/2" x 3 1/2") with rubber stamps, art markers, ribbons, key tags and curly ribbon to create a swag that the Clarks hung from their fireplace mantle this past holiday. Hannah Banana will probably get her Christmas swag next December. What fun!

Rumford Fireplace

On winter nights at Cedar Bluff we cozy up to the Rumford fireplace built with Fond du Lac Rustic Stone from the Buechel Stone Company quarry near Mom and Dad Hayes' home farms in Wisconsin. This photo show one of Ed's first fires from January 2006 in the Rumford fireplace.

With nighttime temperatures in the teens we've been using the fireplace often this winter. Our fireplace was built by Dave Taylor of Bad Axe, Michigan.