Divide and Conquer

Sue to the boat, me to the bunkie. One of us got more done than the other.  

Chilly, with clouds. 

Have a caterpillar, we've got plenty.

Big Boat...

 ...being prepped for launch. 

Note the nice cradle.

Heliotrope cleaned, and the topsides waxed and buffed. Launch scheduled for Friday.

Chilly, drizzly morning giving way to cool, mostly cloudy and extremely windy day. Perfect for boat work.

Michigan/Huron is way up—way, way up. Fraser beach is no longer—water coming up almost to the road. Remarkable change from 2013.  I would be tempted to say that the water is high enough, except I know that the level of the Great Lakes is delicate and fragile. I've still got my "Stop the Drop" hat, and I plan to hold on to it.

Fire in the stove last night and tonight.  

Chilly and Damp

A little big boat epoxyfying and bunkie batten painting before the rain came, what little rain there was.

Sunset over Bayfield Sound, on the way back from Burpee/Mills last night.

Caterpillars still falling out of the sky and crawling everywhere. Also now, midges at the beach, mosquitoes on the Lane, and deer flies starting to assert themselves in every sunny place. Luckily, a variety of dragonflies have also shown up.

Dinner Dance...

...with octogenarian swing band. And square dancing to the tune of a great fiddler. 

Parthenogenesis,

or spontaneous combustion, or perpetual motion, or something. Sweep the concrete entry porch free of caterpillars, look the other way for a minute or two, and then at least a dozen of the little varmints will be crawling around where you just swept. Do they spring out of the concrete fully formed and ready to crawl? Whatever the case, it shows Mother Nature at her most profligate.

Lilacs

Walkabout. An underlying Pattern Language type of concept for this house was that a person should be able to walk completely around it without problem. I remember spending hours on the treadmill at cardiac rehab walking around the imaginary structure. 
And, to some extent, the idea was realized, except that the route took the walker through the screened porch (and two banging doors).
Doors will bang no more. The new walkabout deck de-necessitates the porch route. And, it is going to make the hanging of winter plastic ever so much easier.
Quite likely, also, to cut the time it takes grandkids to race around.

Tropical Storm

T.S. Alberto made landfall on Manitoulin this morning. Damaging wind, but no damage here except for the top half of a big poplar between our driveway and Viewpoints. The downfall missed the Lane, so is probably of little concern. Enough rain to satisfy the herbs and newly planted tomatoes, but nothing of hurricane proportions.

Photo by Sue

The storm temporarily diminished caterpillar numbers, but by afternoon, when once again warm and steamy, caterpillars were not in short supply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
The Expositor asked if I would comment on the Foxconn water diversion. So I did:
 

It was close. But last week, on the last day of possible objection, the environmental law organization Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA) in Madison, WI filed a legal challenge to Racine, Wisconsin’s request to divert 7 million gallons a day out of the Great Lakes basin.

Racine wants the water to supply a factory under development by Taiwanese electronic display manufacturer Foxconn. Almost all of the factory’s site lies outside the Great Lakes basin, and so the diversion would seem to be in violation of the Great Lakes Compact.

In spite of objections by citizens, environmental organizations, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initative, and the states of New York and Illinois, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources approved the diversion request last April. This is not surprising in that the DNR has been stripped of its scientists and its mission of science-based permitting by “tea party” governor Scott Walker.

MEA says that its legal challenge was “essential, as Wisconsin’s approval of the Lake Michigan water diversion requested by Racine tests the integrity of the Great Lakes Compact by ignoring a key requirement of the historic agreement entered into by the eight Great Lakes states and enacted into federal law. This mistake must be corrected to defend the Great Lakes Compact and to protect our magnificent Great Lakes in the near and distant future.”

The majority of the 7 MGD of water requested for transfer out of basin will be used to supply Lake Michigan water to one single private industrial customer, Foxconn.

 The MEA legal challenge says that “the Wisconsin DNR disregarded and unreasonably interpreted a core Compact requirement that all water transferred out of the Great Lakes Basin must be used for public water supply purposes, clearly defined as ‘serving a group of largely residential customers.’”

I am grateful that Midwest Environmental Advocates has challenged the Foxconn diversion request. I think the residents of Manitoulin, and Ontario, should also be appreciative and supportive. Water diverted out of Lake Michigan is also water diverted out of Lake Huron. And the Compact, designed to prevent diversions, is only effective if it is enforced and protected.

Two years ago the Ontario government went meekly along with the approval of the Waukesha, Wisconsin diversion. I tend to think it’s unreasonable to expect much future diversion opposition coming from MNRF.

Although there should be.

Peter Annin, the author of Great Lakes Water Wars, is working on a new edition of his book, and he foresees continued and intensified demand for Great Lakes water as the warming climate intensifies the west’s great thirst. If a Trans Mountain pipeline can be built to transport oil, certainly a mid-continent pipeline could be built to transport water from Lake Superior to Arizona.

The Compact is a bulwark against diversions, but it’s a fragile one. Thank goodness for Midwest Environmental Advocates. Perhaps it would be prudent for the people of Ontario to send a little support their way:  http://midwestadvocates.org.

Raining Caterpillars

Stand near any tree and you will hear a steady plopping of things falling to the ground from up above—like big rain drops. But don't stand there too long or you will be covered with inch long caterpillars. I've never seen such an infestation. The buggers are everywhere. Any creatures who fancy caterpillars on the menu (if there be any) must be living high on the hog; it's like manna from heaven.

Afloat

First sailboat on the bay. 

Andrew (who is dock manager this year), along with Patrick and Bruce helped raise the mast, and it went up quickly and simply. Maybe we have it figured out.

And here, Pax and I are on our morning walk (he's getting a little ahead of himself).

And in poop news...
We are having a caterpillar infestation again this year and the poop is raining down—countless black specks coating every horizontal surface. (I remember sitting on the deck at Pinebox some years back and actually listening to the rustle of falling feces. Probably the same now.) Furthermore, Pax and I have on our beach walks discovered that yellow swallowtail butterflies and gulls have a kind of symbiotic relationship; we have observed, a number of  times, singles or clusters of the the insects gathered around gull droppings apparently slurping them up.

And in pollen news...
The water along the shore is beginning to look like yellow paint, thanks to pine pollen.

Even Hot Up North

To Taylor Sawmill to order more battens for finishing out the new bunkie. This is going to be a nice big extra bedroom, and grandkid rumpus room. But more battens!? I thought we were done with battens. Cripes.

The mower got started, the "grass" got mowed, and the dog got washed. But it was too hot for anything more. What a rapid transition from too much ice to too much heat. Looks like the splits arranged in front of the stove will have to be moved back outside to the firewood rack.

Not a bad view from my "writing" table.

Powerless

Hydro out from 9 to 3, but garage shelving more or less completed nonetheless. (Nothing like a good old fashioned hand saw.) And, a small to medium fraction of all the stuff needing to be stowed, was.

Warm and sunny. (Actually, too hot for work, at least for me.) Black flies giving way to mosquitoes. Still no sails sighted on the bay. Maybe we should do something about that.

Shelfishness

Continued dinking around in the garage‚building shelving now for all the incredible amount of stuff that has accumulated over the years (and was hiding below and on tip of the old camper). Pax was bored the while, but eventually got to go for a run and a swim.

Weir Farm

Weir Farm National Historic Site is located in Ridgefield and Wilton, Connecticut. It commemorates the life and work of American impressionist painter J. Alden Weir and other artists who stayed at the site or lived there, to include Childe Hassam, Albert Pinkham Ryder, John Singer Sargent, and John Twachtman.

Weir Farm
Marilyn Nelson

Not vistas, but a home-sized landscape,
beloved rooms storied, painted, lived.
A farm bought with a painting
and a ten dollar personal check.
And almost from the beginning,
the intention to pass on
what an artist sees, what artists make.
A parcel of land, a vast legacy.

Admire the houses, barns, outbuildings,
and studios, uniformly Venetian red.
Respect the visible sweat work of stones
laid in walls and foundations, terraces and walks.
Admire the sunken garden, the wildflower meadows,
the path through thick woods to the fishing pond.
Walk through the farm envisioned by artists.
Admire the home artists made.

Or you can step from a museum’s polished floor
across a carven, gilded threshold
into the farm reimagined in brushstrokes.From that wooden bridge over there,
hear those three women’s tinkling laughter?
Over there the other way, see
the black dog panting near the youngish man
lifting stones into a half-built wall?

Step out of the frame again, and be
enveloped in birdsong and dapple.
Feel the welcome of small particulars:
the grove beside that boulder,
the white horse tied in front of that barn.
With eyes made tender, see
those elms, from shadows on the grass
to the highest leaves’ shimmer.

With your friends, lovers, family, stride
across this chromatic broken brushwork.
Sit a minute at the granite picnic table
with the artist’s daughters, dressed in summer white.
You can daub this earth, so lyric, so gentle,
from the limited palette of your own love right now.
Any place you care for can hold an easel.
Everything around you is beautiful plein air.

Bluets, and Foam

 ...warm and humid, and still a bit buggy. With the occasional tree frog. 

Bluets

Who you gonna call?

We've been foamed. (And what a tough, hot job it is.)

Out To Lunch...

... on a bit of a holiday.  

To JD Greenhouse in Tehkummah for lunch and to buy coreopsis (since last year's plants—perennials supposedly—have not yet shown much sign of life). The soup was good but the coreopsis were either pink or variegated, neither of which is totally desirable.

Wending our way back, on the Bidwell Road, we stopped at the very odd Har-Cor Greenhouse, and discovered just the coreopsis required.

Very warm, and the blackflies are thick as...well...flies.

Stubby Pier

On and in the water today, at least a wee bit. 

Perfectly calm all morning, so we fiddled with the first official, stepping-stone part of the pier. And, we boarded the Susie Pea to look for the concrete block that we left last fall to mark the far end. Having found that, we decided to venture forth and search for the holy grail—the big concrete block that has for many years been the anchor for Heliotrope's mooring. Search as we did last year, it remained unfound. But today, in spite of an ill-timed breeze and consequent ripples, Sue found it. It is now buoyed, and it will not be lost again. Sue also cleaned and pressure washed the Windrider, and with the new rudder I installed yesterday, she is ready for a wet bottom.

And Then There Were Bugs

Sunny and warm, bringing out the first of the season's series of pests. Blackflies.

Flat calm all day, until now. Now a substantial west wind coming down the bluff swaying the treetops and sending cats paws across the bay. Two jays sitting just outside the porch watching us as we watch them. The only sound—birds and wind. 

Other firsts (besides bugs)—first outdoor shower (Sue), and first extended porch sit.

Wind Shift

Pleasantly cool onshore breeze, good for things like painting Aspenite, replaced about 5 p.m. by a pleasantly warm offshore breeze.

Jumbo Magna-Tiles? King-sized house of cards? And who could be the mastermind behind all this prepratory painting?

Green Hills, Blue Water

Perfect day for Long Weekend visitors.  

The odd aspen/poplar at Fraser Beach just leafing out

Marsh marigolds

Back in the Aspenite painting business

Lots of cars up by the Falls, parked as usual along the road, in spite of the new  "verboten" signs. Apparently, quite good business in Upper Kagawong. Lower Kagawong seemed to be doing okay, too, with two rather well attended garage sales, and Kuku Hut, and Chocolate Works doing a strong trade.

Long Weekend...

 ...with rain

Much needed, but ill-timed. Damp and cool, so glowing coals in the stove all day. Managed a walk to the falls as light rain was beginning, and a walk along the Lane during an afternoon lull. Overall, a quiet day in the country.

Musical Dinner

The Lloyds and Thomsons over for dinner and some music. Murray on accordion and me on Aerophone, with a singalong. (No photos)

And speaking of noise, the loons have started up, as they seem to every evening about this time. Loud and startling. 

Garage and Garden

 ...and wood-chipped paths. 

Planted, in this place...peas, beans, radishes, beets, and cucumbers. Nothing expected to grow, as the soil is dry and there's no rain in any forecast. Should have planted prickly pear?

Planted, in these places, where irrigation is the norm, cilantro and basil.
The perennial garden is showing chives, and oregano—and, apparently, volunteer garlic. No sign yet of sage or thyme.

A nice, well-insulated, bug free, comfortable extra bedroom will certainly be an improvement over the 35-year-old camper.