Day of the Bufflehead

Almost every spring, our pond hosts a bufflehead or two or three for a day or so as they migrate back to whatever body of water is their summer home. Early on in the days of the buffleheads, I wondered if the white and black ducks we could see floating on the pond might be loons. Then, when we determined they weren’t loons, we wondered if they could be Smews. Finally, after much consultation of our Birds of North America book and observation with our binoculars, we determined who our visitors actually were.

(It was just this year, as I was reading an article about “Loon fallout,” that I realized how unlikely it would be for our visitors to be Loons. There is simply not enough length to our pond for Loons to take off from the water.)

After a year or two of not seeing our annual visitors, we woke up a week ago to find a single male bufflehead floating on the pond. I like to think that he had a lady friend with him and she was just hanging out near the shore where we couldn’t see her, because otherwise how lonely and sad for him if he was traveling all by himself!

Knowing we wouldn’t get any decent photos of the Bufflehead from the house, we finally braved the mucky bog and the treacherous, ankle-twisting, poor man’s path made of old deck boards to walk to the edge of the pond in hopes of getting a clear image. Sadly, our little friend was feeling a little shy and stayed on the far half of the pond until we left.

As the weather wasn’t pleasant enough for a long walk and Hubby was still recovering from a cold, we decided to take just a short stroll along the southern side of the pond. In that area, there is a channel that, many years ago, was clearly a path for water to travel between the pond and the swamp. Now, the higher ground of the channel is dry, but the day we were out exploring, there was a bit more water in the lower parts of the channel than usual.

It’s always a good day when you find a cool natural water feature and gnarly, mossy trees.

Before returning home, we strolled toward the swamp and crossed a little land bridge we recently discovered. It’s amazing to me that we’ve lived here for nearly 22 years and we’re still finding new natural treasures.

Oh, and the next day, our little bufflehead friend had moved on to whatever the water equivalent is to “greener pastures.”

As for books…

I recently finished reading Make a Wish by Helena Hunting. This one was a bit of a miss for me, and I found myself almost making a wish for it to be over. Sometimes when a book is written in the first person, listening in to a character’s thoughts can just be too much of the same thing over and over again. If I want to listen to the same thoughts over and over again, I can just spend a day in my own head.

Another Mid-Week Hike

I often recall a quote by Robin Williams’ character John Keating in Dead Poets Society: “Sucking all the marrow out of life doesn’t mean choking on the bone.”

In our hiking life, sucking all the marrow out of life equates to making the most of the beautiful days when they come to get outside and take a hike.

Choking on the bone would be hiking so many miles that we aren’t able to easily get up off the couch the next day.

With one beautiful week of weather sandwiched between a cold, windy, snowy winter and a cold, rainy, sometimes snowy spring, we knew we needed to get outside and get some hiking miles logged before our 7-day free trial of summer ended. With the ticks still hiding wherever vile, blood-sucking demons hibernate over the winter, it was a perfect time to get out into the woods. Summer it seems, after our tick-y experiences last year, will be an excellent time to knock off the dreaded road miles if we want to remain tick- and Lymn-free.

As Hubby had to travel further Up North (see link if confused about where Up North begins. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/68398488066325491/ ) for work reasons, we decided to “work” on logging some new northern miles of the North Country Trail. After his business was completed in Harbor Springs, we drove a few miles to the Kipp Road trailhead.

Almost immediately, we began to feel as if we were training for our next mountain climbing excursion, as a portion of the first mile headed up at a fairly decent incline. After that, the trail leveled off for a bit as it meandered through a “prickers and thorns” section where I promptly earned three scratches on my arms before realizing that I needed to walk with my arms up in the air if I wanted to avoid being all wounded and bloody. Unfortunately, there was no way to walk with my ankles up in the air, so they weren’t spared injury. I hope whoever maintains that portion of the trail keeps up with trimming back the prickly plants in the summer because it could become overgrown like the dreadful raspberry bush section we tackled a few summers ago. That section was almost impassable!

Thankfully, we got through the prickers and thorns section quickly. The rest of the hike was more woodsy and slightly hilly. Though the day topped out at around 86 degrees, we found snow in the woods. Once in a while, our feet would break through old, crusty, dirty snow and snow would creep into our sneakers. As the wind blew over the snowy sections, we’d feel a cool breeze and a nearly 20-degree drop in temperature.

As we neared our turn-around point–Brutus Road–our eyes widened with delight as we looked out over the most luscious sight: more ramps than we could ever eat in a lifetime! Sadly, we were hiking on state land and couldn’t pick any as these may not be harvested from state land in Michigan, but it’s a sign that the ramps that grow in our little corner of not state land should be popping out of the ground soon. (We took a walk to check on them recently and they weren’t up yet.)

Right before Brutus Road, we were forced off the trail for the last few feet by a massive puddle blocking our way. Some might walk right through the water, but we weren’t looking to hike the nearly five miles back to the car in squelching shoes.

We ended the day with 4.85 new trail miles and a hike total of 9.7 miles.

Feeling munchy after walking 27,000 steps that day between my morning workout and the hike, we stopped for what we thought would be a quick ice cream/coffee /french fry snack at Culver’s. Twenty-two minutes later, we finally had our snack!

As it was a teeny bit of a struggle to get my legs moving the next day, I’d say we came a bit too close to “choking on the bone.” As it’s early in the hiking season (after a few months off due to snowy and icy trails), I need to work myself back up to being able to easily handle super long hikes. You never know if there’s a 25-miler coming sometime. Gotta get in fine hiking shape so I’m ready!!

As for books…

I just finished listening to We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz.

I’ll start by saying that this book had a lot of promise. The plot was interesting. But how many times can an author repeat the same stuff over and over and over again!! It felt like the main character’s internal monologue was stuck on repeat. The ending was a little weird, and from what I read online, it seems that other readers had questions about the ending also.

My biggest complaint, though, was how annoying the main character was in one particular way. She often referenced men leering at her, taking up space as a female, being afraid to do x, y, or z because she was a woman in, and I’m probably exaggerating a smidge here, a big scary world dominated by big scary males. For the love! Every reference made to rampant misogyny was as annoying to me as that one girl on every reality show who tells the audience that “people think I’m cute.”

I don’t look like a troll. At least I don’t think I do. I have yet to pass a group of men who are leering at me. Of course, I’m not looking at them. If you don’t look, then you’re not bothered. I’m also not afraid to do things because I’m a woman. That doesn’t mean I’m stupid and go looking for trouble in potentially dangerous situations. Yes, it would be great if we lived in a perfect world where everyone behaved the way we thought they should. But we don’t.

Rant over!

Needless to say, I am unlikely to read another book by this author.

A New Obsession?

There was a knot of anxiety in my belly as we entered the rock climbing gym Elev8 in Traverse City on Tuesday afternoon. Yes, I had just visited a rock wall a few weeks ago and managed to maneuver my scared-of-heights self up the most basic of walls. But I was now in the presence of more serious rock climbers–the ones who carry a bag of chalk on their belts (we referred to them as “Chalkbaggers”), can contort their fingers and hands around tiny nubs of “rock”, and do scary stuff like “lead climbing.” I was also facing 27- and 42-foot walls, the prospect of trusting the self-belay systems, and a 14-foot bouldering wall.

We (Hubby, climbing-obsessed-and-the-reason-we-were-there middle daughter, and I) signed the waivers, went through the basics with an employee, then off we went to hopefully not do something stupid and end up with an injury that we’d just agreed to not sue for.

We started with the “easy” stuff–the 27-foot walls. I made an attempt at something that looked doable.

And was quickly rejected by the wall.

Thankfully, I was all of 6 inches off the ground.

But I persevered. And made it about 6 feet up to where I had no idea where to place my hands and feet to progress any further. At that point, I thought it prudent to test out the self-belay system. I dropped from the wall and floated to the ground. Easy peasy, right? The floating, not the climbing.

Giving the stink-eye to that wall which seemed like one of the easier walls in the building, I inspected my other options and found a wall that had a slightly lower rating. Determined to make it up something that afternoon, I attacked that wall and with the speed of a sloth made it to the top in a minute and a half.

Awww…the thrill…the exhilaration…the TERROR when I realized I would have to let go.

Letting go from 6 feet was one thing. Letting go from 27 feet was something entirely different. It goes against human nature.

(I was having flashbacks to the ropes course we’d gone to several years ago and the “Trust Fall” area. I can’t tell you how many minutes (hours?) I stood there attempting to summon enough bravery to drop off the edge of the platform. What can I say? I have trust issues. If the spinach says it’s triple-washed…I wash it a fourth time.)

After attempting to downclimb and finding my arms a bit too shaky and my adrenaline flowing just a bit too much to concentrate, I finally psyched myself up to let go. Within seconds I was on the ground. Then my knees gave out and I found myself on my back like an upside-down turtle, legs and arms all akimbo. Thankfully, I don’t think anyone but the person I married and the person I birthed saw this indignity.

Because I can laugh at myself, I’m offering the entire world a chance to see this talented landing here.

I’m proud to say that by the time we left, I made it halfway up one of the 42-foot walls and did finally conquer that smaller wall I’d struggled with at the beginning of our time in the gym. I also did a small amount of bouldering. Hubby and middle daughter were more successful with the higher walls.

Would I like to return to climb again? Yes. For sure. Now that I’ve overcome my fear of letting go and trusting my equipment and am feeling less spinning in my head when I look down from so high up, I’d love to spend more time attempting trickier routes. But at $30+/person (that’s the rate for a day pass plus equipment rental), I don’t see myself reaching the level of “Chalkbagger” anytime soon.

As for books…

I recently finished Mammoth Cave Curiosities by Colleen O’Connor Olson which I purchased during our trip to Mammoth Cave last May. (My gosh. That was almost a year ago!) This book had a lot of interesting information about Mammoth Cave as well as some fascinating interviews with employees who’d worked for the cave many, many years ago.

I am NOT a daredevil. At all.

Poor Hubby. He did not marry a daredevil. While he enjoys a bit of adrenaline-producing adventure, I’m more of a worrywart. I’m constantly thinking about broken bones, the pain of broken bones, the cost of x-rays for broken bones…

Middle daughter informed me, after hearing me going on about broken bones, that if we just lived in a country with government-funded healthcare, I could do whatever I wanted without having to worry.

Hmm…

As that only takes care of one-third of my broken bones worries and doesn’t even touch the pain part, I don’t think I’d be doing whatever I wanted without worry.

So where am I going with this, and what occasion had me worrying about broken bones?

This past weekend, following a nice snowstorm, Hubby and I FINALLY got to put on our cross-country skis.

We’d tried to ski earlier in the winter. It had not gone well. The snow was wet and mushy. There were barely frozen puddles under the snow. We ended up with snow caked to the bottom of our skis. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to ski with snow caked to the bottom of your skis, but here’s what happens if you haven’t: Your thrust forward a bit with your upper half but your bottom half has glommed onto the snow on the ground and refuses to budge. There’s a constant feeling of, “I’m going to fall on my face.” It’s not fun.

But our snow this past weekend was mostly okay. I say mostly because it wasn’t perfect. The day had warmed up a bit and the snow in sunny spots was a tiny bit mushy and sticky, but it wasn’t horrible. We rarely had to stop to knock clumps off our skis. Sometimes you just have to make due when conditions aren’t totally optimal if you want to get to do what you want to do.

We set off down the road, which had a nice, smooth coating of snow, and headed for the ATV trails in the back of the neighborhood. And that’s where things got interesting.

You see, after a decent stretch of flat ground, perfect for cross-country skiing, that flat ground gives way to hills. Some slope relatively gently. Others not so much. We skipped the really, really steep hill (thank goodness) that made an excellent sledding hill when our kids were young, and stuck to just the moderately steep ones.

And I was still terrified.

I spent a lot of time carefully moving sideways down hills and sideways up hills. One hill took so long for me to descend that I probably grew a few more gray hairs in the time it took me to get close enough to the bottom that I was willing to risk skiing the rest of the way.

Despite my probably unfounded fears and grumpiness at myself for being afraid, it was nice to get out in the sunshine, produce some natural vitamin D, and breathe in a little fresh air.

As for books…

I recently finished reading Harlan Coben’s The Boy From the Woods. I’ve read at least one of his books in the past, but what drove me to check out one of his titles from the library was that I enjoyed watching the Netflix series The Stranger, which was based on one of his books. I liked The Boy From the Woods and hope to read the sequel soon. It might be a while, though, because this past month I decided to go “shopping” from my own bookcases and start attacking some of the books I’ve been meaning to read for YEARS. It could take me YEARS to get through them all.

A Swamp Shoeing Adventure

We’ve been on a roller coaster this winter…a weather roller coaster.

Most years, winter arrives just in time for Halloween with temperatures so blustery that Halloween costumes are ruined by the addition of heavy jackets. Winter then sticks around bringing snow measured in feet, freezing rain, and gusty winds until approximately 12 weeks after Groundhog Phil has declared the season over. We’ve had snow at the beginning of October. We’ve had snow on Mother’s Day. I once witnessed a woman wearing earmuffs in July.

But this year, rather than winter arriving and doing its thing for months and months straight, it’s flirted with us. We might get several inches of snow all at once, then the temps rise until it feels like spring. The snow starts to melt, turning our roads into a nightmare of ice and slush. Then the temps drop again and we’re back to the weatherperson telling us Snowmaggedon is about to happen again.

Although, this year the weatherperson has been a bit more like the “boy who cried wolf” than someone who had some sort of college education in a science field. If we’re told 10 inches, we get five. If we’re told 5 inches, we get 2. I really shouldn’t complain when we get less than what was forecast, but when the only thing that makes pushing a full shopping cart through 2 inches of mucky parking lot slush whenever we go shopping bearable is winter sports that require snow, then I say, “Bring on the snow.” Don’t give me an inch or two and then melt it away so all I have to play in is a mud puddle. You can’t snowshoe in mud or cross-country ski in mud. You can hike through mud, but I wouldn’t advise doing that after one ill-fated trip where I did a slipperoo and ended up with mud-caked jeans. We also took the dogs on that hike. What a mistake. Can we say, “Muddy under-carriage?” That is the messy hike that all messy hikes will be measured by in the future.

But we have been lucky enough to have at least a couple weekends with enough snow on the ground for a bit of winter fun. Earlier this month Hubby and I headed out for another snowshoeing adventure through the swamp.

After a stroll through the swamp, we continued on to a pair of nearby ponds following a different “path” than usual.

As for books…

Earlier this year I thoroughly enjoyed reading No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World’s 14 Highest Peaks by Ed Viesturs. The only way I’m ever climbing any of those peaks is vicariously, so I read as many books as I can about others who have done so. I’m probably misquoting a tad, but I’m adding the author’s words of wisdom about reaching the top to my “Rules to hike by” list. He said something like, “Getting to the top is optional, getting back down is not.” As Hubby and I think about which mountain (of much smaller size than the ones in this book) we hope to attack next, we’ll do so with those words in mind.

A Comedy or a Tragedy?

I believe it was Humble the Poet, in his book Unlearn: 101 Simple Truths for a Better Life, who said something alone the lines of, “You can choose to live either a comedy or a tragedy.” If it wasn’t him, he can thank me for giving him credit! I’m pretty sure it was him, though, as my memory isn’t so bad yet that I’d forget something from a book I listened to just a few months ago.

But, then again, I often forget simple words when trying to tell a story or make a point or explain something…which really makes me feel old and kind of not smart. And embarassed. And then I start forgetting more words which leads to more embarrassment which leads to me loving the written word even more because I can take time to collect my thoughts and look up those words that I can’t remember and arrange everything into something mostly coherent. (This Twitter world of “get a point across in as few characters as possible” is tough on people like me. I also find it sad that so many people start to tune out if what you’re saying goes longer than around 300 characters.)

But I digress…something I do often. I think I learned that from Hubby. He’s the king of randomly changing topics. Which keeps me on my toes and often confused.

And speaking of Hubby…

He had me very confused and doubting everything I knew a few nights ago. I had done a Yoga video earlier in the day, and he informed me, jokingly, that he was offended that the instructor was excluding half of the population from her videos by telling her viewers to loosen their pelvic muscles. He was pretty sure that as a male he didn’t have pelvic muscles and was thus excluded. My brain whirred into overdrive pondering this declaration. I was pretty sure men had pelvic muscles. I retorted, “You have a pelvis. I assume there are pelvic muscles somewhere.” And then I Googled it because I wanted to be sure. Hubby learned something that day.

Yet more digressing. My apologies.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming of comedy or tragedy and choosing which you were going to live.

I try to live a comedy. I try to find the silver lining in most things. But it isn’t always easy, and I don’t always succeed. Judgement from others, even random strangers on the Internet, gets in the way and I fall into a funk. Life kicks me in the rear and I need a few moments to pick myself back up. You get the idea. But those are just moments here and there. A friend of mine, though, has chosen to live a life defined by her problems. She’s chosen to dwell in negativity. She’s built herself a not-so cozy little nest smack dab in the middle of a tragedy. And I find that sad.

Here’s how a random Thursday night a few weeks ago went and how I embraced the “tragedy” (small thought it was) and did my best to turn it into a “comedy:”

I was supposed to go to a meeting. I was tired. I had zero interest in going to this meeting. I’d watched the forecast and had actually been hoping for a weather event that would keep me trapped at home. And it happened. It actually happened. Score for me!

We’d had melting and rain and our driveway was a slushy, rutty disaster of epic proportions. I made it down the driveway, getting dangerously pulled this way and that by the slush, turned onto the road and thought, “I might just get to stay home because this seems unsafe.” I decided to at least attempt Hill of Doom #2 (Hill of Doom #1 is further away and a bit more dangerous) so I could honestly say I’d made an effort to get to the meeting. I crested the top of the hill and took a gander at what awainted me on the descent. There was slush and more slush AND a stuck plow truck. So I backed up the road and into the garage and sent off a text saying I was unable to be at the meeting. Yea, for me!

It doesn’t look like much of a problem. But it is.

Then came the less than magical, rather tragical part of the evening. I decided to shovel the long, long driveway so Hubby wouldn’t have to navigate the slush when he returned home and so the slushy ruts wouldn’t freeze into frozen ruts overnight. (Is anyone old enough to remember Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disney World? I think it might have been rebranded as a Winnie the Pooh ride at some point. That’s what the driveway is like with frozen ruts.)

I shoveled and shoveled, moving heavy wet muck to one side and then the other. And when I say heavy, I mean HEAVY. I stabbed at frozen piles at the bottom of the drive left there by the stuck plow truck to no avail. Those ice boulders weren’t moving.

I grew exhausted and sweaty and windburned and cranky and wanted to embrace tragedy while my long hair, that I had neglected to braid before going outside, had already embraced the idea of becoming one giant dreadlock.

And then…

I started singing along with the music pouring out of my earbuds. I gave a concert of diverse favorites such as Rockstar Sea Shanty, Despacito, and some Bollywood number whose lyrics I can’t read as they are in Hindi so I just make them up. Afterall, I am nothing if not a thinker of other people. Just because I’m living a tragedy at the moment, doesn’t mean I can’t provide the neighbors with some comedy.

As for books…

I recently read The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren. While this was a decent romance, I had been hoping for something as “Can’t-put-it-down” good as Love and Other Words written by the same duo. It wasn’t quite that good. The story was original, though, so I could appreciate that.

Over the Swamp and Through the Woods

Christmas Eve morning we woke to a world of white. Snow was falling, and it continued to fall all day. The roads were dicey and unplowed, especially the secondary roads out in the “middle of nowhere” where we live. (Actually, I think our seasonal road, plowed by neighbors, might have been in better shape than anything the county was responsible for.) Christmas Eve services were canceled, meaning that for the third year in a row, I would miss out on the time-honored tradition of burning my hand on candle wax and spilling wax on some article of clothing. I can’t recall missing even one Christmas Eve service at any previous time in my life, let alone three in a row. Services weren’t held in 2020 for obvious reasons. (The Great Contagion, in case you’ve been living under a rock or on a deserted island.) We missed 2021 because we were in Texas at Guadalupe National Park. I’m hoping we can be there for the 2023 service.

While all that snow put the kibosh on church services, it made for excellent snowshoeing. Hubby and I strapped on the snowshoes the day after Christmas and set off into the woods.

The swamp in winter

We started off with a trip over our swamp. It’s always fun to be able to walk across the swamp without getting our feet wet or becoming a meal for the hordes of mosquitoes that call it home in the summer months. (By the way, a group of mosquitoes is apparently called a scourge.)

Once across the swamp, we turned toward the west and clomped up a hill to join up with a little nature trail that cuts through our land. Then we continued down a neighbor’s drive and into the woods on a path that leads to state land and a pair of quiet ponds. We’ve been to the ponds many times, usually hiking around both, but this time we would take a route away from the ponds that we’ve only taken once before. This past summer, following a period of dry skies, we’d managed to make our way down a two-track that’s usually impassable on foot due to A LOT of water both on the road and off. We’d taken the doggos that time. If you missed that recounting, you can find it here: https://100booksin1year.wordpress.com/2022/09/13/lunas-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day/ Luna was probably thankful we’d left her home this time.

The trails are not marked, but they aren’t difficult to follow, especially if you know where you’re going and know that as long as you keep track of the railroad track you won’t get lost. Eventually, the trail loops back to the rear of our neighborhood and connects to a system of ATV trails. If you pick the right branch onto the ATV trails, it’s a pleasant walk. If you choose the “wrong” branch, you’ll enjoy a longer hike with a whole lot of hills. We picked the “right” branch this time, thankfully, as slogging through deep, undisturbed snow is tiring even with snowshoes on. No one wants more distance or more hills in that situation. Although, out in the woods, with no one else around, with the air crisp and clean, and the sounds muffled by the snow…who would want the journey to end?

Sadly, shortly after we spent a few hours shoveling that massive storm-load of snow off the driveway and deck, the temps rose and almost everything melted. We’ve woken to a light dusting now and then since, but winter activities have been put on hold. Though I prefer warmer weather, I’d like to be able to don my snowshoes and skis more than a couple times this winter. The good news though, is that, with temps in the high 20s and 30s, we’ve been doing a lot more hiking this winter than we’ve done in the past.

As for books…

The first book for 2023 was The Prisoner by BA Paris. I enjoyed this suspense novel, though I would have liked the ending to be a little less, shall we say, vague. Did the main character see him again or didn’t she? (I hope there’s not a spoiler buried in that question. Sorry.) We’ll never know. I need more wrap-up. Don’t make me guess! Don’t leave things open-ended!

While I’ve gotten a decent start on my 100 books for 2023, there are some lengthier tomes I’d like to tackle this year which may cause me to fall far short of my goal. I’ve started Anna Karenina, which weighs in at a hefty 800 pages, and I’d love this year to be the year I finally read books 2-? of the Outlander series. Hubby’s already been through the entire series, so I feel a bit left behind, having only read the first 2 books. (I read the first one twice, as I’d forgotten quite a lot. I plan to reread the 2nd one as well.) I’ve also got the Poldark series to finish. The Three Musketeers, House of Seven Gables, Frankenstein, and Walden are also waiting on my shelves.

There are just too many books and only so many hours in the day to read them.

A Tiny, Feral Spirit of the Woods

Before I get into the adventure that inspired the title of today’s post, I need to take a moment to wish Hubby a very Happy Anniversary. It’s our 25th, so it’s kind of a big deal.

Quick backstory: We met on a blind date, got engaged approximately 3 months later, and got married 10 months after we met. What can I say? When you know, you know.

Now…on to our tale of a recent adventure.

It was a chilly Friday…the Friday after Thanksgiving to be exact. We weren’t out snagging all the Black Friday deals. Been there, done that. Once was enough. We were out on the trail, knocking off some of the southern miles of the North Country Trail that we hadn’t been able to get to this summer due to an abundant tick population.

By abundant, I mean ABUNDANT. I’m talking so many ticks that we were stopping every mile or so to lift our shirts and drop our pants to check for the little buggers. And we were finding plenty. So we gave up. We finished up our 100 miles for the year checking off miles to the north and miles in Pennsylvania and vowed to get back south once the ticks were off doing whatever it is ticks do in the winter. (Which is hanging out under leaves, apparently.)

With a dusting of snow on the ground and temps hovering in the low 30s, we drove southwest to the Baldwin (Michigan) area. As we stepped down the trail, to the beat of the occasional percussive retort of hunters’ rifles, I couldn’t help but look down repeatedly to confirm that we weren’t picking up ticks. (We picked off so many this summer that I seem to have acquired a bit of tick trauma.)

Having studied the map briefly before leaving home, I knew we would be traveling through a swampy area–the Sterling Marsh, to be specific. Trail conditions through marshes or swamps can vary wildly. Some areas have the occasional board tossed across the mushy ground. Once in a while, we’ve found ourselves creeping along a strategically placed log. And, now and then, we’ve been forced to get our shoes a little wet and muddy.

But here, in the Sterling Marsh, we found swampy trail perfection. The Spirt of the Woods Chapter of volunteers really knew what they were doing. There were thirteen numbered boardwalks, one of which was probably a 1/4-mile long.

Boardwalks happen to be one of our favorite things to encounter when hiking. (Along with moss-covered anything, pine needle-strewn paths, gnarly roots, snakes, deer…well, pretty much anything other than ticks.) We like to play a “Who can guess the number of boardwalks/bridges?” game whenever we’re hiking.

You’re probably wondering where the tiny, feral Spirit of the Woods comes into all of this. Here you go. Check out these photos:

We’ve done a lot of hiking. We live in the woods. We know animal footprints. But these? We’ve never seen anything like them before. They looked like tiny, child footprints. Occasionally, we could make out the shape of toes. I kid you not. But what would a child, barefoot no less, be doing out on a trail all alone? It’s a mystery to us, and, thus, the tiny, feral Spirit of the Woods was born.

As for books…here are two to which I recently listened:

I’m Sorry…Love, Your Husband by Clint Edwards–I follow Clint’s No Idea What I’m Doing: A Daddy Blog Facebook page and have had a lot of laughs at the stories he shares there. I appreciate how he works to destigmatize mental illness.

High Achiever: The Incredible True Story of One Addict’s Double Life by Tiffany Jenkin–I also follow Tiffany on Facebook. She also works to destigmatize mental illness. This was a tough one to listen to because it’s difficult to imagine her as the person she used to be when you’ve seen the person she is now.

An Abominable Snowperson and Three Abominable Books

It’s been nearly a month since my last post.

My only excuse–the holiday season.

It’s not that we haven’t been having adventures. We have. It’s not that I haven’t been reading books. I have. It’s that I’ve also been cooking for Thanksgiving, hosting Thanksgiving, ordering Christmas presents, tracking Christmas presents (Why are so many stuck in Rossford, OH? And why are they there, hours away from here, when they were just 45 minutes away a few days ago?), sewing stockings for new family members, and wrapping the few presents that have miraculously arrived somewhat close to on-time. I feel like I’ve been herding cats for the past few weeks and, as someone who once had four cats, I know exactly what herding cats is like. (There was also a colonoscopy thrown into the mix for a little extra added…um…excitement?)

The drama of Christmas packages continued today when I noted that an Amazon package containing a flannel hoodie our son asked for was listed as delivered to our front door. I knew right away that was a lie. It may be at a front door, but it’s not at our front door. No dogs barked like the world was coming to an end this morning, there were no tire tracks in the driveway other than the ones that should be there, and there were no footprints on the sidewalk other than mine. Yes, I went into CSI mode as I investigated the claim. I went so far as to drive slowly by the neighbor’s house to see if I could see a package on his porch. Unfortunately, my distance vision isn’t that great. I could, I suppose, traipse up his driveway for a closer look, but, knowing my luck of the last few days, he’d arrive home and catch me porch-pirating my own package from his porch whilst wearing my finest (most hideous) bright orange and white leggings. Hubby suggested I let the little dog loose outside (a joke, I think) as he’d run right over there, thus giving me an excuse to lurk, but he’d probably choose, for the first time ever, to run in the opposite direction. I suppose we’re just going to have to wait and see if that package ever turns up.

As for our recent adventures…

About three weeks ago, we were…I guess you could say…”blessed” with a little over a half-foot of snow. It was the perfect amount for a snowshoe adventure in our neighborhood and to the nearby ponds on state land.

The temps were cold. The wind was blowing. I cringed as freezing snowflakes, their points needle-sharp, whipped against the one tiny patch of exposed skin on my face. By the time we returned home, I felt like the Abominable Snowman and kind of looked like one too. The scenery–two near-frozen ponds and pines and ground draped in pristine white–and the crisp, refreshing air made the misery of the cold worthwhile and the large bowls of chili and the roaring fire in the fireplace waiting for us at home more appreciated.

As for books…

I’ve read so many recently, so I’m going to split them up over the next few posts. Here I offer you the most abominable of the bunch.

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley–This wasn’t my favorite book by this author. It maybe shouldn’t get an “Abominable” rating, but here it is anyway. I struggled to get into the story, and I didn’t really like any of the characters. I preferred The Guest List and The Hunting Party, two books by this author that Hubby and I listened to, over The Paris Apartment, even though both of those stories were basically the same just with different characters and different settings.

Still The Mind by Alan Watts – This book was supposed to be an introduction to meditation. The text, I’ll admit, did a very good job of putting me into a meditative state. There were some interesting, thought-provoking bits, but mainly it was so…I guess…deep, that it was kind of, dare I say, boring. I’m a pretty intelligent person…if I do say so myself (ha, ha)…but I was lost a lot as I read this book.

And, finally, Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood. I wanted to like this book. I really did. I liked her previous novel, The Love Hypothesis. But I hated this book with a raging passion. I could probably write an entire post on all the reasons why I didn’t like this book. The question right now, though, is how to say this without sounding like a jerk. I don’t think I can. So, here goes:

Do modern authors have a checklist of all the things they need to include or think they need to include in a book in order to find an agent and get published? If so, Hazelwood ticked all the boxes. Let’s see…we had climate issues, JK Rowling hate (This is the second book I’ve read with Rowling hate in it recently.), misogyny complaints, pronouns, gender pay gap complaints, mentions of privilege, veganism (Our daughter is mostly vegan, so I’ve got no problem with vegan diets. But seriously, this came up way too much. No one cares what the characters are eating. As the one vegan was eating Lean Cuisine, I’m going to assume veganism was not a health choice.), Wicca, and a dig at Fox News. Did she miss anything? How was there any room left for the plot? When you’ve got all that in one place, you know someone’s pushing a whole host of agendas. It was all too much. One or two of those things = interesting character. All of the things = super unlikable main character and feeling like you’re being lectured. (Well, the author is a professor, so I guess lecturing is one of her skills.) I honestly don’t care what a person’s politics, preferences, or proclivities are. I live my life in a way that my politics are the least interesting thing about me. Maybe we should all do the same. It would certainly make romance novels fun again. Which is why we read them. Or at least that’s why I read them. Maybe others like theirs with a side of political-preachyness. To each their own. I prefer to get my political-preachyness from Twitter.

Boardman Lake and Naked Cheesecake

Cold temps, gloomy skies, blustery wind, and snow could not keep us cooped up in the house on Sunday afternoon. The dogs, having not hiked with us much over the summer due to the tick population explosion of recent years, were frantically excited about the prospect of a ride in the car and the promise of a hike. I was excited about the prospect of a piece of pumpkin cheesecake from Olive Garden after our outdoor excursion. (I was also excited to walk somewhere new but was a little apprehensive about whether I’d be freezing the entire time.)

In a nod to the wind and near-freezing temps, I donned three pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, three shirts, a winter coat, gloves, a hat, and hiking boots. Shocker…I was still cold. I would have worn my face mask, but vanity won out.

Note to self: Better to look like a bank robber than have a frozen nose.

We didn’t hike the NCT this time. In fact, I’m not sure you could call what we did hiking. Some might call it “urban hiking.” I prefer to call it was it was. It was a walk. On pavement. Around a lake. Actually just part of a lake. Someday we’ll return and walk the entire 4 miles around the lake, but Sunday was not the day for that. (Thank you time change and ridiculously early sunset.)

We chose the recently completed Boardman Lake Trail in Traverse City for our walk. The new bridges took us out over the water. They were covered with snow, which presented an interesting challenge for Luna. She wanted to pull so as to get over the bridge as quickly as possible. But when she pulled, her feet slipped out from under her.

We saw a large amount of waterfowl, including more swans in one place than I’ve ever seen before, as we were treated to rapidly changing weather. There was snow. There was sun. There was a suspiciously grey sky that threatened more snow.

After returning to the car, we drove to Petsmart so Neville could experience his first shopping trip. How neglectful we’ve been to have not taken him shopping even once in the first five years of his life. Luna, who hasn’t been shopping much herself, was taken aback by both sets of automatic doors. Neville, our nervous fellow, seemed a bit uncertain about the entire experience. His tail remained in the “I’m not having a good time” position as we wandered the aisles in search of some tasty treats. Both dogs get an A+ for the day, though, due to their surprising ability to totally ignore the little dog yipping at them in the checkout lane.

To all the little dog people out there: Sorry, I simply don’t understand the allure of a tiny dog. (I hope that’s not too controversial to say. Again, I’m sorry.) I told Hubby that if we get to the point in our lives where we can’t have a large dog, it’ll be time to adopt a cat again.

After Petsmart, we were off to Olive Garden to pick up my cheesecake. I know. I know. I’ve said many times that I’m cutting out sugar. But pumpkin cheesecake is only available for a limited time and my willpower is only so great. I ordered it, vowing to make it my last piece of cheesecake for the season. (Note that a new season begins in just over a month, and The Cheesecake Factory is only an hour and a half away.) I inspected my sugary treat before we left the parking lot and was slightly dismayed to note that there was no whipped topping. Perhaps, I thought, whipped topping doesn’t do well with take-out and that’s why they left it off. Fine. I’ll get over it. I suppose.

But then…

We got home. I pulled the cheesecake from the fridge after dinner and realized they’d also left off the caramel sauce. All I had was a sad, naked piece of cheesecake that was hardly worthy of Last Cheesecake of the Season status.

Note to Olive Garden: Our relationship has now been severely strained. You nearly lost me when you discontinued the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. This latest debacle…there are no words.

As for books…

I may have mentioned that the next best thing to going hiking myself was reading about someone else’s hiking adventures. Yes, that can sometimes be true. Then I read Thru and Back Again: A Hiker’s Journey on the North Country Trail by Luke Jordan. And now I disagree with my original premise.

It wasn’t that I didn’t find his recollection of his time hiking the NCT interesting. I did, in the sense that I liked seeing sections we’d hiked in Michigan and Pennsylvania through someone else’s eyes. What I didn’t enjoy, and it’s what I don’t enjoy about our own high-mile hikes, is that when you’re ticking off mile after mile, you miss some of the wonder. You miss the little things along the way. You miss the tiny mushrooms, the wildflowers, just soaking in the beauty of a moss-line trail. Sure, you notice them. Your eyes take them in, your brain registers them, but you don’t really have the time to crouch down to SEE them.

I did find the author’s epilogue relatable. In it, he recounts the challenges of returning to his regular life after spending more than 200 days on the trail. Last month, Hubby and I went on vacation and spent three days hiking in Pennsylvania and a couple days walking trails and along the beach in Florida and Georgia. We encountered few people, especially in Pennsylvania, and much of our time was spent in the quiet of nature. At the end of our vacation, we attended a family wedding in Florida. The wedding noise–dance music, chatter of talking, etc–was almost overwhelming. And that was after just a week of near solitude. I can only imagine what I’d feel like after 200 days of minimal human interaction and the quiet of the trail.

I do now have a few more places to add to my ever-growing list of places I want to visit after reading about them in his book. I hope to one day visit Watkins Glen State Park and Robert H Treman State Park in New York. I also think I’d like to climb Mt Marcy, though the reviews on All Trails have me thinking I’m going to find myself in a muddy mess.