and, finally, little colorful things

Oh so fem, I know, but nothing justifies Wordsworth faster than this. And out by the sewage plant, too.

and then there is sun

in the woods, walking

Still, there is this.

why I like Campari

The Little Campus on Maryland Avenue in Annapolis, replaced now by a pretend Irish pub, was our neighborhood bar, when Laurie and I lived on Hanover Street. It was where Laurie introduced me to Campari, which I have been drinking happily in the summers (and on winter nights when we need it to be summer) ever since. It is a drink that promises much.

waking up

Some mornings, right?, you just need some noodles so you dress quickly, cross the bridge, and try to decide which noodle shop in the block by the Suomi will provide the breakfast of choice.

Seasonal Tickland

Were it late May, we would not have walked where we did today. Two years ago we walked out at the Sloughs on a sunny afternoon, and after just a short time Dennis looked down at my legs (I was wearing the light yellow pants that Lynn Huddon finds a bit too neon) and asked, "What's that on your pants?"

Up to my knees, it was ticks. The same for Dennis, but they were less easy to see because his pants were dark. We ran back to the little parking area there by the two-lane highway and undressed and shook out our clothes and shoes and socks and brushed each other off closely and attentively and in the car on the way back we found a few more crawling on us and at home we left our shoes outside and undressed again in the basement at the washing machine. The next morning when I opened the top of the washing machine there were three ticks sitting on top of the agitator, their forearms raised, waiting.

But it's not yet been warm enough long enough for the ticks to be out, and so today we walked longer than that other time.

A sandhill crane sang its pterodactyl song from the old now-almost-underwater farm field -- angry that we were near? -- and flew heavily away. An osprey also flew over us, just after we saw our third set of muskrats. There were lots of ducks, and lots of some sort of fork-tailed swift that flashed a pale blue on its undersides and seemed even to glisten a darker blue above. Several pairs of Canada geese -- fairly large ones -- watched us. Flickers, and lots of little brown birds. Back in the woods, where the path leads to the Snake River, the moss was iridescent and thick.

It's hard not to wonder when we're back in there, though, what this area was like back before all the dikes and breeding ponds were built to stop the seasonal flooding that, according to people we know who've lived here a long time, used to cover the highway for weeks at a time.

But eslewhere...

Over at the Sturgeon Sloughs, south of Chassell, a few trout lilies are already blooming. The woods there are mottled light and today -- in the sun -- were considerably warmer than the Covered Road was on Sunday.

technology?

It's a railroad grade, from the early part of the twentieth century, the trains going out to the stamp mill at Freda but also for a while taking people from Houghton to the lakeside park at Freda and -- from 1908 until 1941 -- taking students to the high school in Painesdale. It's easy to see how the grade was built up, to see how it rises above the uneven ground around it in order to provide the even and low grade the ore-hauling trains needed. Once you notice the grade, you have to wonder how many hours and what sort of equipment it took to build, and to wonder who decided it was worth the effort and investment. The part that's still easily accessible is a road several miles long that has 2 farms off it, and is called The Covered Road because -- in the summer -- the tree leaves fill it in and make a tunnel.

In late April, though, those leaves are just tipping in. But the mottled leaves of the trout lilies are thick on the ground: if this week is warm (but it is supposed to snow tonight) then next week will be good for another walk, to see the yellow flowers.

Yesterday, though, 4 cars passed us in the in the two hours we walked. The people in each car waved and smiled. There were some birds, some calling and some drilling into the wood. Otherwise, we heard only our talking.

I think we need to live in Hong Kong for a while, for comparison, to shock our overly calmed systems -- or else to be transported back to this same place, just 100 years ago.

liminal seasons

Up here, in this north, the borders of winter are marked by fog. Early in the morning is a Twilight Zone episode, like one Zizek writes about, when the man in the cab can see nothing out the windows. There is a grey that starts right on the other side of the thin window pane, and there is that and nothing else outside our house. I go back to sleep rather than open the front door. I dream about Adrienne Barbeau, or else about Jamie Lee Curtis and Janet Leigh. When I wake again, the sun is out and the world has returned with its trees, cars, and birds.

The fog time happens just before the snow time and then again just after, as the ground and the water lose their heat to the air and then the reverse. I know this, and yet this science knowledge runs up against my film experiences and my latent want-the-world-to-have-some-mystery desires, and my own fog generator kicks in and I go back to sleep in thrall to the grey in-between so I can dream a bit more under some irrational blankets while the world warms (or cools?) around me and until I do have to open the door, again.

if Houghton were the bellwether for holidays

Even though the original event of Christmas, I was told while growing up, took place where there were palm trees and warmth, the lights and tinsel hanging in the palm trees of Los Angeles -- when we lived there -- were a sure indication that our ways of celebrating Christmas developed someplace other than around that original manger. Living now in the Upper Peninsula, I understand Easter as I never could in California: it takes being under snow for 5 or 6 months to understand, viscerally, why we celebrate the return of green and warmth.

But had it been populations in the Upper Peninsula who determined when something like Easter should be celebrated, it would still be a few weeks off. We would celebrate when the marsh marigolds were blooming, and the trout lilies, when even the last remnants of snow -- in the crooks still now under the shaded north sides of pine stands -- were gone. It is not yet warm enough to be out dancing, hanging pastel things in trees. But, still, we have begun to celebrate. It's nothing that needs planning: we step outside into the light and the green and the sky are simply enough to make us joyful, unbidden. People are in shorts, and it is just above 40 degrees. People giggle.

It is also not too early to eat chocolate, nor is it too early to admire what the snow melt contributes to the Sturgeon River, south of Baraga, where the small canyons of basalt look -- in their perpendicular breakings and moss cover -- like chilled remains of ancient castles. There was much noise there earlier today, when we walked through the woods to the river: lots of small ducks were passing through, small crisp black and white ones flying over, and other birds, some warblers hidden back in where we could not see them. And there was so much water, loud water, gunmetal colored except where it was pushing over the slabs of rock and the light made it yellow and brown because of the tannin and at the edges all sorts of moss and moisture-liking greens were pushing up.

the tree in spring

how delight happens

a reminder

To the best of my research, there is no yeast in these.