Big Sable Reference Points

  You know one of my hobbies is to follow local rivers. I've showed you a couple of places on the Big Sable River a lot of times: the Vince Smith Bridge, where the NCT crosses it. Hamlin Dam, where it is dammed to make Hamilin Lake. And the outlet at Ludington State Park.

But I have another reference point from my back road explorations yesterday. This is about 7 straight-line miles downstream from the Vince Smith Bridge. That's probably at least twice that many river miles. This is along Taylor Road. Point #3 on the map.

Here is point #2 on the map. You've seen this in every season because this is where the North Country Trail crosses the river.



And this is the headwaters at point #1 on the map. From here, oddly, the river flows north and goes around a loop before heading south and west.

I left the map large, so you can click it to see things better.

I can see that there are a couple of small bridges between points 2 and 3. Guess I'll need a river exploration day!

I worked really hard today- editing and then on the book. I got some formatting cleaned up and did my 100 miles of campsites.

See At the Vince Smith Bridge See Snow on Big Sable Headwaters

Blaze Day!

 I've explained a lot about the how and why of this before, so I won't cover that again. Here are the tools.

I'll just say that I'm pretty sure the last time this section of trail was blazed was in 2010. That's way too long ago. Not good, but sometimes these things happen. Too few volunteers, whatever... The link at the end is the year that Ellen and I did part of this section. Yes, that's a 14-year-old blaze.

I went out with Dan D. today, and our goal was to touch up a half mile of trail in each direction. That is usually plenty for one day. Dan wanted to try a template he made for spraying the blazes. I have to say that this is not standard, but he wanted to try it.

He was really careful to not let the paint flare out inside the edges of the template. I'll concede that. Here is the sprayed blaze.

I'll stick with using a brush. A lot of the trees we had to use in this section are large red oak. They have deep ridged bark that is really difficult to get nice blazes on, but here is one of my reasonably good successes.

We had help from Riley, the trail-blazing dog. She thought the blue paint was great for accents.

We also did a tiny bit of white blazing on a side trail, but we were getting tired, and the white paint was too thin.

I got to do a little bit of back-roading on the way home. I was just on this road not too long ago, but can't find the date. It's a back way from Freesoil Road that actually has a bridge over the Big Sable River. It's fine as long as the weather has been fairly dry. Yonkers Rd.

My goal after I got home was to get 100 more miles of campsites done, and I did it. Had to really knuckle down!

Total miles hiked in 2024: 200.6 of which 70.6 is North Country Trail.

North Country Trail, Mason Co. Michigan, Tynadall Rd to Koenig Rd. and back. 1 mile

See More Blue Blazes

Handbell Sunday - April

  I gave you a hint last week that we were going to play "Hymn of Promise." It was the prelude, and people just take forever to quiet down. There's not much I can do about the noise since I'm only recording with the camera mic. I think the chimes sound really nice on the one verse.



I think you should have the words to all three verses.

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

There’s a song in every silence, seeking word and melody;
There’s a dawn in every darkness, bringing hope to you and me.
From the past will come the future; what it holds, a mystery,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

In our end is our beginning; in our time, infinity;
In our doubt there is believing; in our life, eternity,
In our death, a resurrection; at the last, a victory,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

Our second piece was "An Easter Celebration." The young man on trumpet is a college freshman.



In the afternoon, I worked on the campsite list and got another 100 miles done. I forgot to tell you yesterday that I did 225 miles, but I worked really, really hard at it. Not even half done with the list yet.

See Handbell Sunday- April

Shadows of Spring

 I loved the sky and shadows across the back yard this morning.

The rest of my daffodils are coming into their own. You've seen them all before, but not this year. These are the lovely bi-colored ones, Narcissus Delnashaugh.

This one always makes me smile because these bulbs came from my family farm in NY. The old-fashioned double daffs were a favorite of my Grandma Leary.

Going back to another two-colored one, this is 'Duke of Windsor,' one of my personal favorites. It spreads very slowly, so I don't get big clumps of it like I do some of the others, but it manages to keep hanging on.

I think this variety is looking the best it ever has. This is 'Pistachio,' which is supposed to be yellow-green. It never is, but this may be the closest it's come. The wind knocked a few of these over, so we now have a little bouquet of them in the house, too.

I wouldn't mind a couple other varieties, but no plans to do anything about it at the moment.

I went to the food bank in the morning, and then worked all day on listing campsites for the book.

See A Riot of Daffs

Team C-J for the Win Yet Again

 Well, it appears that the last time I had the living room really clean was 2018, although Nov 2019 was probably close. And, no, it's not really clean now. And I didn't take a before picture, but this is the after. I know... there's still a lot of stuff. But you should have seen how much there was. Cathy came over and we spent two hours tackling this mess.

The couch is out of the picture on the right side, and it is clear (which it wasn't two days ago). As in... people can actually sit on it and use it as designed.

When I started working in earnest on the trailer project, all the wood, foam, moldings, etc were stored in the area you see here, in addition to everything you can still see.

So, where did all that stuff go?

We still have one viable out building. There was so much junk just thrown in the entrance way... We broke down about 50 dead boxes and pulled out some things that can go to recycle or the township cleanup day this spring. Again, no before picture. Not even an after picture. This is the middle of the project when it was cleaned out enough to move all the leftover building materials to this space.

Sure, I prefer having a cleaner house, but what has kicked me into a higher gear? Steve is coming for a visit in 2.5 weeks. We need enough space to at least have four people hanging around together and to eat meals. I have some hopes for part of the dining room table, but I'm not positive.

And, I edited, and managed to get 100 miles of campsites logged. I am whipped.

Just for perspective, You know I've been lamenting the utter mess here since I finished the hike. Well, I have emptied the boxes from and cleaned the kitchen (the floor was covered with boxes), cleaned and redecorated my bedroom, widened the aisle through the dining room by one whole row of boxes, pretty nearly finished cleaning the pantry (I'm still puttering on that), and the bathroom isn't bad. I guess I should feel a little better about my progress.

See Boring but Necessary