Halloween 2011

I note here a neglect of this blog. It was August when the last post landed. Today we changed the clocks to gloomy Winter Time. Many excellent Halloween pictures resulted from our annual tradition of Pumpkin Carving at Wolverine Lake, but I intend to focus on a single one, Monique’s last oeuvre of the night. Being last, it was left out of the collective pictures. Taking pity on this wonderful opus, we brought it home. Indeed it is still out there up front, but here I bring two images of it, one in the daylight and one on October 31 when, lit up, it supervised the Trick-n-Treaters:

By light...

By night...

Butterfly Update

We’ve documented butterfly “developments” on Ghulf Genes, but want to provide some instant news now. We took our five butterflies to Traverse City with us, in their chrysalis (or pupa) stage, in a little fishtank:

We got back late last night. This morning Brigitte removed the pupae. She put them out into the sunlight riding high above some old parsley plants.

Then, for good measure, she affixed a huge (from their perspective) plastic butterfly to the window by means of a suction cup. She thought it might “encourage” them. Here Brigitte “archetype”:

Tonight, to our astonishment, the first Black Swallowtail, by coloration a little boy, sliced itself a very narrow opening in its pupa and came out. Brigitte came screaming to get me, and here is a good picture of the new arrival as seen from the side, wings closed, in other words. Meanwhile we’d moved the tray to a more central place in the sunroom. Here he is:

An hour or two later our friend took flight—but only temporarily. At first he crashed against a wall in an unhappy attempt to plunge himself into a lamp. He crawled up the leg of a stool. Brigitte put the stool on the table and took this photo of our friend. Notice that his wings are now half-open.

There the new-born sat for a while, calming down. But the light was still drawing him ever on, ever on. Taking wing again, he landed (happily for the photographer) on the rim of the lampshade and, exhausted from this effort, rested with wings completely opene:

And that was also—probably—the last we shall see of Aristo One of 2011. He took wing again, fell once more, and once more climbed up the leg of the stool. We then decided that we’d set him free—and took the stool out into the night. Good-bye, young one. You’re back in your element again. A happy, happy flight to you in your brief but splendid, fascinating life...

And the two of us came in again, bent over from all of the tensions of the night...

Little MGs First Big Trip

If John's little MG (the license plate's FUN MG provides its first name too) is not exactly young, but it is the clan’s youngest addition, as it were. The trip to Traverse City was its first Big Trip. Soon after our arrival there Monique intended to take Brigitte on her maiden voyage in FUN. I hoped to take a picture, but John was assiduously busy (1) removing the last bit of dust and (2) making Brigitte as comfortable as possible—

I had to wait a bit before I could show off FUN in his complete, shiny glory...

Here! The background is our motel, called Anchor Inn. This is our second stay at this facility, which is now becoming our Second Rugby Home, complete with pear tree shedding fruit, a walk-to-beach for swimming or watching the Moon-Rise late by night. The first time, however, that we had cabin...

Yes. That number, in whatever combination, is an omen of Good Luck for this clan. The beach? Here it is:

The moon rise? Well, here it is, but I'll have to get Kodak to give me yet another lesson on using its High ISO setting for capturing images in virtually lightless conditions.

On the way home we thought we'd get some shots of FUN with the Great Water as backdrop, and above is the first, with John at the wheel.

With Monique and John both...

And finally with the two of us!

The young-old MG performed splendidly on the trip. On the last leg of it, in the dark, I rode with John, and we both enjoyed listening to Click and Clack do their Car Talk on Public Radio together—which seemed rather appropriate material for the occasion...

Sailing on Schooner Manitou

If you click on the image you can see the Schooner Manitou away in the distance on Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan. Seeing that ship suggested that we ought to sail on it ourselves. Two days later we did just that, and here some pictures taken in sequence with annotations here and there.

That's John helping to loft the sail!

And Monique watching the sail’s progress as it rises.

Or is she, instead, watching one of the crew climbing to the top of the main mast intending there to loft the main gaff topsail?

There it is, unfurled, but now seen from the port side instead.

For a while there Monique was much taken with the heights. You see her reclining on the starboard side (must stay with sea lingo here), camera ready to catch the unexpected.

Yes, she saw something. And John on the left (port) is looking at the same development. The maddening thing about being on a great boat is that it is so difficult to see it in the whole.

Brigitte, meanwhile was taking in the view. She is visible on the right.

Here a view from the forward hold up—this compartment being the one where the crew spend their nights.

And that’s me, having clambered back up, looking the way I normally do, unedited, now intently observing our captain in her most efficient handling of the boat as we prepared for another tack.

Then off to sail the blue waters of the Great Lakes...

The trip ended, at last, in a leisurely manner. You see Brigitte, Monique, and John relaxing. The sails have been lowered. We made two attempts to dock before succeeding; a sharp off-shore wind prevented our crew from throwing rope to the shore to hold us.

Therefore we had time to enjoy the experience, others to display spontaneous affection. Finally...

We said goodby to sky-blue waters, for the time being. But we shall return...

The Algonquian word for a Spirit Being is manitou. There are many, invisible, but yet they are associated now with animals, now with islands, now with trees—and sometimes with things like sailing schooners. But they are real, real persons, and you can relate to them. Yes. In a way, on this vacation trip, we found that out too.

Be-Quinced

Here is our quince bush shortly after its planting, the photo taken on June 28th.

Here is the same plant, although the picture is taken from the other side, taken today, thus twenty days later. Notice that the very full bush in the previous photo has thinned out tremendeously. I should have taken a picture of the intermediate stage. In that stage most of the leaves now gone had turned brown and shrivelled up. If you look closely, you can see them littering the ground neath the bush.

Some of the new growth is now also either turning yellow or showing little brown tips, as in the close-up above.

The worst of it is that Monique's quince bush is now showing nothing but brown leaves, leaving us, at both sides of the Metro, anxious.

I've discovered so far (these are all possibilities from the Internet) that (1) we may have over-watered, but that the consequence may not be fatal; roots are over-saturated and can't get any oxygen or nutrition; (2) that quince plants are temperamental and do sometimes loose all of their leaves in June and July—only to recover them later; and (3) that replanting-shock in some cases and energy expended in other cases exhaust the plant temporarily. In any case, stay tuned...

I am also not entirely sure of the actual species we have planted. Possibilities are that we have Cydonia oblonga, quince, or that we have Chaenomeles speciosa, the flowering quince, which is an Asian variant. The first got its name from a place on Crete called Kydonia—and is the variety widely grown in Europe. The leaves, at any rate, look like Cydonia.

Where are the Pontoon Pirates?

We have been looking and looking, watching the horizon every day in hopes of spotting them. It is, after all, summer here on Wolverine Lake.


The fish are jumping and so are the fireworks.


And everyone is wondering, where are the Pontoon Pirates? We have all been out searching the lake, day....


and night, but to no avail.


We were even getting worried that the weed harvester may have gobbled them up! So, we followed that machine carefully for an entire day, watching for any evidence of malicious intent. Luckily, we found none.


Stella keeps a watch on the lake for signs of the Pontoon Pirates' arrival... inbetween a few other activities, like, for example,


cooling off in the lake,


drying off in the sun,


helping to clean and decorate before the July 3rd party,


kayaking and wake boarding,


varnishing a few pieces of furniture,


and tubing behind Wendy's new boat, not to mention playing the guitar, doing some drawing, studying her summer lessons, mowing lawns, and watching old movies with John. But inbetween, she has been keeping a vigilant lookout for those pirates.


Even Katie has gotten into the act of searching for any sign (smell in her case) of the Pontoon Pirates.

We sure hope they arrive soon....