Tag Archives: Photo by Steve Thorpe

Lace knitting

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I stink at lace knitting. This little creature, well actually I spotted her and she isn’t all that little, knows how to do it. The two-leggeds among us, we obsess about every yarn over and agonize over our nupps. Spiders understand that lace is just supposed to happen.  You get your legs going, rhythmically tangling and untangling your silk and, pretty soon, in flies (or crawls) lunch.

The “bridge thread” across the top of this “sheet web” was about 18 inches long. The 22 radial lines steady the web in the breeze. That bit in the middle, the center point of the “capture spiral,” was intact. But the dew had already dried on it. According to Wikipedia, spiders don’t stick in their own webs (usually) because they can spin sticky silk and non-sticky silk and they somehow know the difference and don’t walk on the sticky parts.

Did you know that two  spiders, Anita and Arabella, travelled to Skylab 3 in 1973 to do their lace knitting in zero gravity? It took them a few days to adjust. When they were first released into their window-like cage, they made disorganized swimming movements. At first their webs were incomplete, but in a bit they were building webs just like back home, but of finer silk. They were fed water and a housefly, and eventually rare filet mignon, but they soon died–probably of dehydration. Their remains are preserved at the Smithsonian. As far as I know, nobody else has been lace knitting in space.

The fog was very heavy this mid September morning on the lake. The dew was too. It dewed up the spider’s web, which is suspended on a corner of our dock. The morning sun and Steve and his camera did the rest.

Doe “a deer, a female deer”

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Isn’t she a beauty? She was alert to our presence, how could she not be, what with those gigantic ears of hers? But she still let us have a good long look at her.

Steve and the zoom feature on his camera lens captured her so clearly that I feel compelled to tell you that this white-tailed deer is not part of a natural history museum diorama.  She is standing on the west end of Long Lake’s Ghost Bay on a crisp late fall morning.

Foggy morning

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We set out across Long Lake in very thick fog about 7:30 in the morning. Steve’s kayak has a compass on it and we crossed the lake in fog so thick you couldn’t tell the water from the sky. Kind of creepy. I figured not even the fishermen would be out this morning, but I was wrong. As we left Ghost Bay, the fog had started to burn off and Steve captured fishing at its most peaceful.

Michigan’s state reptile: the Painted Turtle

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In 1995, this little Painted Turtle was designated Michigan’s state reptile. Well not this exact little Painted Turtle, but all of her (or his) kind. MCL  2.14: “The painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) is designated as the official reptile of this state.”

OK, state flower (apple blossom), state wildflower (dwarf lake iris), state tree (white pine), state stone (petoskey stone), state gem (chlorastrolite), state fossil (mastodon), state game mammal (white-tail deer), state fish (trout). Still, somehow a state reptile seems a tad odd. Michigan having a state soil (Kalkaska soil series) also gives cause for pause and isn’t featured prominently in our Pure Michigan campaign either. “Come to Michigan to see our dirt.”

But if we are going to have a state reptile, and lots of states do, then I’m glad the Painted Turtle lobby won. We have other kinds of turtles in Michigan, the Snapping Turtle being the most impressive. But I favor the more benign turtles, like Painted Turtles and Box Turtles. Plus the big snappers will often gather up all manner of unsightly stuff clinging to their shells. If you pick up a Painted Turtle it might have a leech clinging to its underbelly, but that’s to be forgiven because it encourages most of us to leave them alone.

Usually a Painted Turtle sunning itself on a log will quietly and quickly slip in the water as a kayak approaches. But this guy had the perfect sunny day and the perfect perch on the beaver lodge in Ghost Bay. So maybe he allowed himself to be more tolerant of us, since of course we didn’t touch and we let the camera do the zooming around and not us.

 

Welcome to Paradise (Michigan)

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This is Paradise. Really. It is a small town in the eastern part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Paradise is the gateway to Tahquamenon Falls and Whitefish Point. I’ll be writing more on the area in upcoming posts. One of the cool things about Paradise is that it’s about 3.5 hours from Long Lake. Cross over The Big Mac, drive an hour and 30 minutes, and you’re there.

Paradise is the wild blueberry capital of Michigan. From the 1880s until the 1920s, the area’s huge stands of white pines were logged basically into stubble. The stubble caught fire regularly and wild blueberry bushes thrived in the acidic soil. In June and July it’s low bush blueberries and in August and September it’s the high bush variety. The berries were in high demand back before folks learned how to cultivate blueberries instead of just find them. Wild blueberries are mighty tasty–in a way that’s different from the farm grown ones. They don’t all look like they were extruded from some machine. And low bush blueberries have a violet-colored inside. When you bite into them, they don’t pop out of their skin so easily like the cultivated ones do. That means that when you chew a mouthful you don’t feel like you’re chewing little slimy eyeballs.

Today, Paradise relies on hunters,fishermen, birders, shipwreck enthusiasts, kayakers and those looking for waterfalls and whitefish. We met friendly folks, in a town with one ATM–a dial-up modem inside this combination convenience store, sporting goods store, gas station–guarded by a cool example of modern folk art.

We saw much natural beauty during our two days in Paradise. We also visited some very sobering sites, including the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point and a local cemetery. But I thought I’d start the blogging where our visit started, enjoying one of the more memorable bikers and his dog.

Really, how is somebody supposed to take a biker dude seriously when he travels with his purse dog?