Wow, flowers at last...............

So.....finally I have some garden pictures.

The Quince is one of my favourites, it reminds me of my Dad's garden. I have a few and Will try to transplant some to keep them going. I have an orange one and two reds at the moment.

The blossoms are finally out on the Crabapples. This year both the pink and white are blooming.

I like to add some colour with the leaves. Lime brightens up darker corners

This year I have added purple to my usual colours of pink and blue. I just happen to love those colours in the garden. I must admit I do love the purple.

Well there are a lot of things blooming or getting ready to bloom so I will have pictures for awhile. I believe this is a wild geranium?' Not sure though

I will wrap this up for tonight and maybe tomorrow I will write about the sad even that happened. A Starling that was hurt or sick........we tried to help but.......you will see next time
Sharing with A Dedicated House
Sharing with Home and Garden Thursday at Delightsome Life

A quick walk..................

After our longer than expected walk yesterday we decided we really wanted a walk but we wanted a short one. We had gone shopping at Kohl's and Michael's. This is a trail we walk often. Come to find out they are going to extend it.


This trail is upon land once roamed by the Oleson buffalo herd. The land was sold and The Great Wolf Lodge was built upon it. Between that and Kohls is a small tract of land where Kid's Creek runs through. Rather than disrupt all that the land is set aside and now the nature trails are there. Behind all that is more open land so it will be cool to see where the new trails will be.
Anyway, this day we went around the ones available
So Tristen was off and running. We stopped to look at the streams where little bridges cross them.


Looking back up the hill, its again hard to realize that we are right in town here.

So the path we took to the left circles and we then come to a pond. Its a little fishing pond where people can take their kids.On the other sideis a disused irrigation thing, we were not sure it it served the farm or ran on somewhere else. It looked like it was a small dam of some kind. It looked like sluice gates.

On the roof of an old abandoned hut was a turkey vulture. I think he and his friends were hoping to get a pair of ducks who had a few babies. The babies were being bad and not staying with their parents. The vultures left when we arrived. Then they went through a channel into a swampy area through a pipe. Well a couple of the naughty babies got left behind and were setting up a bit of a racket. The daddy duck flew back into the pond to get them rounded up.You can see he is listening to their wails of displeasure


We went through yet another cedar thicket (they are all over in Michigan)

Trees are beautiful things


In the branches were Yellow finches singing sweet songs.

The brilliant blue and yellow and lime

As we came out of the wooded area we saw a very large fish in the creek.


Beautiful trees. This one is so soft, it looks like a pine with pine cones but it's different. I think it's a Tamarack (Larch)

On the clear spring water there is watercress growing

If you know what to look for there is plenty to eat out there in the wild. After all man has not always grown gardens. Know your surroundings. You never know when that information may come in handy. This day we found frogs. Lots of them

Just a few more things.


Linking up with Little Red House and Mosaic Monday,

second part of our Mothers Day drive..........

After our picnic we went towards Empire, Dan told us he heard the Dune drive was open. It was.......so off we went with full tummies. It's always lovely up there. This time of year its clear views, you can see right through the trees.

This is the view of Big and Little Glen Lake...........not as blue as in summer

We made several stops at the top of the Dunes. On this one you are way at the top looking straight down Reina wanted to go down.Just because some people do....well it would take us at least 3 days to climb back up the way we were feeling that day. No thanks Reina, your day will come soon enough. The water is crystal clear. We could see ducks on the water like pin pricks in size from up top


The water was so calm.........you can see folks going down the side. The Park service really don't want people doing that but I can't see them stopping unless they close it off to the public. That was discussed but the local people voted that down right quick. The thing is, it's National Park now and has been publicized frequently nation wide. We get loads of visitors, but those who have lived here and remember before it was a park. It's sort of hard to be told what we can and can not do now. I have no wish to climb down, or climb the walk up dunes but people do it all the time and especially local kids. They like to have a bonfire on the beach. Alex and Bill would do that every year and my friends kids always did too as they grew up. Its hard to stop that. It's the same thing with dogs, people have always run their dogs on the beaches and still do.......its just that if the Rangers see you then they give a ticket. It's hard to be told what to do or not do. Locals see it as theirs. It always has been theirs.

The sand is pure and on windy days (like the last time we were there) its like sand blasting.

This next shot is looking towards Glen Haven past the old barns.

Cat tails on the trees

Then we were exhausted and my shoes full of sand

This huge rock is a gigantic fossil

A set of Petoskey stones that are old corals that once grew here in the Great Lakes. Its also clear that the water was once over most of this side of the state. We find them inland as well as on the beaches.

One of the summer pass times is looking for the Petoskey stones on the beaches. Naturally now its a national park we are not supposed to take them. Well that's not going to stop its part of the joy of walking the beach. This is a lovely time of year before the tourists come...........we love it.

A spring drive.................

Sunday was Mothers Day. Laura, Reina, Gerry and myself went out for a ride as it was such a pretty day. I should have stayed and worked in the garden but, well I didn't. We rode out towards Empire. Dan told us the Dune drive was open so that's where we headed to. We took our time looking for birds and animals along the way. I don't know why it's such a thrill to see animals living their lives free and yet it's such a harsh life. So many dead deer in the woods this year. Bad for the deer yet sustenance for others.
Below.....the Trout lilly

The Trillium are not quite out yet. We had hoped to find Morel's (mushrooms) but no luck. I was not particularly interested because I was taking pictures of the flowers.
below.....Trillium, not yet fully open

Spring beauties

Dutch mans breeches

WE had gone on an old road in an area we used to live and stopped to walk in the woods. Well further along is an old farm that has been abandoned for many years. Someone has bought the property and built there. We stopped anyway to take pictures because it does not look as though it will be standing much longer. We were watching some crows who were chasing a larger bird. We could not quite see but I think it was a Turkey Vulture.

The poor old house looks so sad

There is no saving them, along that road when we lived out there were several very old log cabins. They are entirely gone now. This will soon be the same. There was an old well there and a water pump. This is a picture of me and Gerry, I am trying to catch the hawk or buzzard, still trying to see what it was.

Next stop was a picnic as we left without a thought to lunch. Reina had wanted a picnic but we were not planning on anything so we just stopped at the small store in Maple City and then at the park. Expensive picnic but we do what we must.

Laura and her sandwich, Reina is off playing on the playground.

I will write another post about the next part of our afternoon tomorrow.

I am linking up with Lavender Garden Cottage

Garden birds..............

I was hoping by now we would have a lot of pictures of the garden. Not so.........it has been so cold that everything is late. I can not believe its been 6 whole months of winter this year. We have also had a lot of rain. We needed that to wash away the snow. All gone now. Only saw a very few piles on the way down state. Almost gone on our way back as it rained most of the weekend. Hope that's the end of that.
So not very many things to share in the garden yet. We had raked up the leaves but a lot have blown back. So here are a few pictures of the same old birds.

Sometimes there are some good shots but it does get a bit boring.

I missed a great picture of a Pileated Woodpecker the other day.

The next one is of a regular visitor

The poodles and Boots are at least able to run outside now. Its still too cold for them but they do the best they can.

I have made a half hearted effort to clean up. By the time I am able to do a good job I wont care. I already don't see much point in getting annuals. Why bother. Its Mid May and could snow by the end of September.
At least just a few mini daffs have popped through. Regular daffs are not even trying.

The poodles having fun

It wont be long though and then maybe I will have more enthusiasm for my blogs. Right now it does not seem like its worth it as there is nothing to show.