More Fort Wilkins

We spent part of our 2012 Memorial Day weekend at Fort Wilkins in Copper Harbor, and I wrote 2 blog posts about our experience. I recently noticed 3 short videos about Fort Wilkins on the website for the Fort Wilkins Natural History Association, and I thought I would share them with you.

If you wish to first refresh your memory as to what I wrote about our visit to Fort Wilkins last year, scroll down the left column of this page, look for "Blog Archive," and click on "2012." Scroll down again, and click on "June." Scroll down again, and click on "Fort Wilkins - Part 1" and "Fort Wilkins - Part 2."

To watch the 3 short videos, click on the links below.

Fort Wilkins - Part I video

Fort Wilkins - Part II video

Fort Wilkins - Part III video

We won't be touring Fort Wilkins this weekend. Steve is finishing up some things on the property today in preparation for the excavator to return on Tuesday.

Let's not forget the meaning behind Memorial Day. For a brief history, click on the following link:

Memorial Day History

Break out your BBQ grills, and have a wonderful weekend!

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Home

Our hearts are here.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Good Friends

If you're reading this, you're either a relative or a friend. 

We're thankful for good relatives, and we're thankful for good friends. We have been blessed with both.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

July in the Keweenaw?

We noticed a local real estate listing the other day, and we had to laugh.

Is this July in the Keweenaw?

The real estate agent obviously needs to reset the date on his camera (or he uses the British system of writing dates).

On the other hand, this is a photo I snapped of our deck this afternoon.

Can you see those icy pellets between the boards? We knew it was raining today, but we didn't see those falling from the sky!

We do have better weather in the forecast.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

North Country Dreamland

I think I gave you the impression in my last post that every last bit of our snow is gone. It's not! There's still a pile of snow between our fence and the garage next door. We have remnants of dirty snow piles around town, and we still couldn't drive down the driveway on our property today.

However, we're reasonably certain that new flakes won't be falling for at least 4 or 5 months!




A photographer in Marquette (Shawn Malone) took some amazing time lapse photos of the U.P. sky and compiled them into a video (North Country Dreamland). It's gorgeous. This is her description of her video.

"Video locations include Isle Royale National Park, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Headlands Intl Dark Sky Park, North Country Trail, Hiawatha National Forest, Marquette, MI, Copper Harbor, MI, Eagle Harbor, MI and Au Train, MI. 

It took a year to shoot and a bit of tenacity and persistence to get this into a form of coherent electrified cosmic goodness. 

Night sky-scapes include multiple northern lights scenes, meteor showers, nebulae, planets, including Venus and Jupiter setting from Spring 2012, constellations, the milky way, comet Pan-Starrs, night-scapes over both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan."

The video is almost 7 minutes long, but it's well worth the time to watch. Our Eagle Harbor Lighthouse is featured twice. Be sure to look for the Sandhill Crane, too.

Click on the link highlighted in yellow below to take you to Vimeo. (Be sure to click on the arrow in the lower left corner of the video to make it start!)

North Country Dreamland

All is well in the Keweenaw!

Going, Going, Gone - We Think!

The last 3 weeks have been crazy around here! I had a birthday (now halfway to 104), Steve had a birthday (now halfway to 120), we installed a sub pump in our Calumet basement, Steve made a 5-day trip to lower Michigan, we worked on construction "stuff," and I had a bad spell of migraines while trying to make some decisions on new chairs and blinds for our church.

We were concerned about the Saginaw area last month, as the frequent rains were bringing flooding to the region. Then, the U.P. underwent a rapid meltdown causing wet basements all over our area and a few flooded rivers and lakes. The locals tell us they have never seen anything like it before. The installation of a sub pump sounded like an excellent idea, as we don't want my mom to ever have a problem with this basement after she moves in. We heard the sub pump running a lot for about a week, so it was a wise decision.

To illustrate the meltdown, here's the backyard on April 23:

 

Ten days later on May 2:

Four days later on May 6:

Keep in mind, that's a fairly accurate picture of the snow depth on April 23rd. The piles created from shoveling and roof raking were much higher. In fact, the pile right in back of the house was still almost at the roof line on that date. Another amazing thing to consider is that we had additional 7" of snow during that 2-week timespan. Thus, we lost a lot of snow, and we lost it quickly!

Further proof - May 2:

May 6:

Yes, the fence project will get finished this year.

Here's Steve cleaning up Cocoa's winter "business" (revealed after the snow melted) on May 10. She looks embarrassed. (She should be!)

This was the snow remaining in the backyard that same day.

When we awoke the next morning on Saturday, the 11th, we saw this.

It melted by that afternoon, but the image was repeated on Sunday morning, as we had another inch or so. Again, it melted by Sunday afternoon. I checked the weather forecast for the next 2 weeks, and I think that will be the end of it for the season. Temperatures don't look favorable for more flakes, so I doubt I'll get any more shots of "roof eyelashes" for a while.

We've had lots of activity at the bird feeders lately. Along with a large assortment of sparrows and starlings and a woodpecker, we've had many visits from the Junco clan.

Mr. Robin finally put in his first appearance on May 1st. He showed up on April 1st last year.

We especially enjoyed our Purple Finch.

Well, that should catch you up on the Keweenaw climate. Our snow is gone - we think!

All is well in the Keweenaw.