Is it Summer?

I'm not sure where spring went, but summer is here - at least for this week. It's 77° outside as I'm typing this. I generally prefer the low 70's, but the humidity is only 46% and we have a nice breeze, so it's very comfortable. Since this is the last day in May, I thought I had better share a few more May photographs.

Let's go out to the property first. Here's the most recent long shot of the house - taken on May 21st. 

Since I spent so much of my adult life with Webster as my last name, and since I so often signed notes/messages with my initials of J.W. when working in the school office, I think it's kind of neat that all our windows had stickers with "JW" on them.

Anyway. . . you can see our barn through the trees at this time of year.

I'm sure you noticed the mess in the foreground of that last shot. We're working on it.

We love our trees, but we don't consider ourselves tree huggers. We needed to take down a few more trees in that area (1) to widen the driveway for better snow removal, and (2) in order to use some of the dirt from that hill for fill around the house. Our contractors cut the trees down at "ground level" when we still had snow.

As you can see, "ground level" has changed since the snow melted.

Crazy, huh? 

Meanwhile, back in Calumet:  Things are continuing to "green up." Steve mowed the lawn for the first time on Thursday evening. I took this shot after dinner last night.

I noticed our first "pop of color" yesterday morning, but Steve had the camera with him on the property. I had to wait until he got home to take pictures, and we had 4 pops of color by then.

We're currently up to 8 pops of color. Whether it's spring or summer, all the pops are very much appreciated.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Celebrity Sighting

Now that Steve is a major TV star, I suppose we'll be rubbing shoulders with many celebrities. We just never expected that to happen quite so soon. Monday was Memorial Day and the weather was beautiful, so we decided to take a drive to Copper Harbor and back. I'll focus on the Eagle River portion of our day in this blog post. 

We made our first stop at Eagle River Falls and noticed that the water had slowed down considerably since our last visit. You can see rocks again.

I turned to my left and snapped the next photo from the bridge. The white 2-story building with the cupola is the museum/community building. The long white building you can see in the background on the right is the Keweenaw County Courthouse.

Can you see Lake Superior to the left of the garage in that last photo? I turned a little more to the left and zoomed in to snap the next one where you can clearly see Lake Superior.

We jumped in the Traverse and headed down the hill to the big lake. That's when we had our celebrity sighting, but I'll save that for the end of this post. We rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill. . .

drove past the Eagle River Inn. . .

(Insert Corvette owner wave!) and continued to the beach area.

 

Of course, we had to stop and take a few deep breaths.

 

We were struck with the change in the depth of the beach. 

 

Lake Superior is definitely higher than it was last year (and way higher than it was 2 years ago).

Now, the moment you've been waiting for - our celebrity sighting! As we drove down the hill toward the beach, we noticed something.

There was a white truck parked on the left side of the road at the curve.

We recognized the truck, as we've seen it before.

It belongs to a celebrity. . . and there he was!

Again, here's the truck. . .

 

and here's the celebrity (lower left corner of the photo).

Do you recognize him?

Right! That's professional fisherman, Mark Martin. He has a place up here outside of Eagle River. We never imagined when we left Calumet that morning that we would be hobnobbing with a celebrity at Noon!

I know what you're wondering. Did we stop and talk to him? No, we didn't want to bother the guy on Memorial Day. Steve was just happy that we stumbled upon him. It was like a little tip from a pro on a good fishing spot!

All is well in the Keweenaw.

P.S. As time permits, I'm working on assigning topic labels to all my previous blog posts. That will enable you to search for posts by topic. You'll notice the new list "Blog Post Topics" in the left column. Clicking on a topic will take you to the posts that correspond to that particular topic. This may take me a while to complete. I'll also try to update the Construction page in the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck!

Stardom

I know I already shared this with some of you, but not everyone knows about it yet. I'm married to a star. Yep, Steve made a TV commercial. 

When we were in Saginaw at the beginning of the month, we took our Chevrolet Traverse in for some warranty work. Our old neighbor, Rob Draper, owns Draper Auto (Chevy & Toyota dealerships) in Saginaw. We buy all our vehicles there and have work done there whenever we can (even though we've moved far away). When Steve picked up our Traverse the day we were headed home to the U.P., Rob asked him if he wanted to be in a commercial they were filming that day. Steve passed up the opportunity once before and had kicked himself ever since, so he enthusiastically said, "Yes!" Rob replied, "C'mon Neighbor. I'm going to make you a star!"

As luck would have it, Steve was wearing his dark gray Corvette sweatshirt and one of his Draper hats that day. He appears twice near the beginning of the commercial - once standing near the white SUV and once standing next to the dark green Corvette convertible. 

Here's the link to the commercial:

Draper Auto - Chevrolet Commercial - May 2014

It has hit the big screens in the Saginaw area and Steve is already feeling the effects. He was trying to get some work done on the property last week, and his cell phone kept ringing and interrupting him. People wanted to know, "Was that you in the Draper commercial?" That was all great fun at first, but he started to have second thoughts about stardom when he saw some movement in our woods. What was that? The paparazzi sneaking through trying to take some candid photos to sell to the tabloids? Nope! Luckily, it was just a bear. Whew!

 

So, I guess I'm now married to a star. Steve assures me that his ball cap still fits, and he has no plans to trade me in on a younger model. 

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Happy Memorial Day!

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Sunday Reflections

We're having beautiful weather this weekend, but the following photo shows a storm over Lake Superior.

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Siding is Finished

We've been waiting for a while. . .

but the siding is now finished.

 

The fascia (roof trim) and the trim around the garage doors will be done soon - now that our weather is getting warmer.

These are the lights that will be positioned next to the overhead garage doors.

We have matching lights in a smaller size for the front door and the rear garage door.

We still need to finish the front porch and pick out the imitation stone for the area below the siding, but it's exciting to see an exterior that's almost finished. Here's the view through the woods from the barn.

I'm not sure when we'll get to the deck, and landscaping will be a work in progress for the next few 5+ years!

All is well in the Keweenaw.

P.S. Our windows in Calumet are open today, and I just heard the very first lawnmower in our neighborhood this season!

Pure Michigan

The Keweenaw Peninsula is featured in a new Pure Michigan radio ad. Click on the following link to listen to the ad and explore the Keweenaw page on the Pure Michigan site.

Pure Michigan-Hot Spots-Keweenaw Peninsula

All is well in the Keweenaw.

Ten Foot

I don't know if you're in the mood for more waterfall shots, but I'm going to share them anyway. Waterfalls are one of my favorite things about living here. I find them all beautiful at all times of the year - whether it's the gurgling trickle of Haven Falls in late summer or the thunderous rush of Eagle River Falls in the spring. 

We stopped by Ten Foot Falls when Marty and Donna were visiting this month. These falls are located along Hwy. 26 between Phoenix and Eagle River. We park the car along the road and walk into the woods to view them. Steve calls this area "the place with the skipping rocks," and some locals call this place "the old swimming hole." It wouldn't be a good area for swimming at this time of year, however. The current would carry you down into Lake Superior, and all the rocks under the water would make for a very bumpy and dangerous ride. Even though the falls are in the woods just off the road, it's so peaceful that we could sit there for hours listening to the sound - totally mesmerized by the water.

Here are the photos. The water was the highest I had ever seen it that day.

 

Compare that to how it looked last August.

Here it is again on May 9th.

The same downstream area from a slightly different angle last August.

All the rocks are covered with water right now. . .

but they were clearly visible and walkable last August.

That's Grace walking on the rocks. Now, notice the taller splash of water in the center background of the next photo.

That water is splashing because it's hitting the high rock you can see in the right background of this photo.

In the following picture, can you see the hollow in the trunk of the tree - on the right side near the ground? The water is splashing in it and up around it.

That's where Grace was sitting in the next shot taken last August.

Her feet were a long way from the water back then! Wish she could see it now. 

Your waterfall tour wouldn't be complete without another video. Here's a snippit of the sights and sounds we experienced at Ten Foot Falls on May 9th. Enjoy!

All is well in the Keweenaw.