I have upper St. Marys (no apostrophe) lighthouses on my brain but I am not synthesizing all the bits and pieces into anything coherent, so a bit about “our” lighthouses.

This lighthouse was decommissioned in 1921 if my memory (from yesterday) is accurate. My granddaddy and two of his friends bought our beach property the next year. This might be my favorite lighthouse because we could walk to it from the moomincabin. It was waaaaay back in the woods/swamp. We would walk the two-track down to Doley’s (when they weren’t there and they usually weren’t). We would hang a right just to the west of the Doley house (aka old lighthouse keeper’s house) and walk back into the woods/swamp along the path that started out with bricks(?) but quickly degenerated into moss and a bit of muck.

It felt like we were walking miles but it really wasn’t that far. When we got there, we entered the building and ascended a staircase that “spiraled” along the walls to the top. I wish I had a pic of that but I don’t. I wasn’t exactly traveling with a computer/camera in my pocket in those days. We would emerge at the top and voila! We could see the Doley end of the beach on the upper St. Marys River!

The back light was a “range light”. It had a twin light, the “front light”. Back in the day, the ships would make a particular turn when the lights from the front and back lights lined up. That was well before my time. By the time I was a teenager, the back light was deemed (by our parents) to be unsafe to enter. Around the same time, some hoodlums from my high school were staying in the area on a family “vacation”. One night, while their parents were sitting around drinking gin and tonics (and slapping MOE-skee-TOES), these teens were trashing the front range light. One of the MANY reasons I never became a true juvenile delinquent, despite some of my more wild moments.

The firast pix is my dad in front of the back light. He and my brother were out there in the winter. By that time, the back light was not a viable place to climb, let alone enter. A few years later than this, it tipped over. Radical Betty thought she heard that happen but who knows. Here is npJane perching upon the remains of the lighthouse.

Certain people have been driving me nutso lately by referring to wind that comes straight into the moominbeach (like in the first pic) as a “north wind”. Nope. Our beach faces northWEST and when the waves are coming straight in, they are coming from the northwest. We get the biggest waves when the wind is coming from the northwest.

Now. The wind does *occasionally* actually come from the north. When it does, the waves come in at a slant and they are never very big, not anywhere near like the ones shown here, with only a few teensy tinesy little crests. Also, a north wind is much colder than a northwest wind.

Anyway, I have been harping on the person who keeps calling this a NORTH wind. No no no no, it is not. Today, I was (finally) looking through The Binder. The Binder contains all kinds of Canadian vital records for my grandparents (birth, marriage, death). It also contains court documents for an important land ownership case that my grandfather (and two friends) won against an interloper. More on that some other day. I do not possess a “legal” mind and on my first quick scan, about all I will say for now is that plaintiff Gretchen was about as good as the Orange Baboon and an estranged in-law of mine at picking lawyers. Like, you don’t have a case but we’ll take yer money anyway.

Long before modern navigational aids for shipping, there were lighthouses all over the place in this area and lighthouse keeper was a pretty good job, if I get it right. There was a letter in The Binder from a woman sending her niece bits and pieces from her own sojourn as a lighthouse keeper’s wife. When I was a child, some of those old lighthouses still existed in various states of disrepair. I haven’t processed all of this (and maybe won’t ever) but my soul is kind of ringing with the fact that people walked this beach and swam here well before me.

From a lighthouse keeper’s wife’s notes in the late 1800s:

I kept our books and if we would forget one day, we would just put in “northwest wind, all lights visible.” We could not miss on that. Wind was most always northwest.

Indeed.

The second pic (from the Sherman Archives) is of meeeeee (in the middle) and a couple other kids swimming in a northwest wind with even wilder waves than today. I was six.

Deck work. Scraping paint and washing.

Mowing the North Country Trail with an old lawnmower of my dad’s. Six miles of this.

Aftermath of a much needed rain storm complete with thunder, a seiche, and I think I heard the marine warning siren go off in Brimley. Hopefully this will help with the air quality.

Dinner at Pickles courtesy of Le Marquis, where they had totally run out of fish. Reason? The fishermen, who are out *every* day, did not go out during the smokiest days. I had my heart set on the one-piece whitefish basket but was happy to settle for a BLT instead. More thunderstorms are rolling through. Hope that settles the smoke down a bit although it has been better the last couple days.

P.S. With the thunderstorms rolling through this evening, it’s dark in the moomincabin and it would’ve been a great night to light candles. Getting too late now. Oh well.

I’ve been following Jere Farms on facebook for a while. Today I found them in person. Not that they are hard to find. Their farm stand is a hop, skip, and a jump away from the moominbeach. Actually it’s an even easier drive from here than Meijer if that’s possible because Meijer is a pretty easy drive. Jere Farms is closer and has a mini parking lot. They take all kinds of payment methods, cash, credit, Venmo, PayPal, you name it. I used a credit card. The farm stand cashier and I became fast friends (I bet that happens to a lot of folks). She also works at Neville’s.

Oh, Neville’s. It is also a wonderful store although not one that’s on my “beat”. Once when I was a kid visiting from college, my parents and Radical Betty and Uncle Duck sent me out to buy bourbon at Neville’s. I fergit what the occasion was but we were at the Dillon house and they were sitting at the little kitchen table and had already had a booze-burger so I was dispatched to buy more bourbon. My parents told me to buy “Jim Crow”! At that age (I may not have even been 21 yet) I knew nothing about bourbon and although “Jim Crow” rang a bell, it wasn’t very loud, at least not at that moment. So when I got there and told the gal at the counter (who was a LARGE, LOUD woman a few years older than me, like high school senior when I was a freshman), I wanted “Jim Crow”, she LOUDLY replied “I have Jim Beam and Old Crow but I don’t have Jim Crow.” I recognized Jim Beam and that turned to be the right choice. Whew! And I certainly haven’t ever made that stupid mistake again. (My parents and aunt/uncle were NOT fans of Jim Crow laws, they just got bourbon names mixed up.)

Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula has long been and still is an extremely economically depressed area. Except for the folks who are rich and there are plenty who are. I have trouble processing where I fit into all of this. Growing up, I felt rich at some times, poor at others. I don’t know if I will ever be able to sort this stuff out let alone blahg about it.

The thing is that small businesses like Jere Farms seem to be carving out competitive spots against big box stores like Meijer. Although I have nothing against Meijer. It has stuff you can’t get at farm stands, like bourbon and toilet bowl cleaner and fuzzy water.

Or maybe up into the smoke is a better way to put it.

It was a long travel day featuring a lengthy stop to see FlaMan at his new facility, then lunch at the Driftwood in Iggy. I went to pay for lunch and OOPS! Look ma, no credit cards. Yep, due to a laundry kerfuffle, I had taken my cards (and drivers license) out of my vest/purse pocket and put them into the pocket of an identical vest/purse. Guess what? I was not wearing the vest with the cards in its pocket. I have three identical patagonia vests that I use for this purpose. I hate carrying purses. I mean, The Commander was constantly leaving her purse places. The public bathroom at the Henry Ford Hoosegow, the graveyard. Etc. (“Grandma left her purse in the graveyard. Heeeeee hee hee hee hee.”)

We paid with one of the GG’s cards and for the remaining hour of travel, I tried not to panic. Lemme see… The vest with the cards is probably packed with the rest of my clothes and I just grabbed the wrong one. If not, maybe I can get one of the beach urchins to go over to the Landfill and look for it. I can use the GG’s card(s) until then. Still it was unsettling.

When we got to the moomincabin, I unpacked one of my suitcases and there was a vest in there but NO CARDS!!! Yikes! I was a bit panicky for a few minutes but then I unpacked the *other* suitcase, which I hadn’t (I didn’t think) packed any clothing into. I was getting my laptop out and forgot that, at the last minute, I had stuffed a random vest (the third vest) in there. Guess what? There were my cards! Whew.

Before lunch, I flatly turned down a suggestion from the GG that we stop at Meijer before going to the cabin. Do you really want to make this trip longer than it already is? No no no no. By the time we would get to Meijer, it would be mid-late afternoon ON A SATURDAY. I knew I wouldn’t have the psychological bandwidth to handle the crowds. I have enough food for tonight. We could use a nice green salad to go with the prepared Plum Market lasagna but I’m not buying lettuce at regular grocery stores until this cyclosporiasis thing is gone. I think I can get local lettuce and other veggies from small farmers so we’ll go that route.

Also, when we got here, the GG needed to install the replacement terlet seat. He then took a nap and when he arose from that, it was late and I had totally forgotten to Fix the Refrigerator. My bad and I rectified it PDQ.

G’night, KW

First things first. We started off the day bright smoky and early by taking my cousin to the airport. You probably do NOT want to know her schedule, except that it winds up at the Chippewa County International Airport in a few days, meaning we’ll see her again soon. A much easier and friendlier airport than DayTwa Metro BTW. I so wanted to give my cousin a hug but I was in the back seat and Cygnus would not release me to save my life. Since Metro was the usual mess, she skedaddled hugless while we fumbled with the damn door. Upon inspection back at The Landfill, it was discovered that a recent car-cleaning operation had inadvertently activated the child lock… We did a virtual hug by text when she boarded the plane.

The pic? My mouse texted this to me. This is her garden! Born from a mama like me, I don’t totally understand where she gets this DNA. My great-grandparents (mom’s grandparents) might be one source. There are probably others. But look at that BEAN ARCH (on the left) and those sunflowers (on the right). Especially the super-tall sunflower. I don’t even think the racc can reach the top of that. There’s a lot of other stuff in the garden (squash, for one thing) so this is not a complete tour.

BTW, this is a joint effort. I dunno who all does what but one thing the racc seems to be particularly good at is eradicating pests. In general but also because he’s very tall and can see things that my mouse cannot because she’s more a KW-sized woman.

This photo of a smoky sky IN NO WAY rivals the photos coming out of the yooperland. I took this photo on the corner of N. Maple and Dexter on The Planet Ann Arbor while waiting to take a left turn to snake around and drop off my August primary ballot in the Vet’s Park drop box. It is illegal in The Great Lake State to use a cell phone to do *anything* that also requires your hands but this is one of the longest red lights on The Planet Ann Arbor and it had JUST turned red so I had plenty of time. (I went progressive this time, total “Sunshine Bakery Girl”. Bite me.)

So, smoke city and we are running the A/C and don’t tell the beach urchins that we had a cocktail outside in the late afternoon. We’re inside now.

Mercury is still in retrograde but a few things have slowly plunked into place. The Oriole came home from Imperial today (a beach urchin vee-hickle) with a new clutch. Its owner was using Mooon Yooonit while Oriole got service so she and the racc drove that over to pick Oriole up, then dropped off Mooon Yooonit at Ross-Beakes for its scheduled body work the next couple weeks. We were driving Cygnus and we were all at Dexter’s Pub having lunch just before all of this transpired. We won’t see our mouse and racc for a while so it was good to have lunch with them. And all this car maneuvering is something we could do ourselves but make no mistake, we LOVE that they are willing to step up!

And then the Comcast/Xfinity guy came to replace the cable between the pole and the Landfill. It’s been since 2014 (the Polar Vortex winter) since that was last done so it was likely time. I did not interact with this person. The GG initially pegged him as serial killer-like (based on some previous cable service workers) but softened that (a bit). Our internet has been pretty good so we’ll see if the TVs don’t have the occasional “stripes” any more.

Subtitle: Woman plans, god laughs.

I don’t know where to start so I guess I’ll just jump in. People are heading to the moominbeach and other locations on various days by various means of transportation. Automotive vee-hickles are in the shop or may need to be (A/C fixes but not my car (this time) so I’m staying outta that particular fray). I won’t even begin to try to describe the schedule changes that have been going on. If I cannot keep track of them, y’all certainly won’t be able to.

I am not posting a pic today because I don’t have one of the smoke in the yooperland that wouldn’t be stolen from facebook or somewhere. It is smoky in the yooperland. It’s the usual culprit, Canadian wildfires. I am less alarmed than some other people about this although this smoke seems worse than anything in my memory and I know people whose lungs would struggle with the smoke.

Taking the long view (I’ll admit to 72 years), it wasn’t until the last few years that the AQI (Air Quality Index) was reported (it may have been measured earlier). Growing up in the eastern yooperland, I can’t help but wonder how many Canadian wildfires happened when I was a kid (and even a young adult) that we had no clue were happening. Canada is a huge country with large swaths of sparsely populated forest land. I’m sure there were forest fires back then that we never knew about. I’m thinking no one did. They also were not monitoring where the smoke was traveling. Partly because there was no way to do that.

So, I dunno. I don’t want to breathe smoke but my lungs still have high functionality after a lifetime of breathing smoke. Even after two high school boyfriend cigarette smokers and all the years when people smoked cigarettes anywhere and everywhere. I will be fine but I care about our younger generation(s) and so I have packed a bagful of KN95 masks left over from covid. It’s a band aid but it’s kind of all I can do for the moment.

I’m reserving it for E. Jean Carroll. A heroine of mine. I have many heroines but this woman is (that I know of) one of the first women to actually receive payment from some people’s president (but not mine) for rape. I mean actual cash. He owes her a lot more than $5 mil but I doubt she’ll ever see the rest. I think that might be okay with her.

The first time I ever heard about E. Jean Carroll, I was driving back from the Jackson Rd. Meijer on a Saturday morning on Pratt Road and NPR was interviewing her about her experience with Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman’s dressing room. He raped her but she did what many well-adjusted “rich” women do, which is chalk it up to (a bad) experience and go on with life. That perked my ears up.

I can’t remember what year this was but I think it was in Trumpy’s first term. I know it was before COVID. Then a lotta stuff happened. Kelly Anne Conway (remember her?) and her lawyer husband George Conway divorced and he went splendidly rogue and left the Republican Trump party. I have no clue what Kelly Anne is doing these days but I haven’t heard anything about her for a long time. Probably it’s largely a mixed divorce not unlike my own mixed marriage.

George Conway convinced E. Jean Carroll that she could win a case against Donald J. Trump and found EXCELLENT lawyers for her, unlike the idjits Trump rather haphazardly hired. She agreed to this case because she cares about young and/or poor women who have been raped and don’t have a lot of support. And I care too. She won, even winning some kinda right wing jurors.

If you are looking for something a little different to read? “Not My Type”, E. Jean Carroll’s memoir about the trial (and her life) was wonderful. I listened to the audio book last summer. It was narrated by the author and it was hilarious and fantastic.

So three times (phew!) this summer we have traveled to the yooperland for a stay at the moomincabin. We are trying to make these trips with one vee-hickle. I am no longer employed and the GG doesn’t have umpteen gazillion multi-day/week trips scheduled. So the one vee-hickle has been working out pretty dern well except for choosing a radio station but we are being polite to each other about that.

Each time we’ve traveled north, we’ve taken Mooon Yooonit. Mainly because she is loaded to the gills with chainsawing crapola. Why unpack her? I always leave a Cygnus X-1 fob just in case one of the beach urchins needs a car. So far nobody has needed one. Until today (we’re still here on The Planet Ann Arbor). One of the beach urchins was approaching the other one’s house when her car stopped functioning normally, ending with a coast into her sister’s driveway and some smoke. The GG drove over there and pronounced it un-driveable. If anyone could pronounce a car dead, it would be the GG, who put himself through college working at the Hamtramck Assembly Plant and has a lifetime of experience dealing with engines in general including a long career at That Darn EPA motor vee-hickle emissions lab. (He can do terlets too.)

So she is borrowing Mooon Yooonit for a few days. Problem? We have Mooon Yooonit scheduled for body repairs starting Monday and lasting for a couple weeks, if I get it right. We’re taking Cygnus up north this weekend for a couple weeks or whatever. The body repairs? They will fix some hit-and-run parking lot shit that NO ONE EVEN NOTICED FOR SEVERAL MONTHS! I agree that it should be fixed but in my not-so-humble-opinion it could’ve been scheduled a bit more mindfully, like when both of us are IN TOWN at the same time and can so ferry each other (and our kids) around and lend a vee-hickle out if need be.

It’s all okay and will get worked out. If any of the beach urchins are reading this, I am not really stressed out. Just another day in the life. I needed something to blahg about and I guess this is it. We won’t even talk about his call to Comcast. Short story? It ended well. We’ll see who they send out. Hillbilly, Santa Claus, or serial killer. Stay tuned.

This is my latest shelling pea harvest. It will be the last from the Planet Ann Arbor although I am hoping for some more from the reservation market in the yooperland.

This is what eight (quart?) boxes of shelled peas yielded. The GG asked if they were edible. Yes yes yes yes. Duh? He tried one (one?) and declared it was just like candy. And they are. That’s why I shell peas every summer besides that it’s a zen activity. It took me an hour and a quarter or so to shell eight boxes and it was well worth it. Except that someone’s dern dog was barking in the distance the whole time. Bark… space… bark… space… … bark. Chinese water treatment anyone? I like dogs but jeebus… I’m gonna cook some of these pease tonight and freeze the rest. Rice and walleye (a northern Michigan fish) are also on the menu.

Other than that, it was a pretty calm day. The GG drove up to visit our brother Florida Man (an hour or so north of here) so no one was frenetically washing and cleaning out automotive vee-hickles in the driveway (like yesterday), although they did need it so I really can’t complain. His visit with FlaMan was calmer than last Thursday’s visit, when four of us converged upon FlaMan at once and cacophony ensued.

Love y’all and g’night, KW.

I had a bit of a night of fitful sleep. It wasn’t toooo hot but I was kinda wondering if we should put the A/C on. Hmmm. Only a year ago or so, I was adamant that I didn’t want the A/C but I acquiesced when our friend Joan was visiting overnight and I really wanted her to feel comfortable. Guess what? I was comfortable too. Did that convert me to using A/C? Not exactly. I was still telecommuting full time last summer and it was never all that hot at the moomincabin. This summer? Heat dome after heat dome after heat dome here on The Planet. The moominbeach not so much but I am traveling back and forth this year…

Anyway, I was not asleep at 5:50 AM today so I got up, showered, and made a grokkery/chore list. By 10 of seven, I was at the farmers market and wouldn’t you know, one of my fave farmers STILL HAD SHELLING PEAS! This is LATE for shelling peas. We discussed this a bit. Him telling me these would probably be the last of the season. Me saying I was surprised to see them at all today. I went on to say I was traveling to the yooperland next week and at this time of year, I can get shelling peas there. He agreed with me and seemed to be impressed with my knowledge of shelling pea growing schedules.

I also bought lettuce, tomatoes and a few other things with deference to the current cyclosporiasis outbreak. “Explosive” diarrhea for two weeks? NO THANK YOU! We all cycled through a norovirus xmas 2024 but anything “explosive” (from either end) was VERY short lived. Two weeks? Nope. I also washed everything, not that it’ll necessarily make a difference.

We had a family dinner tonight with Liz/Aleks and a few Regenstreif cousins who are doing elder care, some of them from a distance. I have reminded them a few times that when I was in the throes of elder care, I was at least 10 years younger than they are now. It makes a difference but all of it is still hell on earth. Maybe someday I will write more about my journey(s) with my brother, dad, and mom (in that order). Not there yet. Or maybe ever. We’ll see.

Most of is are not real sports fans but Aleks navigated us to soccer stuff and some of us watched while others yapped. We all had a good time whatever we were doing! I cannot keep track of sports but I love to watch other people watch sports. I could not find the words for that if I tried.

The outhouse has been gone since the Jurassic Age. I’ll tell its story (again) some other day but the writing was on the wall when Chippewa County (or whatever) enhanced its rules and regs for septic fields and then escalated exponentially when The Commander acquired a daughter-in-law.

Say yes to indoor plumbing! I mean besides cold water running to the kitchen sink via a garden hose hooked up to my next door uncle’s well. I think this is maybe the second indoor toilet at the moomin but it could be the third. I blahg about toilets sometimes but I don’t really keep track of them too much. My brother installed this toilet but I guess he shoulda waited for Toilet Man (the GG) because, mechanical engineer that he was, he didn’t install it correctly, hence Toilet Man came along to save the day and re-install it correctly.

This is the current moomintoilet except with an old toilet seat he dredged up from the moomingarage installed. All kinds of treasures out in the garage. A brand spanking new state-of-the art seat was purchased today and is ready to be hauled up to the moomin and installed next weekend. The new seat goes down slowly and doesn’t slam if you happen to accidentally let go of it.

That blue stuff is “The Works” toilet bowl cleaner. It is the only toilet bowl cleaner I know of that removes the mineral stains that collect from our well water. I need some more of that stuff too. Next time the GG goes to the hardware store, I have a list for him.

You’re welcome.

This was the moominbeach sunset last night. Our last sunset until we travel back north and the next time we travel north, it had better be for more than a stinkin’ week.

It was a smooth trip except for the part I dreaded, which involved meeting one of our brothers in his hoosegow room this afternoon. I *think* it was the same hoosegow in which I held my little brother as he passed 21 years ago but it has since been bought out and revamped to the point it was unrecognizable to me today.

The brother (the GG’s brother) we visited today has fragile health but he was feisty as all getout today and I think/hope he has some get-along still going. I kissed him on the mouth twice today, hello and goodbye. Just a peck, not anything passionate. I know he likes to kiss “pretty girls” not that I am all that pretty these days. Is this TMI? I don’t give a flying f*ck. He’s my brother-in-law, we are fans of each other, and I love him, eccentric as he is.

It was a chaotic visit but not because of his health. He is struggling to keep track of various personal belongings including a wad of cash that I feel like we’ve been losing and finding for something like nine years, ever since the GG and I rescued him from a horrible living situation in Florida. The Lord and Lady of Linden (the GG’s sister and brother-in-law) met us in his room, an unexpected (for me) but happy event. And so ensued a couple hours of multiple people rummaging over and over through the umpteen bazillion plastic bags in the hoosegow room looking for missing/”stolen” items. In the end, I think everything including the cash was found or otherwise accounted for. I was tracking these conversations for quite a while but in the end, I started feeling a little seasick and me and the Lord of Linden did a sort of Irish goodbye, which prompted GG and the Lady of Linden to follow us.

I had no clue about what to cook for dinner tonight and did NOT want to go to the grocery store. Just about as I had cobbled together a sorta plan, a text came through from my cousins the Grand Poohbah and Le Marquis asking if we wanted to go out to dinner. Yes yes yes yes! They are here visiting her dad, My Dear Uncle Harry, in another hoosegow (his prognosis seems to be good, knock on wood). We will see them again on and off throughout the weekend, it sounds like. And maybe other relatives too.

Love y’all, KW

Not really. That is a *large* beer for the GG. Usually he only orders one that size after he’s hiked umpteen gazillion miles in hot sun or whatever and sometimes lately he prefers iced tea. Today, after a few days of hard labor, I think his goal was a nice long afternoon snooze and he did achieve that goal. Unfortunately (for him) he woke up to me trilling, “Honey, the terlet seat is broken!” So he has spent the last 45 minutes dredging up an old toilet seat from the garage and installing it until we can get a new one. Which we can’t, at least not immediately, because we are leaving for The Planet Ann Arbor tomorrow and have a sorta faar-drill day ahead of us involving FlaMan. Like I always say in defense of my own personal MAGA man, he can fix terlets!

We had a couple green bags to take to the “dump” today (official name is “trash compactor”) and I was adamant that this adventure would include lunch, not that I encountered any resistance to that. There are two restaurants (that serve beer, etc.) in the vicinity of the moomincabin and we chose Pickles. (There are lots of decent restaurants in Sault Ste. Siberia but we didn’t want to drive that far and it is also not in the direction of the dump.)

A good time as always. A young cousin of ours has just started working there. She was not our waitress (our waitress was wonderful) but we did get to talk to her. It was (as usual) almost empty at noon so she had a bit of time to chat. When she was a young child, she lived next door for a while and was always bopping in and out of the moomin. I would be telecommuting or whatever and she would come along and I would say, “He’s in the garage.” Whooosh! Off she would go to the garage.

P.S. We listened to the beginning of the Orange Baboon’s “speech” today on the way to Pickles and all I have to say is when he wasn’t ego-tripping, I couldn’t understand what the heck he was talking about. Thankfully, we got to Pickles 15-20 minutes into his “speech” and they had 80s/90s rock playing and it was a welcome relief from the OB.

Oh dear. I’ve had to be an adult this week. Yesterday morning, I got a FB DM from a friend asking about the property at the end of our beach. The property you can’t drive to easily, especially by the two-track road that runs behind the FinFam and McNott cabins on the beach. The cabins owned by our grandparents, who originally bought the property over 100 years ago. The land at the end of the beach is for sale (again) and her son and daughter-in-law want to buy it. Ugh.

Our cabin road deadends and everyone on the beach has been keeping it that way since before I was born when the people who bought the property at the end of the beach *then* wanted to use our road to get there. Nope. My grandfather fought back and eventually there was a (state) supreme court case that he/”we” won. There was some animosity and maybe even some gunshots but I don’t know the details. This happened before I was born and our 2-track still exists and still ends at the last piece of property on the road.

Yesterday, I had the difficult task of telling this woman (who was absolutely WONDERFUL to my mother) that the folks on our road are all united that we don’t want the road extended to the end of the beach. I had to phrase this carefully. I did reference the court case, which is publicly available information but I left a lot out, in part because, as I told my friend, I am not fluent with the details, having not been born yet. But also because it makes a friendly couple of families seem unfriendly… I’m outta words about that.

The GG went out on my brother’s namesake trail today with some folks from a land conservancy that we support and then he picked me up to come and meet them. Being the [friendly] introvert that I am I was reluctant at first but I did join them and OF COURSE it was the right thing to do. I was gabbling like crazy.

I don’t think they really understand how the families who own homes/cabins on the beach are connected. I kept saying things that they didn’t understand and then realizing something like why the hell would they know about this stuff? I will have to adjust my childhood stories so that people who don’t know the history of this beach like the back of their hands can understand them.

I love the new signs at the top of our road. But they don’t mean we are totally unfriendly. If you know us (like the folks we visited up on the escarpment today), you can drive down our road. Slowly. If someone confronts you, mention my name. If you know it.

Randomness… The chipmunk was found yesterday. The chipmunk that was running around *inside* the Landfill before we left for the moominbeach last week, digging into plant containers in our back living room and making a big mess. Fortunately we have two mature adult daughters in and near The Planet Ann Arbor and one of them agreed to go over and check out the Landfill specifically for the chipmunk.

Somehow the racc got tasked for that duty. He found the dead chipmunk under the piano and disposed of it. We all had some back and forth texts about this and I said it was a thankless duty. He said, “There’s only room for one rodent around these parts.” If you know my adult daughters’ names, you might guess who he’s talking about.

I am not keeping track of the heat dome since we don’t really have one on the Shores of Gitchee Gumee but my mouse and the racc have lost power at their house (a bit north of The Planet Ann Arbor) so they have been staying or at least showering at the Landfill. They have a well so when they lose power they also lose water. I have encouraged them to use our house and its central A/C and since we are currently traveling with one vee-hickle, I left a fob for the other vee-hickle just in case anyone needs it. I’m not totally keeping track of what anyone is actually doing. It’s been a long time since my ears were tuned (in the middle of the night) for the sound of The Indefatigable driving into the neighborhood three blocks away, meaning they were almost home. Oh, not that I did that every night…

This guy was listening to Janis Joplin last night after a long day of mowing grass and chainsawing sign obstructions at entrances to the North Country Trail. If you embiggen (and know what you are looking for), there is an upbound lake freighter out there. The GG is a trained, certified sawyer and was dressed in protective gear for both chainsawing and ticks.

So after the Piedy July 4th party last night, we came home and Le Marquis came over for a bit. We were all tired and thinking about going to bed.

We knew that there would be faaarworks across the bay at the Bay Mills Indian Community and so we were sorta waiting for that to start. And we are in the Great Not-so-white North so fireworks don’t start until something like 10:00 PM because the sun doesn’t set until almost then at this time of year.

We didn’t know if we could last until the fireworks started but in the end, we went down to the beach to watch whatever happened. Bay Mills did their usual thing but it’s a long way across the bay so it was hard to see. But! Our lifelong next door beach neighbors, the Piedmonts, put on a beautiful fireworks display and we watched it last night from the beach/bench until we were ready to turn in.

The first Piedmont July 4th party (that I remember) happened when I was about seven. I vaguely remember that party. I mean, I was probably running around like crazy with my cousins and the younger Piedmont gals. I think somebody grilled hot dogs and hamburgs (as my dad called them) on an old-fashioned grill. After dark, the older Piedmont brothers made a huge faaaaaar on the beach and us little kids made s’mores while they shot Roman candles off over the lake. I didn’t have crushes on any of those older boys but I greatly admired them. They were soooo cool.

Those cool guys are STILL cool but it is probably their sons and grandsons who are doing the fireworks these days. Much more spectacular fireworks than the Roman candles of our youth. I saw one of these guys being helped up off the beach by one of his children. I remember when he and his brothers helped my grandma Margaret get down to the beach. They had a reputation for being a bit wild (didn’t we all) but they were so kind and respectful to her. Mrs. Finlayson can we help you? Etc. Much later they helped my mother (also Mrs. Finlayson) get to the party one of the years I wasn’t there to help her. I learned a lot from that.

I’m off the rails here but what I’m trying to say is that my family and the Piedmonts have been beach neighbors my entire life and I loved the fireworks last night. I posted a few pics on facebook today and one of my best Piedmont friends Brigid commented that some folks were worried that their fireworks would be too loud. No No No No.

It is the 4th of July and that means it’s the annual Piedy beach potluck. I have known these folks my entire life, I love them, and I love talking to them but, being an introvert (albeit a friendly one), man oh man am I tired tonight.

So here’s a recycled photo from the past. The way back past. I’m not sure exactly the year but I’m thinking around 1960? It is eight of us FinFam cousins and we are about to embark on a 4th of July parade. Missing from the pic are our oldest cousin who probably had better things to do than dress up and “march” in a children’s parade and our youngest cousin who wasn’t born yet. And. My little brother, who was mad at our mom because she screwed up the taillights on his paper bag car costume and refused to participate. He is out of frame to the left.

This parade was planned to happen on the beach but in true yooperland fashion, the weather was colder than blue blazes so it was moved to the two-track cabin road, which is at least sheltered from the wind. So we are lined up behind the Old Cabin garage, which is really hard to see in the pic and is now long gone.

I can name each of these folks but I have no memory of what their costumes were. Like why is Grinch wearing a paper bag and why does Pooh have those paper plates over her face. I do know what I was wearing. I am the little hula girl and I absolutely REFUSED to wear a sweatshirt or shoes or anything that might’ve given me any degree of warmth. The grass skirt and lei were a gift from Granddaddy and Bolette, my Detroit grandparents, and I treasured them.

Maybe I shoulda said “used *bote*”. We were going out to lunch with the next door cousins and he already had his “boomer shorts” on. Yer fav-o-rite blahgger made him put his geezer motorbote shirt on. His ID twin also owns one of these. He got it from a “hoarder” neighbor at Hoton Lake and after I saw it, I went out to Etsy and found an identical one for the GG.

So, KW… What did you do on your 44th wedding anniversary. Besides going out to lunch, KW went to the grocery store and cooked lasagna sauce for the Piedy July 4th Potluck tomorrow. And… And… And…

Then… She told her *beloved* cousin Susie’s junior high (or high school?) boyfriend that Susie died a few months ago. First. I don’t think he was really her boyfriend and he didn’t identify himself as that but I’m guessing he might have thought (or hoped) he was her boyfriend. We’ve been facebook friends for many years (Susie never joined facebook) and he has told me a couple times that he used to walk her home from school “up Prospect”, the street she lived on. She was very popular as a teenager but I don’t actually remember her having any boyfriends then. But being five years younger what do I know? I do know that she was very particular about men and didn’t play her cards in that direction until she was damn good and ready. At one point, she brought a potential boyfriend to the moominbeach that we ALL liked very much. I told her he passed the “cabin test” and she replied that he also needed to pass “her test”. He didn’t but eventually somebody (Barry) did. I played my flute at their wedding. The one woman band. Barry predeceased his wife, my cousin.

Ben DM’d me today, asking if Susie was on facebook. Oh dear. Because I am five years younger than him and Susie, I have never met him in person (that I know of, he did go to my childhood church). What should I say? I started with, “Oh Ben. I hate to have to tell you this but…” I told him how special she was (even though he already knew that) and how much all of us “little” cousins loved her and that my kids and her kids played together at the moominbeach when they were young. I did not tell him how she died and I won’t report that here either.

After lunch and some exploring on the way home, the GG and my next door cousin Pooh spent the rest of the afternoon re-webbing decrepit old lawn/beach chairs while I watched, staying outta that particular fray.