Last Summer Weekend Begins

It's Friday morning of Labor Day weekend. How can it be? There is a nip in the air, but the sun is bright, the sky is blue, and everywhere you look, Northport is beautiful today, from Porcupine ...

to Barb's Bakery on Mill Street ...

to the beautiful library gardens ...

to Ed, singing his heart out down at the south end of the farmers market ... and, last but hardly least, here on Waukazoo Street:

Morning Here Begins in Tranquility

Summer on the Wing

Some Up North summer mornings are magical. Moment by moment, they offer unexpected beauty, whether in the village or out on the back roads of the township. How many days are we fortunate enough to glimpse a great blue heron in flight along the creek? And why should someone have left a colorful bouquet on a country road signpost?

The truth is, though, that on a beautiful morning everything is beautiful -- the most "ordinary," quotidian scenes heartbreaking in their perfection. Ah, life! You shameless seducer, you!

Unless You Knew They Were There...

...and unless you stopped to look very carefully, you would never see them at all. Wily wild turkeys!

Call It What You Like

Call it a wildflower or a weed. Call it soapwort or bouncing bet or Saponaria officinalis. These are its glory days.

Northport Harbor and Marina

Here are several views, from different perspectives, of our beautiful harbor and marina in Northport, Michigan.

Ordinary Midweek Sunset, Leelanau

Late Summer's Subtle Tones

Tall mullein spikes are flowering, and milkweed leaves are turning brown and gold, amid the lavender carpet of pesky, invasive spotted knapweed. If only the beauty of that invader's blossoms did not tint entire hillsides and fields with the color that tells us summer's end is drawing nearer --. If it were not quite so successful in taking over, it would doubtless be easier to hate. Instead, when morning walks or evening drives take me past open expanses in their August hues, I am carried back in memory to long-ago August vacations, the one or two weeks Up North that my downstate job permitted, and I feel again the poignancy of that fleeting time.

Someday, Hallelujah!