Drifting, photo by Aime Lucas
Amie took this last year in late May, and I’m posting this to let Mother Nature know that “35 degrees in May” is not what we’re looking for out of the month of May!
View Aime’s photo background bigilicious, see more in her Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore slideshow, and be sure to follow Aime Lucas Photography on Facebook.
More beach photos and lots more summery wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures!
Niciclez, photo by Noah Soreson
Beautiful scene on the Lake Michigan shore. Here’s hoping you have a chance to get out there and have some fun this weekend!
View Noah’s photo background bigilicious, see more in his slideshow. and be sure to follow him on Instagram.
More winter wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.
When did summer end?, photo by Cameron
Cameron took this 30 second exposure in heavy snowfall last week at Upland Hills Farm, which looks like a pretty cool place.
View the photo background bigtacular and see more in his Upland Hills Farm slideshow.
More winter wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.
Cranberries, photo by Blondieyooper
One thing that I love is Thanksgiving dinner, and another is Michigan grown food. Dianna at Promote Michigan brings those together with 15 things that make Thanksgiving Pure Michigan. From starters like Koeze nuts, McClure’s Pickles, Koegel Meats, and Leelanau Cheese to sides like Michigan potatoes & squash to Michigan-raised turkeys and (of course) pumpkin & apple pie and ice cream!
One Thanksgiving staple that Michigan is producing more of are cranberries, and you can get all kinds of information from the US Cranberry Marketing Committee. While it’s too late to get them this year, we have another cranberry that grows in Michigan you might not be aware of. Green Deane’s Eat the Weeds is a great blog, and his page on the High Bush Cranberry says (in part):
The High Bush Cranberry is actually a Viburnum (Viburnum trilobum) and a cousin of the elderberry. Both are in the greater Honeysuckle Family and have a characteristic musky odor. That family by the way straddles the edibility line, with some members edible and others not, some tasty and some not. As one might suspect by the name, the High Bush Cranberry has tart fruit. Bradford Angier, a well-known Canada-based forager along side Euell Gibbons, wrote they require a “conditioned palate” to appreciate.
In North America the High Bush Cranberry is found in Canada and the northern half of the United States plus, oddly, New Mexico. It is not as that friendly to wildlife as one might suspect. The fruit persists into the winter because they are not on the top of birds’ preferred food. Birds like the berries after they soften and ferment. White-Tailed deer also browse on the twigs and leaves. For humans the berries are high in Vitamin C, about 30 milligrams per 100 grams.
Viburnum trilobum has several disputed botanical names and several mistaken common names including Pimbina, Mooseberry, Cranberry Tree, Cranberry Bush, American Cranberry, and Squashberry.
Read on for lots more including identification tips. There’s much more Michigan Thanksgiving to feast on at Michigan in Pictures too!
Blondieyooper says she picked over 8 pounds of these gorgeous highbush cranberries in the UP back in October of 2011. View her photo background bigilicious and see more in her Fall 2011 slideshow.
Several of my friends shared this very appropriate article today about how Norwegians in the far north of the country deal with the dark and cold of winter:
First, Norwegians celebrate the things one can only do in winter. “People couldn’t wait for the ski season to start,” says Leibowitz. Getting outside is a known mood booster, and so Norwegians keep going outside, whatever is happening out there. Notes Leibowitz: “There’s a saying that there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.”
Norwegians also have a word, koselig, that means a sense of coziness. It’s like the best parts of Christmas, without all the stress. People light candles, light fires, drink warm beverages, and sit under fuzzy blankets. There’s a community aspect to it too; it’s not just an excuse to sit on the couch watching Netflix. Leibowitz reports that Tromsø had plenty of festivals and community activities creating the sense that everyone was in it together.
And finally, people are enamored with the sheer beauty of the season. Leibowitz grew up near the Jersey shore, and “I just took it as a fact that everyone likes summer the best.” But deep in the winter in Norway, when the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon, multiple hours a day can still look like sunrise and sunset, and against the snow, “the colors are incredibly beautiful,” she says. “The light is very soft and indirect.”
Most likely you can’t cross-country ski straight out of your house, and while Norwegian sweaters may be catching on, restaurants and coffee shops in more temperate climates don’t all feature the fireplaces and candles common to the far north. Still, there are little things non-Norwegians can do. “One of the things we do a lot of in the States is we bond by complaining about the winter,” says Leibowitz. “It’s hard to have a positive wintertime mindset when we make small talk by being negative about the winter.”
Read on for more good advice on battling the winter blahs – I hope it’s helpful to you!
The photo was taken in Elizabeth Park in Trenton which I just learned is Michigan’s first county park!
This 162-acre family estate was bequeathed to the Wayne County Park Trustees in October of 1919 by the children of Elizabeth Slocum.
The acceptance of this special gift marks the beginning of the Wayne County Park System. Elizabeth Park sits like an emerald jewel along the banks of the Detroit River, and features over 1,300 feet of riverwalk for fishing and river watching. In addition Elizabeth Park also offers activities such as softball, cycling, in-line skating, hiking, cross-country skiing and ice skating.
View the photo background bigtacular and see more in mballen89’s slideshow.
More winter wallpaper and more straight-up winter on Michigan in Pictures!
Red Jack Lake Sunrise, photo by John Dykstra
View John’s photo background bigilicious and see more in his Michigan slideshow.
Here’s a map to Red Jack Lake near Munising and here’s more Michigan lakes and more fall wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.
PS: Trying out Facebook’s new photo carousel on the Michigan in Pictures Facebook…
And they call this a Lake, photo by RJE
The Detroit Free Press reports that massive waves of up to 20 feet in height are forecast for Lake Michigan:
An intense low pressure system is still projected to slam into the western Great Lakes on Wednesday night.
The main hazard with this storm will be incredibly strong winds in excess to 45 m.p.h. at times. This will cause numerous issues, including downed trees and the potential for power outages.
In addition to impacts on land, Lake Michigan will also suffer the wrath of this strong fall storm, where waves could reach as high as 20 feet offshore. A gale watch has been issued by the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids for the Lakeshore and will be in effect from Wednesday evening through Friday afternoon.
NOAA’s Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting System has a ton of resources for visualizing live data and forecasts for all of the Great Lakes. Be sure to check out the animation of forecasted wave heights on Lake Michigan – pretty cool to watch. In case you’re wondering, the tallest (recorded) wave on Lake Michigan is 23′ from September of 2011. Of course the bouys shut down for the winter in December, and they only started measuring in 1988.
Also check out the Grand Haven Surfcam for a live look!
RJE caught this massive wave breaking against the Ludington lighthouse back in November of 2011. View the photo of big as Lake Michigan and see more of his great photos of Ludington on Flickr!
More Michigan lighthouses, more waves and more about the Ludington North Breakwater Light can all be found on Michigan in Pictures.
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SS Edmund Fitzgerald Underway, photo via Wikimedia Commons
I went and bought all of the old newspapers, got everything in chronological order, and went ahead and did it because I already had a melody in my mind. It was from an old Irish dirge that I heard when I was about three and a half years old. I think it was one of the first pieces of music that registered to me as being a piece of music. That’s where the melody comes from, from an old Irish folk song.
~Gordon Lightfoot on The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
40 years ago today, Michigan’s most remembered shipwreck took place. A big part of this is certainly Gordon Lightfoot’s signature ballad The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The song – familiar to almost every Michigander – seems to memorialize more than simply the 29 men who perished in that horrible storm. There is certainly no better video of this song than this one crafted by Joseph Fulton featuring footage of the Fitz that you’ve probably never seen. It starts out with Walter Cronkite’s Harry Reasoner’s news report from November 11, 1975 and just gets better from there – definitely worth your time!
mLive has an article about how & why Gordon Lightfoot wrote ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ that you should check out. It includes a nice little video where he shares how he’s edited the live lyrics to reflect what’s been learned about the sinking of the ship. They got Lightfoot’s account of the writing of the song from the songwriter’s Ask Me Anything on Reddit, an interesting look inside of the mind of a thoughtful and talented songwriter.
I made some minor corrections to today’s photo to get the colors a little closer to those of the Fitz. View it big as the Fitz and see more at Edmund Fitzgerald images at Wikmedia.
There more ships and more shipwrecks on Michigan in Pictures.
Hogback Mountain, photo by Chelsea Graham
Shots like these help me remember that behind every great photo, there’s someone who went through all the time and effort to get out there and take it.
Thanks so much to all of you photographers who share your work with me – there’s no way I could do what I do without all of your time, effort and love of Michigan.
View Chelsea’s photo background big and see more in her Michigan slideshow.
More fall wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.
Plugged In, photo by Third Son
View Third Son’s photo background bigilicious and see more in his Commute slideshow.
More great summer wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.
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