Return of the Loons

“I would start worrying if the loon is having trouble, because the loon is eating the same fish that people are eating. It's a good early warning signal.” - Dave Evers

The one thing I am looking forward to most this spring is the return of my loons. I don't think there is a more beautiful sound than the wild call of the loon across the lake on a misty morning. I will be looking out for them this summer. Last year I picked up numerous discarded fishing lines that could've strangled them and their loon chicks. I had to paddle my kayak over to these people on a boat that were getting to close to the loons and frightening them and their babies. (In case you aren't aware - if a Loon comes up out of the water with its wings or gives its tremolo call - you are too close.) I am hoping more people appreciate the loons and their fragile state. They are an excellent indicator of the health of our lakes and their beauty is to be enjoyed.

Road to the Pigeon River Forest

“He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determines the end.”

-- Harry Emerson Fosdick (American clergyman 1878-1969)

Information on the Pigeon River Forest as quoted by it's Association:

The Pigeon River Country Association began in 1971 when a group of local citizens, sportsmen, and environmental activists banded together to save the last great tract of undeveloped land in Michigan's lower peninsula. This land, which Ernest Hemingway called the "pine barrens east of Vanderbilt" and what Michigan pioneer conservationist P.S. Lovejoy liked to call "The Big Wild", is home to the largest herd of wild elk east of the Mississippi and forms a major part of the watershed of three of Michigan's premier trout streams, the Sturgeon, the Pigeon River, and the Cheboygan Black. Left a shambles by early logging and the fires that followed, by the rapid expansion of the oil and gas industry and facing the threat of other forms of overdevelopment of the northern lower peninsula, the efforts of this grass-roots association, working in concert with other concerned organizations, were to result in the official establishment, in 1974, of the Pigeon River Country Forest as a special management unit of over 100 square miles in four counties administered by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources according to a special Plan of Management overseen by a special state-appointed advisory council. The association's efforts, backed by law-suites and court decisions, also led to the precedent-setting Hydrocarbon Development Plan that has served as a model for responsible oil and gas drilling and production practices that are now being implemented throughout the rest the state of Michigan.

Giveaway from the Log Cabin!

Psst! I'm hosting a giveaway on my log cabin blog. If you would like to enter, please click here.

Rocks on the Ausable River

“If thou live according to nature, thou wilt never be poor; if according to the opinions of the world, thou wilt never be rich.”

-Seneca quotes (Roman philosopher, mid-1st century AD)

Pigeon River

"He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses."

- Horace Quotes - Ancient Rome

Frosty Branch

The frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Bridge over the Ausable River

We build too many walls and not enough bridges.

Isaac Newton

The wonder of trees

The wonder is that we can see these trees and not wonder more.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Waiting for Spring

From Online Edits

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore....

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

- William Butler Yeats

Bird house

"People live like birds in the woods: When the time comes, each must take flight."

- Chinese Proverb

Ice Fishing

Ice Fishing

“I would say it's the best thing to come to this lake or any other lake since the boat. How much easier can ice fishing get?”

- Al Trucinski