Autumn in Northern Michigan

Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn.

~Elizabeth Lawrence

My Loon

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.

~Willa Cather



Here is my Loon chick - all grown up and getting ready to migrate. The night he was born, there was a huge storm on the lake and his sibling didn't make it. The lake was full of predators such a Pike, Eagles and snapping turtles. But with his parents help, he was able to dodge danger . There were jet skiers and boats that sometimes came too close - but still he was able to avoid them and dive under the water just in time.

And now as I let out a sigh of relief, I realize that he made it! He will live and have a family of his own someday. Life is good.

Anticipation

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot




I couldn't resist posting one of my Autumn photos from last year. This was taken in the early morning and I loved the contrast of the light fog against the brilliant colored trees. I am ready once again for Nature's best show of the year!

Lush Green Trees

For in the true nature of things,
if we rightly consider,
every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.
~Martin Luther

My Grosbeak friend

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
and never stops at all.
-
Emily Dickenson

Untamed Shoreline

Let us permit nature to have her way.
She understands her business better than we do. ~Michel de Montaigne

The squirrel I feed in my yard

Don't be yourself - be someone a little nicer.

~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966