Lake Michigan Summer Vacay 2015: Day 6

I got up and ambled around the house. I sat down in the office at the computer and told my dad that I was going to take a shower, but he told me to go outside and get "all sweaty" first, since it was, allegedly, so humid. I wasn't sure if I believed him, but I did put off my shower a little bit. Then my dad left for his calls, and I let Catcher into the house and gave her treats, then took some photos of her cuteness.

  
 

Catcher makes faces at the camera.

Oh, hai!

I later emailed these to a co-worker who was absolutely delighted to receive them. She said that she had been wondering about the beautiful sights that I was seeing on my vacation, so I went outside to show her some photographic evidence of my current wonderful surroundings. This was when I also experienced the alleged "muggy" air, which actually wasn't humid at all. The only way I would break a sweat in that weather is if I was doing manual labor, and it was in the 70's, ferchrissakes.

I went back inside and sent the photo off to the friend, who responded with "What is this?"


Indeed, what is this?

This is a log, it was the trunk of a tree, an apple arborvitae tree, as I recall Dad and I actually discussed on that day, but I didn't remember until he reminded me. It had died or was cut down and died, and all the bark was stripped off. My mom and I hauled it out of the shed the day before while we were doing things like that yesterday that I forgot to blog about, whatever. The log was hauled out onto the driveway at first, on its side, and I had an idea to put that log upright, but upside-down, so I did it. I discovered that I needed something to compensate for the shorter branch, and saw the rock by the shed. I couldn't move the log by myself unless I flipped it over toward the rock, so I did just that. I think my mom helped too. There was worry that the log would fall into the shed window until I demonstrated that it could not fall in that direction.

But my friend said that it looked like someone started carving a person but hadn't yet finished.... like a chainsaw carving, and that she can't not see two legs and a belly button.

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon finishing up the penny project by making some origami boxes for the pennies, then using an egg carton for others. There was an email issue, which was resolved, but revealed a stupid quirk of mass mailing emails.

Later my dad and I went out to check out the trails that he could not cut because he couldn't get the tractor across the crick. The trails had been cut in the spring, so they were passable, but just barely.

Some hornets had built a nest along one of the trails.

A man out standing in his field.

I missed a family of ducks in the actual creek that had been created a year earlier, and we continued to look around and found many downed branches, and even a downed tree.

No deer in there.

Then we returned to the crick, as the cattle grazed.

Dad said that this was a home for something, but I forgot what. UPDATE: Dad told me that this was a mud crab hole and one could summon the mud crab by putting your finger in the hole where it would bite you.

He told me to put my finger in the hole to get the animal to come out. I declined the offer.

I forget how these trees became uprooted, but I think that it was intentional.

We looked at the cattle some more too.

These cattle are severely back-lit.

Then we checked out an anthill that was starting to creep onto the railroad ties that were placed nearby 4x6 lumber that was found on the property by my parents when they purchased in '77. They are used as a simple bridge across the crick when it is feasible. At this point, they were placed on higher ground, where these ants also placed their city.

The ants were freaking out about the exposure of their "breadbaskets" as we call them.

Other cattle arrived. I believe that this was Taki? UPDATE: Dad said that this was Jersey.

Finally, I got close enough to my dad's cat for some photos.

This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time.

Listen up, rodents. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. But before you fully decay, I'm going to catch you, play with you, then eat you.

Hi Suede!

The rest of this day? I believe I did computer things and watched stories about murder investigations or something. I also made plans to go to Minnesota, including finding a clothing store where I could buy pants, which happened to be the Lane Bryant at the Mall of America. The plan was then to leave for Minnesota in the morning, so I went to bed.

The trees used to be a lot shorter. I guess that's how it goes, though.