A Sign

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – It’s Monday night, about 9:30 p.m., and I’ve just finished my daily (or sometimes nightly) ritual of snow shoveling.

Snow slayer on Deck No. 1

My apologies about fixating on the snow.  But dealing with it has become a pleasant habit. Yes, pleasant, because it takes you outside, forces exertion, and leaves you with the satisfaction of a job done.  Well done, you hope, but at the least, done.

Up here, it’s an immense responsibility keeping the snow cleared.  Because if you don’t do it today, another 5 inches will arrive tomorrow, and then another 5 …  or 8 if the lake winds are just right. Just as the bills can mount, so can snow.  And it’s best to smite both sooner than later.

This is life in a northern town.  Neighbor Levi had his tractor and plow out today tackling the big stuff – our joined driveways.  Levi’s a veteran at this. A young Coast Guard guy, he moved here with Leslie from Alaska about the same day we arrived. They just brought daughter Bristol into the world.

Deck No. 2

“Nice snow today, Levi!” I called.

“Yeah, love it!” he responded. 

“Nice to see the sun!” I said.

“Yeah, love it!” he answered. 

Actually, we’ve had longer conversations, all pleasant.  But this one was short and sweet, because honestly there wasn’t much more to say.  Many inches of snow had fallen, shaping our shared hills into splendid banks of soft cotton.  The air was crisp, pure.  We both realized the joy of the day.

Life in a northern town.  There’s a song by that name, of course.  And I do enjoy it so.  I remember driving back to Traverse City a couple of months ago just after my high school reunion in St Louis.  I drove up Michigan 131 from Grand Rapids, then along Supply Line Road angling northwest, then took Hammond Road east, then a sharp left on our own Five Mile Road.

Five Mile has a reputation in town.  Some locals avoid it when snow abounds, because it’s a bit slick, especially on the steep hill down to the Traverse City valley below.

Snow along the Boardman River.

But then, that’s its beauty.  Because, as you hit the slight hilltop curve that starts your descent, you can see – for a few rich seconds – the beautiful blue of Traverse Bay.  And at that point, you know you’re home.  You also know the why of being home.

So on this day, returning home, I made sure to play “Life in a Northern Town” on my iPod as I crested that hill.

Heyya ma ma ma, hey-dee-da-naya

Heyya ma ma ma, heyya

Life in a northern town

Hey ma ma ma ma

That’s the chorus.  And if you don’t remember it, I left a link to the Sugarland version at the bottom of this post.  You’ll know the song when you hear it.

The song, in fact, has nothing to do with a North-American northern town.  It was written by an English pop group, The Dream Academy, in 1985.   It reached No. 7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart the next year.  It’s said to describe the visit of English songwriter Nick Drake to a northern English town.

Nick Drake

Drake was a depressed insomniac who also wrote some fantastic songs and, sadly, killed himself.  So this was The Dream Academy’s salute to Drake.

What’s interesting to me is how this song caught fire in the United States; to this day it reminds so many of life up north.  Just Google it online, look up the song, and view listeners’ recollections of it.

“As a person who returned home after 10 years to my snowy N.E. Ohio town,” reads one, “this song also hits me in the gut every time I hear it. It reminds me of my past and what this town used to be like when I was growing up in the 1970s.”

You can find similar comments … from New Yorkers to North and South Dakotans.

I think it’s the chorus that does it – a chant that sounds Native American but probably has more roots in African music.  But because Native Americans are so intrinsic to “up north” – for us, the Ottawa and Chippawa are just up the road – it all seems to fit.

Regardless, it captures for me the rough wildness of this place, its mystery and its joy.

The joy is more intellectual, and it seems equally shared around here.  While folks seem to love the roughness, they soften that impulse with an extraordinary commitment to be smart, progressive, imaginative and curious. 

Cindy and I briefly visited an art gallery Sunday showcasing work inspired by the Sleeping Bear Dunes near Glen Arbor.  The art, exhibited at Northern Michigan College, filled two gallery halls.  It was excellent … richly diverse in both subject and technique.

Christmas on Front Street.

You see that everywhere, though. Local authors abound, as do local restaurants, local arts shops, local craftsmen of all stripes – and then the sins … local wineries, distilleries, breweries. 

So during these days of gift-giving, we measure our buying not by how much, but by how much we spend locally vs. Amazon or the big retail chains.

Those big retailers have always been the easier choice.  (They’re smart that way.)  But no longer, up here.  There’s something special to be preserved by buying local.  And it seems to be working. 

Sure, there’s a Sam’s Club on the southeast corner of town.  But there it sits, distant.  You don’t hear folks talk about it much, really. 

But there’s a continual buzz about what’s happening on Front Street in Downtown Traverse City.  I made the mistake of dodging traffic there during Ladies’ Night last Thursday, when local shops offer all sorts of incentives to get the city’s women to stop in.  It was nuts.

I hear Men’s Night, this Thursday, is twice as dangerous.

But ‘tis the spirit.  After all, this is the town that selected the city’s official Christmas tree based in part on how much its huge branches were dangerously encroaching on the TART Trail – the cross-metro hike-bike-ski path that’ll take you from Acme on the east clear up to Sutton’s Bay on the west.

Lose a tree?  Sure, but only if it means we’ll all be the healthier for it. 

The official tree, by the way, is traditionally stabilized in a manhole at the corner of Cass and Front Streets, next to the Mackinaw Brewing Co.  And sure enough, we checked it out; city engineers had wedged it into the hole with a half-dozen 2 x 4s. 

Although we’ll soon be heading to Houston for Christmas – can’t wait! – we’re also looking forward to being back at Cass and Front on New Year’s Eve, to watch a giant cherry descend like Times Square’s pulsating ball. 

Giant cherry?  Yeah, you go with it. 

All of this got me to thinking … Cindy and I loved an early ‘90s show called Northern Exposure.  It took place in Cicely, Alaska, and included a ragtag bunch of characters, from a former astronaut-turned land developer named Maurice Minnifield, to Holling Vincoeur, the Canadian-born owner of the bar The Brick, to ex-con Chris Stevens, who offered daily philosophical commentary on the local radio station and also, occasionally, performed weddings as a non-denominational pastor. 

Joel meets a moose.

The main star was Joel Fleischman, a Jewish doc who was forced to locate to Cicely to pay off a med-school loan. 

We loved Northern Exposure for its quirkiness and humor.  But more than anything, I think, we loved it for its embrace of love, intellect and grace amid extraordinary natural, northern beauty.

It’s too much of a stretch to say we’re living our own Northern Exposure.  Sure, quirks abound.  But I think that’s symptomatic of any smaller town.   We saw the same thing in Springfield, Illinois.  It’s always easier to step into the limelight of the odd when the stage is smaller.

And yet … there’s something very good and special going on here.

I’ve mentioned before a place called Roy’s, the general store at Three Mile and Hammond.  That’s where I got my snow blower repaired.  It’s about a three-minute drive.  It’s the antithesis of Sam’s Club.

A woman named Deb works at Roy’s.  We think Deb is Roy’s wife, though we’re not sure.  Anyway, Deb is also the Sign Lady.  She’s charged with posting civic as well as promotional commentary on the store’s big lit-up sign outside, at the corner of Three Mile and Hammond.

Nothing’s off base for her.  She took a jab at the mayor’s drunkenness, scolded Obama for the health-care roll-out, somehow came up with a store special tied to the new kids’ water park on the lake front that was spewing sewage instead of clean H2O.

Well, Deb fell ill recently, so she couldn’t post her daily message.

And so, presumably, Roy stepped in.

“Deb is sick,” said the sign, and Roy added ….

“This is a sign.”

And so you drive through the intersection, notice the words, and think wildly divergent thoughts.

At first, you assume Roy’s just being funny.  Deb is sick.  And for you dummies out there, if you didn’t know it, this lit-up thing is a sign.

But then the brain really engages …. maybe Roy was commenting on the seriousness of Deb’s sickness, and maybe it was extremely contagious like in Steven King’s “The Stand,” and so it was “A Sign” of the Big Man’s eventual retribution, and so we all better get right with the Almighty because time’s running short. 

Or at the least, I thought, maybe Roy just wanted us to get flu shots.

Hard to know what he intended, really.  We think we met Roy the other day when we were shopping for pails for our birdseed.   He’s a long-bearded guy, heavy set, and seemed plenty smart.  He pointed us right to the pails.   I could see him stepping up to a formal, philosophical, yet-so-simple postulate, like Chris might in Northern Exposure.

Then again, maybe not.  While filling the car with gas, I saw the backside of the same sign. 

There, the sign said simply:

“Ummm ….”

It appears that after noodling over the seven words on the sign’s flip side, Roy had run out of things to say.

Life in a northern town.

For a YouTube listen to “Life in a Northern Town” by Sugarland, click here.

Don't blink

Cause when your hourglass runs out of sand
You can't flip over and start again

- Kenny Chesney

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – I just put a new pot of coffee on – Leelanau’s best – then filled the Donald Duck mug to the brim.

“Really swell!” says the mug.

Outside, the snow banks swell.  Eight inches of the white in the last two days.  Not a bad thing.  This was always part of the bargain – snow would arrive in buckets, and we’d just learn to warm up to it.

But snow here, I’ve quickly learned, is a different beast. It reminds me of Bellingham, Wash., where clouds of moisture hug the shore like a thick blanket, while a half-hour’s drive east could yield sun.

In Traverse City, at the tip of Grand Traverse Bay, it’s the same.  Although here they call it the “lake effect.”

In the winter, “lake-effect” can function more like frigid, scattered thunderstorms, dumping a foot of snow in your neighborhood while leaving barely an inch down the road. That uncertainty – of both location and amount – makes predicting snow here a challenge.

But that’s the beauty of this place.  We left what was predictable to discover what is not.  And so the snows come.  And we adapt.

Tomorrow the nation marks its annual, collective celebration of thanks.  We’re joining in.  Yesterday, we picked up our Amish turkey from Maxbauer’s Meat Market, our pumpkin pie from the Grand Traverse Pie Company, and enough other fixin’s from Oleson’s grocery up on Hammond Road to feed every snowplow driver from here to Grand Rapids.

There will be just three of us eating, though, not counting the dogs: Cindy, son Zach and me. So we’re counting on Zach to be hungry. 

Zach is driving up from Manhattan, Kan., to join us, and we’re eager to see him.  He just finished a whirlwind business trip to New York City and Washington, D.C. – doing video work for his employer, Kansas State University.  Zach will be bringing his dog, Koa.

Daughter Meghan and son-in-law Eric are spending T-Day with Eric’s folks in Iowa.  Their new dog Whidbey is aboard, and Meghan texted us just south of Buffalo, Texas, that Whidbey had thrown up … but it was no big deal, she said.  

Of course it wasn’t. We Weavers are dog lovers to a fault, and we allow our dogs much leeway.  Plus when we gather, it’s always fun to share throw-up stories.  Now we have a new one.

Per usual, I will cook our turkey outside, on the Weber grill.  I have an old cookbook that came with my first Weber, and it shows a beautifully browned, crisp turkey atop the grill.  Surrounding the Weber?  A thick winter carpet of snow.

The photo always reinforced mybelief that winter makes the barbecue sweeter.  I’ll test the premise again tomorrow.  Given our new latitude, it should be sweeter still.

On the way home from Esch Beach a couple of weeks back (see prior post), I caught a discussion on the radio of a recipe for “Skeleton Soup.”

It’s rather simple, really.  After dinner, save your turkey carcass, drippings and unused items (like the bird’s neck) in the fridge.  Then on Friday, plop this into a big pot with some cut-up onions, celery and carrots, and a half bottle of white wine. Cover the carcass with water so there’s about an inch above the bones.

Then let it simmer – at a very low boil – for six hours or so.

Strain the liquid to get out the bones, then put the mixture outside to cool so that the fat rises.  Skim off the fat and, ta-da … Skeleton Soup.

It’s not a remarkable recipe.  Multiple generations have used the carcass to create turkey stock after Thanksgiving.  But this will be a first for me.

Unpredictable events, and firsts, often go hand in hand up here.  Which gets me to the Chesney song, “Don’t Blink.” 

Sure, some things up here have hardly surprised us. 

Nellie loves the snow. We knew that. 

I’m pushing around a pretty big snow blower. I saw that one coming months ago.

Uncle Bud’s giant Christmas wreath would somehow hang outside.  We knew that, too; it’s now high on the house’s east side. (Bud, Cindy’s departed uncle, loved Christmas.   So when he passed on many years ago, we kept the massive funeral wreath of grape vine and re-purposed it as a Christmas wreath, lights and all.) 

Oh … and my work, despite my being a telecommuter, has remained pretty much the same.  Ditto. Knew that.

But we're encountering a lot of firsts, some unforeseen. 

Our minivan seems more content to sit at the bottom of the snowy driveway than climb to the top.  That’s a first.

We have wild turkeys bumping into each other in the backyard, and occasional deer gliding by in the front.  Both firsts for us. 

We're about to eat an Amish turkey for the first time.  (Why Amish?  To me, the Amish exude rural vitality.  So should their turkeys.) 

We’re preparing to buy snowshoes – and even put them on.  Two more firsts.

And life continues despite the absence of a fireplace, which is unprecedented for us. (Okay, yes … I’ve resorted to purchasing the “Fireplace XL” DVD from Amazon, which includes hours of high-definition sights and sounds of a real fireplace at work.  But it’s almost like being there … really!)

The good news is that we’re embracing these happenings with eyes wide open.  There’s much more to know and to learn up here.  School’s just started.

So, tomorrow is a day for family, turkey, Skeleton Soup and gratitude … a thankfulness, in part, for the time we each have.

As Chesney suggests, that time can move so very, very fast.  So go chase those firsts.  And don’t blink.

Personally, it’s making me reconsider the post-turkey nappy time in front of the faux fireplace.

Coffee instead?  Yeah, but this time it’ll be the Goofy mug.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. 

Kilter out, kilter in

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – Many good things have come from a garage, including Steve Jobs’ Apple Inc.

My own aspirations are much more limited today. The blog calls, and I feel a need to be outside to write.  But it’s a rainy morning, with high winds and thunderstorms expected to arrive this afternoon  And although this house has benefits, one feature lacking is a good overhang or porch roof.

“Try the garage,” Cindy said.

And so here I sit.  Coffee to the left on an old cardboard box that shouts “15 Dozen EGGS.”

To my right, our snow blower, which right now is inoperable … but we’ve called Roy’s General Store up at 3 Mile Road and Hammond, and they’ve promised to swing by and take it to the shop and remedy its ills.

Time’s running short on that, I know.

Before me, the woods of our front yard, which Nellie likes to explore even in the wet.

I can tell Nellie doesn’t understand my garage perch.  Great Pyrenees are known for displaying a look that basically says, “That’s stupid,” when a human does something mindless … especially if it involves the Pyr.

And so when I beckon to Nel from inside the garage’s shadow, I get that look.

I'm convinced, though, that she doesn't appreciate the writer's call.  “It's the same as you wanting that stinkin', buried rawhide!” I shout ... to no effect.

I’ve never considered myself Mother Nature’s Son.  But the outdoors is what called us here to live, and so it inspires on mornings like this.

It seemed a long time coming, this return to Up North.  Life’s full of rhythms, and it doesn’t take much to get some out of kilter.

Almost four weeks to the day, I climbed aboard a jet at Cherry Capital Airport and flew to Kansas City. I met Zach for a successful Chiefs game. Then, on Monday, I went through a flurry of meetings before loading a truck for a book trade show in Houston.  I drove to Houston, met my staff there, we set up shop, ran the show for three days (and I visited Meghan and Eric while I could; Cindy was there as well, visiting); then packed up the truck, drove back to Kansas City, held more meetings, then organized and set up a warehouse sale before, finally, flying back to Traverse City on Nov. 5^th.

That all would be fine, of course, if that was the extent of it.  But it took me until last Friday … 10 days later … to get caught up – on sleep, correspondence, department budgeting.  Such is the blessing and curse of telecommuting. 

Yesterday, at last, was work-free, so I took the dogs to Esch Beach while Cindy did a two-hour yoga stint.  It was a crisp day, a bit damp and windy.  Hunting season had just started, and there were a few pickups in the Esch Beach parking lot.  I donned hunter orange to make sure that if bullets flew, they were headed for an eight-point buck and not Nellie or Linus.

But as we walked the beach, I didn’t hear a single shot.  Instead, waves rolled ashore … that metronome of comfort that relaxes the mind, untangles the soul, and always reminds me anew of why we’re here.

So today, I’m in the garage, the tall pines swaying like hundreds more metronomes, the winds sending a beautiful roar down from the branches.  The neighbor’s rooster chimes in across the hill; a horse whinnies behind me.

And it seems I’m in sync again.  And it’s nice.

This does become a different place in the fall.  The pace slows for everyone.  The eateries no longer are crowded; the traffic thins; smiles seem to broaden as the summer’s stress gives way to cider and fall colors.

Wood smoke drifts everywhere; a few mornings ago, a flock of 10 turkeys strutted through the back yard.  And although the days are shorter, the sunsets and sunrises seem even more brilliant.

And traditions that summer crowds know little of begin to take hold.

The local paper talks of the state football playoffs, and why local teams will again have to take a bus far north, over the massive Mackinac Bridge, to play the Upper Peninsula teams.

Roy’s advertises beer for deer camps, and – just in time – “M-16s are back in stock!”

Christmas seems around the corner, as each small town announces carol sessions, charity events and predictions of Santa sightings.

And snow stakes are everywhere – those roadside markers spray-painted with bright orange that will guide snowplows as they keep the roads clear and tidy.

Last night, I fell back into bed with John Mitchell’s rich book on the history of wooden boats in Leelanau County, and the impact they had on Northport, Leland, Glen Arbor and other ports no longer living.   More on that in the next post.

But it proved a comfort … a warm connection to the history and roots of the lands my family has traveled for so many decades.  Lands we now want to be ours, too.

Mitchell knows the writer's call.  In a year or so, I expect to have more than a garage from which to write on a windy, wet day.  A covered deck, perhaps.  A writer’s cottage, I hope.

But today, the garage proved a blessing.  This blog post is about done, for one.  A good thing, as thunder rolls in from the west.

And just now, a white cat emerged to allow a shy hello.  I know nothing about this mouser … only that it seems less skittish than my nemesis, White Cat, back in Kansas.  She comes closer, unafraid of my perch.

Maybe, I think, this chair and box and coffee cup are not so stupid.  Many good things do come from a garage.

Perhaps the two of us will get along. 

That would be nice. 

This is, after all, that kind of place. 

Of fall and fudgies

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – We could sense it during the last couple of weeks … the changing season.  Mornings, we’d wake to crisp skies, a chilled deck.   At night, when letting the dogs out one last time, breath-born clouds of mist swirled as I urged the pups on.

Color along the trail.

“Go dogs, go … do your thing.”

Now, this weekend, we could see it.  Treetops shedding their greens in favor of scarlet reds, burnt oranges, golden yellows.  Not heavily so … more just a hint of the show to come – Nature’s clever invitation to come back next weekend, and the next, and, if we’re lucky, the next.

We’re joining in.  I cleaned the gutters this weekend, placed big pumpkins at the foot of our drive, and at last mounted our barn quilt on the shed.  We got bids on snow tires last week; today, Cindy’s baking pumpkin bread. 

There’s a secret that locals don’t always share here, for fear of the repercussions.  It’s simply this:  Summer is joyous for both the warm weather and less-cold waters, and also for the tourists who come by the thousands with their dollars.

But fall … well, that’s a season to truly enjoy.  Sure, there are still tourists.  The colors here rival those of New England, and so the down-staters continue to come.  A greeter at a popular Old Mission winery told me yesterday that the next three weekends are their busiest of the entire year.

Two 40-pounders, at least.

But it’s a different crowd.  They stick to the roads, rarely visiting the beaches and, rarer still, towing giant boats or trailers behind them.  Their stay also is shorter … a long weekend, perhaps.

Not like the “fudgies,” as summer tourists are called. (We learned the nickname at the farmers’ market. It’s not a put-down … just a way to categorize who rolls through town and when.  In this case, because many summer tourists visit fudge shops, they are, well, “fudgies.”)

No, I think most of the town let’s out a big sigh in late September and early October.  The summer craziness is over and it’s time to relax, to relish the elbow room relinquished to visitors since June.  July had its fireworks, but it’s the fall colors that now provide the real show, marking the slow easing into the long winter.

 

The Bear Paw.

We’re just now starting to feel a part of this town.  On the one hand, we find ourselves the permanent tourists – fudgies forever, perhaps – visiting old summertime haunts and marveling that we can return as soon as the next day if we want.

On the other, we’re feeling our own pressure to get involved, to form friendships, to sample the off-season culture of music, literature, food and drink.

And so we take those steps. We’ve joined a newcomer’s club.  I’ve had two lunches with the local newspaper publisher, and other lunches with local authors.  Cindy’s joined a book club and a remarkable harp class.  Friday night, we took in a writers’ series.

We’ve hiked many a trail, amazed by the warmth of walkers and bikers alike as they greet us along the way.  We’ve also seen many a sunset, each time saying, “This is why we came here.”

And every visit to a local merchant is a conversation, it seems.

Still warm at Esch.

Yesterday, after a trip to Esch Beach, we stopped at a local meat market on Union Street, Maxbauer’s. The owner, Mark Wilson, greeted us as if we’d been shopping there for years.  He’s owned the place for only 13 months, but the business itself has been ongoing since 1913.

Mark shared not only Maxbauer’s history but that of the entire local grocery scene.  How the Deering family arrived in Empire, then spread out … Tom Deering formed Tom’s Food Markets in 1953, how the founder of Oleson’s Food Stores married a Deering but also did well on his own with real estate purchases over the years, how there’s still a Deering’s deli up the street from Maxbauer’s.

As for Maxbauer’s … Mike Deering owned it for 32 years before selling it last year to Mark, who’d worked at the shop for six years.

It then dawns on us why the Deering’s in Empire is still a Deering’s.  That’s where it all started.  We shopped that Deering’s often while at the cottage.

It seems Traverse is a melting pot of sorts. Always has been. The Deering family’s roots are Canadian Irish.  I’m less sure of the Oleson heritage, though it’s clear there’s a Nordic streak there. Perhaps by way of Minnesota.

Behind this door ... good stuff.

So it was no surprise when the young butcher at Maxbauer’s – not Mark, but one of his employees – mentioned he was from Boston.  I’m cooking baby-back ribs today, Kansas City-style.  He volunteered that he bakes his first in the oven on a bed of celery.  And when he moves the ribs to the grill, he slathers them in a Boston barbecue sauce that has a strong Asian touch – soy, perhaps, or probably something more exotic.

He asked me how I cook mine.  I explain:  “Low, slow … on the Weber.  Pretty much all day. Wood chips for smoke.  Vinegar and apple juice to keep it moist.  Sauce the last half hour.”

He grinned.  “Everyone cooks ‘em different,” he said.

How this Boston guy got here is likely a story in itself.  I should have asked.

My current read.

I’m enjoying a book right now called “Grand Traverse: The Civil War Era.”  The author is John C. Mitchell.  John and I shared lunch recently at the VI Grill in Suttons Bay.

John is an ambitious author who now has his sights set on Cuba and exploring the parallels of Cuba’s 1800s sugar market and our own cotton industry.

John’s Civil War book is remarkable because of the detail it provides regarding Traverse City migration before, during and after the Civil War.   Mormons, Irish, Methodists and more … all displacing, of course, the Native Americans, who were here first.

So the seasons change.  And yet, much remains the same.  A Boston butcher offers barbecue advice.  An entrepreneur makes a go of it, as did Deering and Oleson.

And we take it all in, inspired by the dawning colors, but aware that we need to chart our own course as new immigrants.

We’re fudgies, no longer.

  

Judge ... and be judged

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – I cut the grass today … only the second time this summer.

It's uphill from here.

It’s not that drought has dried things up, or we’d let the grass grow unusually long.

We’ve had buckets of rain – so much so that we ordered more gravel for our uphill drive to replace what washed away.

As for the length of our grass … well, along our road, one is not judged by the manicure of his yard.

Yes, there are occasional houses where the yards are like an 18^th hole … flat like glass, vibrant green.  Drop a quarter and you expect it to bounce.

But I think those houses belong to retired men needing something to do.

No, for the rest of us, we’re perfectly happy to let nature take hold.  And it does so beautifully.  Out back, dune grasses grow tall and wildflowers bloom; out front, our tall pines release spent needles that drift like snow, blanketing the ground in a brown thickness so soft that I frequently walk it barefoot. The only grass is near the fire pit.

The fire pit.

We do have an advantage here on Hilltop.  Because we are so high up, our neighbors can’t really see the state of our yard.  The exception is Levi and Leslie.  Their house, just up the drive, is even higher than ours.  But they’re a non-judgmental pair, plus I don’t think they can see through the pines anyway.

And so I cut the grass for the second time this summer.  Not really because I had to, but because old habits die hard.  For 27 years we lived in Johnson County, Kan., where the condition of your yard defines your character.

Pity the man there who lets a bare spot lag or his grass go to seed.  In some subdivisions, I hear, there are busy-body lawn police ready to write you up and even announce your name – “Shame!” – at the next association meeting.

Yarrow.

Not here; not along Five Mile Road.   And so today, as I pushed my Honda mower, I felt some guilt.  Down came the dune grass, the wildflowers – a fragrant mix so sweet that, when cut, memories flooded back of Granddad’s mid-Missouri farm. 

There was white-laced Yarrow, tufts of Angelica, the yellows of Black-Eyed Susans, and the purples of Rough Blazing Star.

Black-eyed Susans.

I’d be wrong to say the yard was thick with these colors.  The wildflowers were sporadic at best. Various kinds of grasses filled the gaps.

And that’s why I didn’t mow every flower.  I dodged around the tallest, thinking this a good compromise.

And when it was done, I expected to gaze across the now-uniform yard with the pride I felt in Kansas, a pride usually born of next-door comparisons.  “Mine’s greener, thicker, shaved to perfection,” I used to think. 

Not this time, though.  It looked okay; the job was done.  No big deal.

In fact, of more interest to me were three other things:

First, the owners of the horse farm in back had finished constructing its new stables.  Last I’d seen it, the building was a skeleton of fresh timber.  Now, it was clad in beige siding and a metal roof.  Based on the whinnying, the horses seem to like it.

The barn, now finished.

Second, the moles seem alive and well.  I’ve not met them yet; they prefer to hide in their shallow tunnels.  But I saw and felt their underground trails as the mower moved across the yard. “Live and let live,” I thought.  I’ll save my angst for something more formidable – say, a bear or cougar.

And third, I realized how much gasoline I’ll have remaining in my gas can by October.  The neighbors left a five-gallon can behind, and I filled it up thinking I’d need every ounce this summer.  But I’ve barely touched it.

Snow blower awaits.

Then again, I keep forgetting what’s ahead.  I’ve not yet tried to master our Craftsmen 8.5 horsepower, 27-inch snow blower that stands, with canopy, about seven foot tall.  But I know its fat Briggs and Stratton engine will suck down gas like big-dog Nellie does water.

Plus there’s the emergency generator we have standing by, for when – not if – the power goes out.

So I know the gas will be put to good use.  Perhaps daily.

And that’s important. 

I hear that, up here, during the snows, one is judged by the manicure of his driveway.

This side of the rainbow

ESCH BEACH, Mich. – I was Dorothy in reverse.

The tornado was a Delta Airlines jet, landing with a roar at Kansas City International, plopping me atop the Kansas-Missouri plains.

But there was no mad dash of color ahead of me, no circle of singing townsmen, no brick road of any color.

No, I found it to be flat, gray, listless, predictable. 

Awaiting the flight south.

Okay, that’s not fair. I was born in Missouri and have traveled its verdant foothills, floated its marvelous streams. I love Kansas, politics aside.  The Flint Hills remain my favorite Kansas stretch, and I get a wide grin when I crest the hill on I-70 westbound, en route to visit son Zach in Manhattan, Kan., and see the vast Hills unfold before me.

I certainly love Kansas City and its environs.  What a great place to raise a family.

But right here, right now, Traverse City, Mich., is our Oz.

That was reconfirmed as I arrived back in T.C. a week later, having packed in a dawn-to-dusk schedule of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and in-between meetings to do what is necessary to stay atop my job.

I enjoyed the return to K.C. and the meeting of friends and clients.  Plus Zach and I hung out a bit and took in a Royals game.

But I did feel like pre-tornado Dorothy.  Driving about Kansas City was like Dorothy traveling her dirt roads, heading home to Uncle Henry and Aunt Em. Been there, done that.

I was reminded of this contrast today as we sat on Esch Beach near Sleeping Bear Dunes, on Lake Michigan’s east coast.  Waves lapped ashore; the water was crisp, clear; the sky an emerald blue. Seagulls passed overhead, hoping for a handout. 

Only weeks before, our kids were up to visit  – Meghan, Zach, and Meghan's husband, Eric.  Esch is a special place for all of us.  So we made sure to stop by here. 

Now, today, there’s already a touch of red and yellows in the trees that blanket the bluffs along Esch. It is a sign, of course, of autumn’s eventual arrival.   

But even that harbinger of fall brings cheer.  We find ourselves soaking up the summer but also excited about what the next season will bring … and even the next.

Family shot at Esch.

Today, as Cindy and I floated like bobbers atop Lake Michigan’s waves, we discussed winter – what kind of snowshoes are best, whether we’d prefer that to cross-country skiing; how the cold will make our outside decks relatively useless, turning our already small house even smaller; whether, somehow, we can shoe-horn a gas-fired stove into the living room.

We’ve owned houses pretty much since we’ve been married, each equipped with a fireplace.  And now, to find us in Northern Michigan – land of a billion fireplaces – without one seems impractical if not on the wrong side of the divine.

In our other locations, the notion of discussing fireplaces while the sun danced off nearby waves – with us neck-deep in them – would have seemed ludicrous.  But in those places, the time between summer and winter was so very, very long.

Not here.  The frigid arrives fast and, we’re told, deep.  Not like the slam of a freezer door, because a Michigan winter offers its own natural escapes and adventure.

More like the tale of two cities … Traverse City inside, where all is cheery and warm,  and the same locale outside, where all is bracing, fresh and ruggedly cold. 

I suspect we’ll find a way to get our fireplace ... so we can substitute summer’s sun with winter’s flame. To warm our Oz.

To help us realize again what always has been true, even in reverse:

There’s no place like home.

To the end of the Earth

OLD MISSION, Mich. – Today is cold, wet, gray.  The Great Lakes have done their duty – given the clouds needed moisture as the cold front rolled through like a slow-chugging train.

The corn farmers wanted these clouds; they said the crops were looking good, but ….

“But if we don’t get some rain soon, who knows?”

Farmers, never quite satisfied with how things are, depend a lot on the word “but” ... because things can always get worse.

I’ve always thought I’d enjoy farming but for the required uncertainty.

We watched this storm build yesterday as we reached the tip of Old Mission Peninsula. We had hiked to the peninsula’s end, and we could see the thick, dark-blue clouds mounting to the northwest. Low rumbles of thunder confirmed the approach.

And yet we lingered.  There was much to see, where this land-patch meets water.  The waters of all of the Great Lakes are still many inches below normal, and Lake Michigan is no exception.  And so the very tip of Old Mission Peninsula not only juts out like a stern finger into the lake’s Grand Traverse Bay, but the absent waters reveal the peninsula’s intricate muscle and bone.

It’s a mix of sand and wave-polished stone, of course.  But it’s also a vast, low-lying plain, with pockets of sticky marsh, thin puddles and scrappy vegetation.

Mission Point Lighthouse.

The tip of the peninsula is also a stealthy threat to passing ships.  And so the Mission Point Lighthouse was constructed in 1870 to alert the ships’ pilots.  The lighthouse is positioned almost exactly halfway between the equator and the North Pole, and it has done its job well.  The only major casualty has been the loss of the schooner Metropolis, heavy with pig iron and lumber as it ran aground just south of the point in a November 1886 snowstorm.

Remnants of the mighty ship can still be viewed by small boat or kayak. Something to add to our to-do list.

Daughter Meghan, son-in-law Eric and son Zach are visiting this week. And so we hiked to the very tip because that seemed the natural thing to do.  It wasn’t a long hike, and certainly multitudes had been there before us.  But there was adventure still.

I don’t know why humans are drawn to the ends of the Earth, but we are, and once there, we always leave satisfied that we have accomplished some kind of primal goal.

Such visits are instructive. Where else but at the tip’s point can you see the simple-yet-complicated play of wind and water?  Turn to the port side, and the waters from the northwest rhythmically, heavily splash ashore, a low drumbeat of the approaching storm.

Turn starboard only a foot or two, and the waters are still, flat like glass – the peninsula tip’s slight vegetation forming a formidable wall against the stout breeze.

All of this is fine.  Much of life's consequences seem a matter of inches. 

There also is much history here.

During our visit, there was the joy of our family reunited, with joking, laughter and shared wonder.  But such a spot must have been a lonely place for other families.  At least sometimes. 

Lighthouse keeper John Lane, who stood watch at Mission Point during that November snowstorm, probably had the cheer of a wood stove.  But in 1886, the 19-mile trek to Traverse City by horse and wagon would have been treacherous.

And so Lane and his wife Sarah would bring in provisions and many books to read to endure the long winter.  Plus paper and pen, because the keeper’s other job, beyond ensuring that the lighthouse light remained ablaze, was to log the weather, wind direction, the number of ships and type of ships that passed each day.

Even in July, as the cold dark of the storm approached, that solitude was felt.  I mentioned to the others that the spot would be a remarkable place to see a raging thunderstorm arrive. Lighthouses, by definition, are thrust outward to absorb the elements – from crashing waves, gale winds, a summer storm’s lethal lightning.  And inside each resides the keeper and family, alone, the lighthouse their armor as they safeguard the ships passing by.

We will return here in winter, after the snows arrive, the 19-mile trek made safe by all-wheel-drive.  And we’ll view the stark contrast of land and water – pine-green and deep-water blue today, thickly white and deep-water blue then ... if the blue is not tightly sealed in ice.

We'll see the steadfast lighthouse.

And we’ll imagine John and wife Sarah, warm by the fire, doing their duty at their end of the Earth. 

The Mission Point Lighthouse in winter.  To see the 360 view, click here.

The challenge of up

“You can do it, Howard,” I muttered to myself.  “You've got to.”

It’d be like a Navy pilot landing his jet atop an aircraft carrier, I reckoned – a speedy arrival, then a whiplash stop, on a small piece of real estate.

It seemed so slight at first.

The real estate was a small clearing near the top of our driveway, to the left.  The clearing leads to our fire ring, which sits among the tall pines on the north side of the house.

The plan would take courage … speeds of 30 mph, a sharp left turn, another sharp left, flying gravel, massive clouds of dust, then a heavy, instant push on the brake pedal just feet from the tall pines.

Most of how we got to this moment was covered in my prior post … how we moved to Michigan, that we own way too much stuff, that we found a welcoming-but-quirky house atop a wooded hill.

The hill is the key fact here.

Jean, the realtor, had warned us that our driveway was steep enough to cause problems in winter.  But who could know it would cause problems in June? 

Howard, the trucker who’d a day earlier delivered our first of two trailers successfully by backing the heavy load up the hill, had now come to retrieve the empty trailer so he could back in the second one.

It seemed simple enough: Back the cab up the hill, lower the trailer, drive away.

Except … each time Howard attempted to back up the drive, the wheels slipped on the gravel.  And each attempt churned the gravel and sand into an ever-deeper dry mush, making the problem worse.

Howard had warned me this could happen.  He’s pretty seasoned.  He’s long used to doing over-the-road trucking and backing up to truck docks. But since his company added “you-pack” hauling for homeowners like us, he can rattle off a vast list of cautions about residential delivery.

The drive's entrance.

The truck made it up the hill with a full trailer because the trailer’s weight pushed down on the wheels, guaranteeing traction, he said.  Now the wheels were bouncing like beach balls with each attempt. 

Howard thought speed might help.  But here you need an explanation of the driveway setup to appreciate the challenge.

Our house is on Five Mile Road.  It’s a relatively busy road … cars legally can go 55 miles an hour by our drive. So you enter and exit Five Mile with caution.

And to be accurate, it’s not really our drive.  We have a right-of-way to share the drive with our neighbor. 

So you enter the drive on the west side of Five Mile Road, travel about 50 feet, then make a sharp left to go up our hill.  To go straight would send you up the neighbor’s hill.

But to go faster, Howard would need to start at the driveway’s end, at the lip of Five Mile Road, put it in gear, release the brake, engage the clutch, then, turning around so he could see through the back window, put pedal to metal, make the sharp left, and hope that momentum would win the day. 

Each time he tried, beach balls.

There were 10 attempts in all, I think.  With each, the distance up the hill grew shorter while Howard’s maledictions from the cab window grew longer and stronger.  (I sympathized.  A good curse always bolsters the spirit.)  

Howard and I confer.

Before the 11^th time, though, Howard exited the cab, his voice under control despite his red complexion.

“She’s just not going to make it, Doug,” he said.  “I just can’t get the speed I need.” 

Sadly, we both looked up at the empty trailer. At worst, I thought, I could hang lights on it this Christmas.

Then the idea struck.

“Would it help if you drove forward up the hill rather than backing it up?”  I asked.

“Well,” he said. “I could get more speed, plus I won’t be trying to steer backwards.”

I then explained the idea – travel at high speed around the sharp left, up the hill, then yank the truck left into the clearing, and stop.  Then simply back the truck up the much shorter and more-level distance to the trailer.

He and I walked up to the clearing to scope it out.  “Not sure I’ll have enough room,” he said.  “Just don’t know.”

Then a pause as he looked around. 

“Let’s try it.”

The first left-hand turn.

This would be our last shot, I figured.  Otherwise, we’d be talking massive tow trucks with long cables and pulleys, deeper ruts in the drive – a real mess.

I stood at the bottom of the hill, way off the drive, away from flying gravel.

Howard drove the truck across Five Mile Road to the neighboring street, turned it around … and floored it.

The truck dashed across Five Mile and onto the bumpy drive, gaining mph’s by the second.  Howard, his hands firm on the wheel, careened around the first left.  The engine roared louder as he applied gas out of the turn.

This time, no beach balls.  The tires held firm. 

In three seconds, he was at the second left.  The engine louder still.

But now I could hardly see, the dust so thick. 

Abruptly, the roar stopped. 

And through the haze popped the red of the truck’s brake lights.  Howard was safely in the clearing, and just short of the pines.  He’d made it.

Turn Two ... the clearing.

I met him as he climbed down from the cab.  “Nice driving, Howard,” I said.

He nodded.

We checked the logistics of the final backup to the trailer, and he made short work of that.

Howard also made it clear he wasn’t backing the second trailer up the hill.  “No way,” he said. “Plus your drive wouldn’t take it.”

I concurred.  And so I called our moving guys who were coming the next day to help us unload Truck No. 2.  I explained the situation.

“No problem,” said the guy at the office.  “We’ll rent a ferry truck from U-Haul and we’ll just move the things from the big truck at the bottom of the hill to the U-Haul and do a few trips up the hill. 

“We do it all the time.  It’ll maybe cost another $100.”

A ferry truck.  Who’d have thought?

Life’s such a long lesson.  And Howard’s my hero.