Lake St. Clair

Where the sailboats set off to race, at the top of the Detroit River into Lake St. Clair. 

Lakes, Trains, Fish

I spent some time at the lake these past two days, and enjoyed watching the small fish school around near shore while the train passed by across the lake.

Very peaceful and existentially satisfying, it was.

Blue space is something to experience as often as possible, it is healing and calming.

And the weather was beautiful.

October is a great month to spend time near this lake, as most folks have gone back to their regular routines and the lake is calmer. There is also a bit more solitude.

So I will try to make more time for this throughout the month. In between compiling my precipitation data for the past water year, because while I am diligent about writing it down with pencil on paper, I am terrible about adding the data to CoCoRaHS. 

Hopefully I will have more to report soon :-)

Rambling the Zukey

A bit of afternoon gardening and tidying up preceded a walk down to Zukey Lake and memory lane. I once caught small fish with my hands in this lake, long ago. I'm hoping I'll manage to catch a few fish this summer (with a fishing pole) and remember how to clean them and prepare them for dinner. Not too many though, PCBs and all. I imagine there are more than a few. Good thing my child bearing days are done.

Still a beautiful and comforting view.

 © Dawn Nelson, 2022

Winter wonderland

It's a winter wonderland on the peninsula of Zukey Lake. More snow on the way!

Au revoir, summer dreaming

 and just like that, it's the last day of August and seemingly summer.

4th of July sunset

Zukey Lake

 

This is the lake that inspired it all; the love of water, poetry and all that is beautiful in the world. 

Zukey Lake.

Lake Nipigon

After dreaming about being north of Lake Superior, today I found myself reading up on the source waters. The Nipigon River is one of the primary tributaries to Lake Superior.

Then I discovered that I can embed maps in this blog. This is such great news. 

Where waters meet

It was um, cold out there today mostly because of the wind chill. Still *technically* above freezing, but there were a few more car side photos taken this time around. This one I snapped while standing on a tall park bench to get a better view over the rocky shoreline.

Detroit River, facing Canada, moments before it meets the sea

Pointe Mouillee is where the Huron River lets out into Lake Erie. This short recording shows the vantage point from the Pointe Mouillee Marsh DNR Headquarters.

A view of Pointe Mouillee marsh from Hull's Trace landing

What is lovely about this region is that it is where three waters meet. The Huron River and the Detroit River (actually a strait) each flow into Lake Erie in roughly a five mile area. It makes it feel like there is a whole lot going on. 

And while breathing the cool fresh air is a nice change from being inside all winter, I am definitely looking forward to much warmer temperatures, arriving hopefully as soon as the day after tomorrow.

A clear blue sky marks the day

Okay so today was the day for official ice out of the pond.

view of the pond facing east

Aside from that I felt compelled to visit the Lake Erie shore before all the ice melts. The temperature was in the 50s and the sun was out nearly all day in the company of a clear blue sky so I knew there was no time to lose. I headed straight to the shore to visit Sterling State Park on the western basin and got a fair bit of footage. So much, in fact, that I finally filled the data card for my Nikon. 

Fortunately I take the Android Blackberry along with me now, which is actually the camera that makes sharing these photos much easier. And the blogger makes it quite simple to share my videos from YouTube. Altogether, this seems to be a good depiction of the state of the west shore. Well, at least the mile or so that I walked today.

from the mud to the horizon, I present to you: Lake Erie

the largest patch of ice and my favorite smokestacks

Sunday story of ice

Some highlights from the lower section of the Huron River. I traveled downriver and then worked my way back inland towards home. Perhaps most notable is that all areas of the river that are wide still have considerable amounts of ice. Of the lakes I passed, Belleville Lake is nearly 100% ice cover, and Ford Lake is at least 60% ice cover (unfortunately I missed the spot to turn off to get photos of Ford Lake). Beginning on the east side of Belleville Lake at Sandy's Marina, here is a short series to tell the story:

Belleville Lake, east end near Sandy's Marina

Belleville east boat launch site (MI DNR) 

Huron River near Water Street, Ypsilanti

Huron River at Gallup Park boat launch, Ann Arbor