Return to Stone Cove

I finally had the opportunity to return to the Stone Cove after several years. This little cove is one of my favorite places on the earth. It is a little cove in a state park on South Bass Island, Lake Erie. 

This is a place I can sit and listen to the sound of the waves for hours, which is exactly what I did this fine morning of September 11, 2023.

Slightly Frozen

Remarkably, the lake froze over since last week. It was all open water last Monday, and now there is a sheen of ice all the way across. I'm confident it is quite thin, but at least it is there.

Zukey Lake, January 31st, 2023. © Dawn Nelson.

New Year's Day 2023

The pond near my apartment on New Year's Day. © Dawn Nelson

 

The snow is now gone. It is hovering around 40 degrees Fahrenheit on the afternoon of New Year's Day. It is a wild swing from last week's weather of subzero temperatures, only to swing back later this week. 

Such a fun time! My only wish is that we get enough of a stretch of cold weather that the lakes freeze over long enough to walk out on the ice and appreciate the vast beauty of winter.

We shall see. 

Snow on the banks of the river

Yet another Huron River lately... the snowstorm made for some beautiful winter landscapes. 

The rain has already washed away the snow, however, so these moments were fleeting: 

© Dawn Nelson 2022. All Rights Reserved.

The Huron River Lately

Recently I thought about my proximity to the river differently. I decided to journey just a bit further north to the docks on Lakeshore Drive and was not disappointed. The platform that juts out into the river makes for excellent immersion into blue space and it was precisely what I needed. 

I had also recently contemplated the notion that even if some of my observations are just a bit further up the river, the USGS monitoring station at Canal Street is still relevant.

So I shall continue my exploration.

Though it is just a small stretch, there remains so much to reveal and interpret.

Graciously, I accept, and I am honored to be the steadfast observer. 

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© Dawn Nelson, 2022

2022 Water Year Report

I did it. I finally did it. I sat down and entered in all the precipitation data for the last water year for 2022. It only took me about 2 hours total, probably less. There is unfortunately some missing data for August, but I'm just glad I finally completed all the entries. 

While it appears to be a much dryer year than on average, I will note that my gage site is not ideal and there is some obstruction so it is an underestimate of actual precipitation values. 

Anyway, I will write up a more thorough summary soon, this is just my initial celebration.

See more reports at https://cocorahs.org/

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

An impromptu visit: River Raisin

Fortune smiled upon me Thursday and lead me on an impromptu adventure near the River Raisin gauge site I had been hoping to check out soon. I found the site, located on the north bank in a spot difficult to stop and photograph, so I instead gathered some pictures from the county park a half mile or so upstream. Again, the water about to be logged!

I also brought my new anemometer along this time, which I set to read out in knots and Celsius because... why not? So I jotted in my notebook the local air temperature at 21 degrees Celsius and variable winds from the northeast at 2 knots. This is particularly indulgent for a data collector who was so pleased to find USGS records eight different data parameters at the gauge site (#04176500). For now, here are the two graphs showing flow and river height. Note that these graphs show the influx of water from the rain the evening of March 25-26. The pictures are from shortly before the rain.

Finally some rain!

Finally got a whopping 1.13 inches of rain yesterday and (mostly) last night. It's been fairly dry now for almost a month so it was a nice surprise this morning when I checked the rain gauge. I ventured a short trip over to the Huron River near Gallup Park and found a new spot on the south bank. Nothing much going on except the usual, ducks and geese and trumpeter swans and the like. It's becoming something of a series, this Huron River lately.

The last of the snow and ice

It's been quite dry now for several weeks, with zero precipitation to report on the northeast side of the city. All the snow has finally melted away from the north side of the hill. It was probably gone by yesterday but I didn't take note of it until today. So now that the snow is rapidly fading from memory, I ventured a walk into the woods. This is probably the best time to walk the trails before the rains storm in and turn everything into a mud pit. 

It was there I found the last of the ice in the dry, dry swamp.

A small patch of snow and ice center right

A small joy to find this patch, as I was slightly sad I missed the last snow photo op pondside.

A snow and ice free pond

The temperature is around 65 degrees F (12:00pm EST) with a west wind blowing in this morning and early afternoon, hinting at gale force at times. Fewer geese and ducks around today as I assume they are finding cover. This concludes my hyper-local report for the day.

 :-)

The river collection

This is the latest in my river collection 

and Canal Street connection.

The Huron River at the Canal Street site in Ann Arbor where most of the 'river near Canal Street' videos are taken is about 150 feet upriver from a USGS river gage site. 

So basically this is the water about to be logged.

As you can see the water flow this week spiked right around the ice out dates I logged for March 2-4 and then steadily decreased. It is also notably below average water levels for this time of year.

the original flow chart

river height March 1-8 at Canal street site

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

Ice out date log

I think I may be able to mark the dates March 1-2 for when my local pond ices out. It's the southern edge of the pond, where it edges into the hillside, that is taking the longest to thin out. Otherwise known as the snow side of the hill. You can see this on both the west (photo left) and east (photo right) sides of the pond.

My goal for this week will be to visit the lower river where it lets out into Lake Erie. Hopefully I can make it there before all the ice melts, as it is supposed to be a fairly sunny week in the 30s and 40s. Right now it is a cold start to the day at about 26 degrees F at 10am. The clock is ticking.

So my plan is to head out to the shore soon, likely tomorrow.

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Update at 3:30pm: It appears there is a thin sheen of ice from overnight low temperatures and windy conditions, so the ice out dates have been postponed until further notice :-)

View of the pond facing south southwest

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

Creek Life

A foggy mist out there this morning.

Just a trace of precipitation over the last day. I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon walking by the creek and river. The creek is working overtime doing its job. It's always so beautiful to see it functioning in top form. So often throughout the rest of the year it is a tiny, quiet tributary, but in the season for snowmelt, it shows off.

As I was walking along the creek I thought about how fortunate I am to live so nearby that I can see it from my balcony. A two minute walk and I can quickly gather the status of its condition. Knowing this little creek will ultimately flow into the Huron River, and then on to Lake Erie, is such a lovely blessing. It is a very simple way to feel connected with nature and the Great Lakes, even an hour inland from the nearest shore.

I decided on my walk that my goal will be to capture as much of the river's journey throughout the spring season as my capacities will allow. From creek to Great Lake.

North edge of the hill

There may not be any snow left for tonight's full snow moon! Of course the snow always melts much slower on the north side of the hill, so maybe. 

Tuning in to the actual pace of melting ice and snow into water really slows down your sense of time and equilibrium. We always feel so compelled to rush around and do so many things on any given day.  I think finding a natural process to follow along as it unfolds can be very therapeutic. 

Yesterday as I went out to check my rain gauge, I heard a woodpecker not too far away. It made me realize how often I might tune out the sound of a woodpecker, but this time I really listened, and it reminded me of summer, as if a promise. 

This early spring thaw is a little disorienting to me, this is weather I expect sometime in mid to late March so my sense is that summer will arrive much sooner than it actually will. 

Perhaps there is a benefit to living on the north edge of a hill. It tempers the personal impact of climate change on your sense of season's change.

Slow melt

A slow melt proceeds. As an advocate for long winters, it was nice to see the sheen of ice on the newly open water on the west end of the pond this morning. 

It does seem like we only had winter for about 3 weeks, and certainly not for three months like I remember while growing up near a lake. Now an early spring thaw before the end of February... is unusual. So a slow melt is just fine with me.

Driven to precision

A bit of a colder start this morning so the natural world can say a long goodbye to the ice. I finally revved up my Android Blackberry device to take some photos -- it is a phone I bought aftermarket and quickly realized it functions much better as a field camera than as an actual phone. Here are the results: 

This is the west end of the pond as seen from my main balcony. A lot of the ice cover is gone from this side because the water drains into the creek, as you can see. 

The more I write about what seem like mundane details about the time of year the ice melts, the more I want to go out in the field and document and share more observations. It is an excellent motivating force and one most welcome. It drives me to be ever more precise, which I find rewarding.

A view of the pond facing north-northeast

26 degrees F at the airport on the south side at 9am this morning and 29 degrees F on the northeast corner of the city. I'm sure the variation is due in part to different sensors, but also the difference in elevation (about 70 feet farther up the hill on my side of town). 

And there is a lovely clear blue sky this morning; it seems we can look forward to more of this over the next several days (finally!). 

Update: A peek at the Huron River this afternoon around 3pm:

As the pond thaws

This week is about watching the pond thaw and noting the exact date it 'ices out' -- when a body of water is 90% free of ice. I anticipate this may be within the next day or two.

By the end of this week the natural world will have transformed from a majestic winter wonderland to a muddy early spring chatter house. It's really something marvelous when you stop for a moment and think about how incredible that really is. Novelists work hard to fictionalize a whole world, called world-building, and if one is paying attention, you can adopt a lot of narrative just from watching the seasons change.

This year also marks the return of the cicada, so you will soon see that I am not kidding when I say 'chatter house'. The sounds of cicadas as they hail their return to the stage after 17 years underground will trigger deep memories of summer, and truly, I think that is their gift, to help us understand deep memories. Memories that we've attached to that particular sound of summer. 

But for now, ice! Be careful out there, the ice will thin quickly.

42 degrees F at 10am in this cozy northeast corner of the city (elevation 910 ft ASL), and 42 at the airport (KARB) on the south side (elevation 837 ft. ASL). 

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By 2pm: