Five Things you need to know about Michigan: March Meltdown Edition

Posted on by farlane

Grove

Grove, photo by Liz Glass

On my Absolute Michigan website, I have a favorite feature called Five Things you need to know about Michigan.  

1Please go out and vote in the Michigan primaries today. I am going to vote for Bernie Sanders because I feel that in Michigan and elsewhere working folks, retirees, students, and many more who have ended up on the short end of a globalizing, transforming world are hurting. It seems to me that many of those we have elected to represent us have forgotten that government can be a powerful force for the betterment of society and that when profits come at the expense of others, we all suffer. Please vote for whoever you want to, and I’d love it if you took some time today to remember that you are a part of your government.

2Wow. I had the chance to drive across Michigan yesterday, windows down, basking in near 60 degree temperatures and knowing that spring is on the way. Here’s hoping that the mercury stays moderate and our farmers, orchardists & vintners have a great growing season.

 

3Liz Glass took today’s photo. You can visit her at the Lake Street Market in Boyne City.  She shared today’s photo back in 2012 in the Absolute Michigan pool (where I get most of the photos for Michigan in Pictures). Liz wrote:

I’ve been saving some ice shots to sprinkle in during the warmer months. This is from March 15, when the ice on Lake Charlevoix had melted into a pack of splinters that could then be pushed into piles by the moving water. The color here is real. The low sun is bouncing the golden brown of the sandy lake bottom up through the ice mound, and the looser shards on top are picking up the shimmering silvers and blues of the water and sky.

View her photo bigger and see more in her crazy-awesome Ice slideshow.

4If you have a problem with me being myself, please consider not telling me to “stick to the photos” and instead follow another blog/person/path that doesn’t bother you. I love Michigan, I love Michigan in Pictures, but I am an actual person who believes as I believe and does what I do. I will continue to do this, and telling me not to will just upset us both.

5Congratulations! By making it to here, you can send me an idea for something about Michigan to feature. I can’t promise that I will be able to, but I can promise you that I will try and reply in any case. Just email me or post a comment below.

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Must be a Monday

Posted on by farlane

Fox Squirrel Falls in the River

FOX SQUIRREL, photo by John E Heintz Jr

“If one place is as good as any other, it’s high time we decided. Otherwise when we get there, we won’t know we’ve arrived.”
~Dr. Doolittle

I swear that John Heintz is a direct descendent of Dr. Doolittle – gets the best nature photos! View his photo bigger and definitely watch his slideshow for the whole story.

More from the animal kingdom and more funny photos on Michigan in Pictures.

A year ago on Grand Island

Posted on by farlane

Ice Pillars on Grand Island

unbelievable colors in the ice pillars, Grand Island, photo by Lake Superior Photo

On March 1st, Shawn shared this shot from last March on Grand Island. We’ve had nowhere near the ice buildup this year – a year can really make a difference.

Also, I’d like to congratulate her on having (as far as I know) the most popular Facebook page for a Michigan photographer – 201,000+ fans for Lake Superior Photo! If you’re not one of those, I urge you to change that right now.

View the photo bigger and view & purchase her photos at LakeSuperiorPhoto.com.

PS: Just in case you missed it, Michigan in Pictures has a good explanation of what gives ice difference colors.

Michigan Waterfalls: Root Beer Falls

Posted on by farlane
Root Beer Falls

6 Root Beer Falls, photo by David Hedquist

One of the coolest things for me about making Michigan in Pictures is when I come across something in Michigan that there’s little to no information about online.

Such is the case with Root Beer Falls (map), a roughly 8′ waterfall that is located a couple of miles north of Wakefield in Gogebic County. “Rootbeer Falls” is also a name for the Tahquamenon Falls, and one would assume that the same tannins that give Tahquamenon their rich, brown color are at work here.

Douglas Feltman posted this sweet time-lapse video from Root Beer Falls last fall, saying that this small drop on Planter Creek is fed by overflow from Sunday Lake in Wakefield, just a quick walk through the woods from Wertanen Road. He has 49 more Michigan waterfall videos as well!

The photographer, David Hedquist, is the author of Waterfalling in Wisconsin and has told me he’s working on a Michigan book, so stay tuned! Sorry- I misremembered. David is NOT  working on a new book. He did share that Phil Stagg of Waterfalls of Michigan is writing books though!

You can view his photo background bigilicious and see a bunch more in his Root Beer Falls slideshow.

Lots more Michigan waterfalls on Michigan in Pictures!

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Holler, Detroit

Posted on by farlane

Detroit by Ryan Southen

Detroit, Michigan, photo by Ryan Southen

Hey Motor City cats & kittens – I’m visiting Detroit this Friday & Saturday. If you have thoughts about what I should be doing, please email me or hit me up through Facebook.

View Ryan’s photo bigger, follow him at Ryan Southen Photography, and check out his incredible Detroit slideshow.

PS: Ryan was one of many Detroit photographers whose photos were featured in this classic Absolute Michigan video featuring the Detroit Cobras Holler:

PPS: More about the Fisher Building and the Penobscot Building on Michigan in Pictures.

Waterfall Wednesday: Milky Way over Tahquamenon Falls

Posted on by farlane

Milky Way over Tahquamenon Falls

Milky Way over Tahquamenon Falls, photo by John McCormick / Michigan Nut Photography

The Tahquamenon Falls State Park says:

Tahquamenon Falls State Park encompasses close to 50,000 acres stretching over 13 miles. Most of this is undeveloped woodland without roads, buildings or power lines. The centerpiece of the park, and the very reason for its existence, is the Tahquamenon River with its waterfalls. The Upper Falls is one the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi. It has a drop of nearly 50 feet and is more than 200 feet across. A maximum flow of more than 50,000 gallons of water per second has been recorded cascading over these falls.

…This is the land of Longfellow’s Hiawatha – “by the rushing Tahquamenaw” Hiawatha built his canoe. Long before the white man set eyes on the river, the abundance of fish in its waters and animals along its shores attracted the Ojibwa Indians, who camped, farmed, fished and trapped along its banks. In the late 1800’s came the lumber barons and the river carried their logs by the millions to the mills. Lumberjacks, who harvested the tall timber, were among the first permanent white settlers in the area.

Rising from springs north of McMillan, the Tahquamenon River drains the watershed of an area of more than 790 square miles. From its source, it meanders 94 miles before emptying into Whitefish Bay. The amber color of the water is caused by tannins leached from the Cedar, Spruce and Hemlock in the swamps drained by the river. The extremely soft water churned by the action of the falls causes the large amounts of foam, which has been the trademark of the Tahquamenon since the days of the voyager.

Click through for maps and more.

View John’s photo bigger, follow him at Michigan Nut Photography on Facebook, and settle back for his Michigan Waterfalls slideshow.

Lots more Tahquamenon Falls on Michigan in Pictures.

Blue Ice at Mackinac

Posted on by farlane

Blue Ice at Mackinac

Michigan Winter, photo by Jeff Caverly

I featured this photo yesterday in Five Things you need to know about Michigan on Absolute Michigan. Check the link out for more interesting things including some new revelations about when Gov. Snyder’s senior staff raised concerns about Flint’s water (October 2014) and a look at an innovative approach to tackling urban blight. 

mLive recently reported on blue ice at the Mackinac Bridge. The other day’s post on Michigan in Pictures explained why ice is blue or green. In case you didn’t read it, here’s a bit of that:

As with water, this color is caused by the absorption of both red and yellow light (leaving light at the blue end of the visible light spectrum). The absorption spectrum of ice is similar to that of water, except that hydrogen bonding causes all peaks to shift to lower energy – making the color greener.

…In simplest of terms, think of the ice or snow layer as a filter. If it is only a centimeter thick, all the light makes it through; if it is a meter thick, mostly blue light makes it through. This is similar to the way coffee often appears light when poured, but much darker when it is in a cup.

You can view Jeff’s photo background bigilicious and see more photos of the ice at Mackinac & also Tahquamenon Falls in his slideshow.

More winter wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.

Making the Leap

Posted on by farlane

Leaping off Pyramid Point

Untitled, photo by Todd Richter

Happy Leap Day everyone and here’s hoping that this quadrennial occurrence adds a little fun to your life! Borgna Brunner lays down Leap Year 101:

Leap years are added to the calendar to keep it working properly. The 365 days of the annual calendar are meant to match up with the solar year. A solar year is the time it takes the Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun — about one year. But the actual time it takes for the Earth to travel around the Sun is in fact a little longer than that—about 365 ¼ days (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be precise). So the calendar and the solar year don’t completely match—the calendar year is a touch shorter than the solar year.

It may not seem like much of a difference, but after a few years those extra quarter days in the solar year begin to add up. After four years, for example, the four extra quarter days would make the calendar fall behind the solar year by about a day. Over the course of a century, the difference between the solar year and the calendar year would become 25 days! Instead of summer beginning in June, for example, it wouldn’t start until nearly a month later, in July. As every kid looking forward to summer vacation knows—calendar or no calendar—that’s way too late! So every four years a leap day is added to the calendar to allow it to catch up to the solar year.

Read on for more and enjoy your day.

Todd took this shot back in August of 2009 at one of my favorite spots for hiking (and jumping) – the Pyramid Point overlook in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Lake Michigan is hundreds of feet down a steep bluff from the point where she’s jumping, and many is the person who wished they didn’t run down that bluff after toiling up it!

View Todd’s photo background bigtacular and see more in his digital slideshow.

More dunes on Michigan in Pictures!

Emergency Ark: The Celestial Ship of the North

Posted on by farlane

Emergency Ark

Emergency Ark, photo by Michael

The Celestial Ship of the North (Emergency Ark), aka the Barnboat, is a site-specific installation and permanent sculpture in Port Austin, Michigan created by Scott Hocking. He wrote to me:

I was asked by Detroiter Jim Boyle, whose family is still in Port Austin, if I’d ever had any ideas of working with old barns. He’s been trying to get a Detroit / Port Austin connection going by bringing artists up there to do projects. I basically told him I’d had some fleeting thoughts about how much certain barns look like overturned ship hulls, and that if I had an old barn to work with, I’d probably turn it into a boat.

So, that was the beginning.

Like all of my work, I try to let the materials and site dictate what I make, and as I worked on the barnboat the shape became what it is now – mostly influenced by the intense winds of Michigan’s thumb. It took about 3 months total, but I’m not quite done yet: I’m still planning to fill in the base with mounded sand this spring for a little extra stability, and so that it can once again overgrow like that ivy covered barn it was made from.

Awesome. Check out lots more of Scott’s engaging work on his website.

Enjoy Michael’s photo background bigtacular on Flickr and see more in his slideshow.

More art and more winter wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.

Ice on the Straits of Mackinac

Posted on by farlane

Ice in St Ignace

Last week in St. Ignace, photo by Thomas Nighswander

Doesn’t look like we’ll get an ice bridge for snowmobiles to Mackinac Island this winter.

Click to view the photo bigger and follow him on Facebook and at National Photography Workshops.

More ice on Michigan in Pictures.