Strawberry Fields Forever

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

I've died and gone to berry heaven

I’ve died and gone to berry heaven, photo by yodraws.

Over on Absolute Michigan we got word Ann Arbor blogger Ed Vielmetti that strawberries season is kicking off in southern Michigan. Click through for all kinds of strawberry goodness!

Yolanda took this at the Fulton Street Farmer’s Market in Grand Rapids a couple of years ago. View it background bigalicious and in her Fulton Street Farmer’s Market slideshow.

PS: Speaking of farm markets, farms and food, if you’re not hooked in to Real Time Farms, you’re missing out!

Organic Michigan Hops – your beer just got more local!

Posted on by farlane

 

Michigan Hops Michigan Hop Alliance

michigan hop pellets, photo by the Michigan Hop Alliance

The Michigan Hop Alliance posted this photo of some hop pellets they made at their processing plant to their Facebook last Friday. It is the first certified organic hop processing facility in Michigan and one of the few in the country. Their Michigan grown organic hops are available in Traverse City at Diversions and in Grand Rapids at Siciliano’s. Read more about the ins and outs of growing organic hops in Michigan in the Grand Traverse Insider.
While I know it looks like the rabbit got loose again, but for a former craft brewer , this photo of Michigan-made organic hop pellets told me that the booming craft beer & brewing industry in Michigan had taken another leap forward! The aromatic ale additives also make a great companion to the latest Driving Michigan video we posted this morning to Absolute Michigan, a visit with Founder’s Brewing Company’s head brewer Jeremy Kosmicki!

May is Blossom Time in Michigan!

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Traverse MI 1950s East Grand Travese Bay Cherry Blossoms Photo by Phil Balyeat Avery Card 58253 S1155661 National Cherry Festival Postmark 1961

Traverse MI 1950s East Grand Travese Bay Cherry Blossoms Photo by Phil Balyeat Avery Card 58253 S1155661 National Cherry Festival Postmark 1961, photo by UpNorth Memories – Donald (Don) Harrison.

The annual National Cherry Festival got its start around 1910, as cherry growers in the Grand Traverse area began to hold informal “blessing of the blossoms” ceremonies each year at blossom time in May. Businesses jumped on the bandwagon (cherry truck?) in 1925 for the formalized “Blessing of the Blossoms Festival” which was such a big deal that in 1930 they expanded to 3 days and in 1930 President Herbert Hoover attended the opening. The next year the Cherry Festival was declared a national affair and in 1933 they moved it to summer.

Although it’s now a summertime affair (July 2-9, 2011), the wineries on the Old Mission Peninsula hold an annual Blossom Days celebration (May 14 & 15 this year). My informal read of the cherry blossoms here says that tart cherry blossoms will be in full swing with sweets kicking off.

Apparently in 1906 there was some sort of spiritual attraction of orchards, because to the south in Benton Harbor, the Reverend W. J. Cady of the First Congregational Church in Benton Harbor was the first to urge his parishioners to drive through the orchards and view the fruit blossoms. Cady termed them “symbols of life renewed” and his sermon is credited with the birth of the Blossomtime Festival. Now the Blossomtime Festival in St. Joseph/Benton Harbor is shared between the oldest and largest multi-community festival in the state of Michigan. Join them this Saturday (May 7) for the Grand Floral Parade and more!

Check this photo out big as a cherry orchard, in Don’s slideshow and see another cool old orchard photo right here.

Michigan Wine Month: Vineyards and the Bay

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Vineyards and the Bay

Vineyards and the Bay, photo by mono1980.

Although the vineyards don’t look like this right now, April is Michigan Wine Month, a time to celebrate the vines & wines of Michigan. You can chekc out all kinds of Michigan wine information and events including the SUPER HUGE Michigan Wine Month Giveaway from Michigan By the Bottle!

Check this out bigger and in Josh’s Wine Tasting Traverse slideshow.

Check out the vineyard slideshow from the Absolute Michigan group and also vineyards on Michigan in Pictures!

National Cherry Month means only 5 months to fresh Michigan cherries!

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Untitled, photo by Christina**.

February is National Cherry Month and Absolute Michigan has your cherry goodness including a neat four season cherry photo essay by Megan @ American Spoon.

See this bigger in Christina’s slideshow and also check out her photography website.

An old couple at the Thoreson Farm

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Untitled, photo by jenny murray.

The Thoreson Farm page at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore says that the

John Thoreson and Ingeborg Sakariasdatte emigrated from Norway in 1877. Although they crossed the Atlantic on the same boat, family lore has it that they never really met on the boat. Ingeborg resided with the higher-priced ticket-holders, while John remained below deck with the lower-fare travelers. They first settled in Suttons Bay, and arrived in Port Oneida in 1880. The family initially rented the Kelderhouse/Baker farm until 1883, when they moved to Minnesota for one year. After returning to Port Oneida, they rented the old Burfiend house. Around 1900, along with their sons Ole and Fred, they built their farm on 160 acres of land purchased from the Andersons…

The Thoresons operated a general farm with livestock, small grains, and hay. With 75 trees, they were the first Port Oneida farm to raise cherries for market. They also owned sheep, pigs, chickens, and a few dairy cattle.

You can see some more photos of the farm (including a volunteer working on these buildings) at Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear.

Check this out bigger and in Jenny’s Holga slideshow.

Cool Morning on the Farm

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

Cool Morning on the Farm.

Cool Morning on the Farm., photo by photoshoparama – Dan.

Whenever I see a photo like this, I think of Nature Baroque: Snowflakes & Crystals by my friends Jerry Dennis and Glenn Wolff from their great book It’s Raining Frogs & Fishes.

Daniel shot this in Newaygo County yesterday morning.  Check it out bigger in his Colors slideshow.

Harvest the Wind

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

wind_farm_pigeon 002

wind_farm_pigeon 002, photo by eXtension Ag Energy.

Yesterday on Absolute Michigan we posted an article from Great Lakes Echo wondering if Michigan will harness offshore wind and pass the bill in the House to regulate wind farms in Michigan’s Great Lakes waters.

Land based wind farms around the state are already tapping this resource. The largest of these is the Harvest Wind Farm that spans 3,200 acres between Elkton and Pigeon, Michigan, in Huron County. Each of the wind farm’s 32 turbines stand 262 ft tall (393 with the 131′ blades) and is capable of producing 1.65 megawatts of electricity, for a total project capacity of 52.8 megawatts.

You can get a sense of the scale of the farm in these cool aerial shots. Something to consider is that 52.8 megawatts is enough to power 15,000 or so homes. When you think about the total population of Michigan and the space available to site wind turbines, it’s hard to see how we will be able to meet our energy demands without using the Great Lakes.

MSU Extension Bioenergy Educator Dennis Pennington took the shot above in July of 2009. Check it out background big and also in his wind slideshow (some of the shots show construction and give a sense of the scale of these massive machines).

woolies

Posted on by Michigan in Pictures

woolies

woolies, photo by jenny murray.

Check this out bigger and in Jenny’s holga slideshow.

More black & white photography on Michigan in Pictures.

Michigan’s Otherside: Ghosts in the Cornfield

Posted on by farlane

whats left..
whats left.. photo by PepOmint

Michigan’s Otherside has some great stories to put you in the Halloween frame of mind. Corn mazes are a popular attraction that many Michigan farmers put a lot of time into, but as Ghosts in the Cornfield warns, sometimes corn fields have their own haunts:

As a teenager I lived in a multilevel house right on M66 in Battle Creek close to the Pennfield schools. A couple of times I was walking along the rows of corn in the cornfield just behind my home when I had a paranormal experience. I was only about four or five rows back, walking parallel to the back of my house when I saw a farmer in blue jeans and a red flannel shirt walking towards me in the row closer to my house. I was too scared to look up to see his face. There was no sound from his footsteps or his arms hitting the dried leaves on the cornstalks. I had massive goose bumps! A couple of weeks later I was walking along the corn rows in about the same spot and this time I saw the farmer with a hound dog. Once again, I was too scared to look up. He was between me and the safety of my home. I kept my eyes down, held my breath and hoped he wouldn’t say or do anything to me. They passed silently and my heart rate slowed back down. My sisters and I loved to play in the cornfields.

Years later, one of my sisters admitted she had seen the farmer. He is probably still walking the fields every Fall as he had in life…

Read on at Michigan’s Otherside and check out some other spooky tales from Michigan, legends and haunted places!

You can see this photo bigger in PepOmint’s slideshow!

PS: Check out another classic Michigan ghost story on Absolute Michigan, the Ada Witch!