Michigan Living
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Horse Crazy Days
The house is silent this morning, save for the teapot clicking on the stove. The house is also cold this morning. Very cold! Too cold. I came downstairs to a thermostat reading 62 degrees, which is not ideal for a dark February morning. With any luck, the house will be warm by lunchtime. You never can be sure with old homes. June will be up within the hour and so I write with haste to clear my mind this morning. The first thing June will do this morning is look for her hobby horse to ride. Then, seeing her cowboy boots beside her horse, she will shove her feet (footie-pajamaed,…
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Silver Lake Sand Dunes
The sand piled high on top of itself, stretching thin along the small shoreline and then righteously lofting itself into the billowed clouds. The air and the wind could not agree if it was summer or autumn. And neither, it seemed, was willing to let go of control just yet. What choice does September have except to sit on the curb and wait for the battle to end? It was mid-afternoon by now and the three of us were ready for our adventure to begin. For days, Sean and I have felt the wanderlust boiling within us. With the changing of the season our conversations had turned a corner, too.…
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Where Corn and Children Grow
Around here, you can tell time by the corn stalks. Today, they are high and nearly bare, the summer preparing itself to end by shedding the last of its crop. I watched them the other morning as I drove, watched the way they stood there beside the road, silent bystanders to the rising sun. I wondered how many hours and gallons of water had been poured upon them to reach this point of nakedness. Now that they have done their job, they will soon be plowed over and the earth will be worked and toiled to prepare for the frost ahead. As June enters a new phase of toddler-dom, I…
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Big Bay Point Lighthouse
I had forgotten the way the great lake’s wind whistles through the grasses, a gentle force that chooses to bend not break. June ran through the field weaving her hand through the wildflowers, orange and yellow and white, a stark contrast from the tall greens. So much about that day at the light house stays with me now. There was an ease in the air as we tipped our heads back to watch an eagle pass overhead. Without a plan and only feet-worn paths before us, we were free to do as we pleased. Is it selfish to wish that most of our days could be like this…? And, that…
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Thomas Rock, Big Bay, Michigan
The oldest of the three children led the way. His legs, swift and confident, were full of the kind of energy that only children possess. The two toddlers, however, already exhausted from the day’s adventure, were levied up by their father’s pull and hoisted high onto shoulders for the ride up the mountain. It was afternoon now and the urgency for nap time sat heavy on the sweet faces as their parents’ feet forged on the pressed red sand of the path. The air is always different in the UP and as we reached the top of Thomas Rock, we collectively released our breath, letting out the stagnate energy within…