With the dry conditions, my pond is receding making the critters, like the racoons and deer, walk father down the banks for water. The rain shower yesterday didn’t do much to fill the pond up, but it moisten the edges so the frogs had more wet area to sit and make their croaking noises.
Frog on Pond Bank
A line of rain showers moved in today and some areas had heavier storms. The sky is often interesting with different cloud shapes and even a bit eerie at times.
Stormy Clouds
There have been some unusual looking butterflies floating around lately as some of the monarchs are mating and are attached to each other as they fly around or rest on leaves. There are several generations in a year and the last generation will migrate south in the fall and return the next spring.
Mating Monarchs
Starflower, a North American woodland perennial. blooms in May and June. The flowers are about a half inch across and has five to nine petals in a star-like shape. The seeds are very small and will not germinate until the second year as cold period followed by warm and then another cold season.
Starflower
Built in a late 12th century Norwegian stave church style, the Boynton Chapel in Door County was handcrafted by Winifred and Donald Boynton. Winifred learned woodcarving and fresco techniques as they worked on the chapel. There are numerous carvings like the dragon arch of the doorway, fifty-two gargoyles under the eaves, the twelve apostles, carved pews, raised pulpit, altar and baptismal font. Winifred Boynton also painted forty-one frescoes which decorate the interior.
Boynton Chapel
Another summer weekend will have people visiting parks, including Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, which make the news last month when some boaters captured video of a 200 foot part of the cliff that broke off and fell into Lake Superior. The cliffs in the park range from 50 feet to 200 feet above the lake. In 2019, a group of kayakers narrowly escaped injury from another collapse of the cliffs.
Cliffs at Pictured Rocks
The native wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) dangling blooms provide food for the ruby throated hummingbirds and other pollinators. The flower stalk grows one to three feet tall with one to two inch flowers. The genus name Aquilegia is derived from the Latin word for eagle as the flower petals resemble an eagle’s sharp talons. And its common name of columbine comes from the Latin for dove as the flower petals looks like five doves nested together. So looking like an eagle or dove might depend on how far the blossom is open as this one looks more claw than dove to me.
Wild Columbine
The sandy dunes at Whitefish Dunes, along the shore of Lake Michigan, has evidence of settlers as early as 100 B.C. and one of the later groups was the Late Woodland People who occupied this area around A.D. 800-900. As many as fifty wigwams like this one, were occupied from spring through late fall for the fishing season before they traveled to their winter hunting camps.
Wigwam of the Late Woodland People
The second keeper at the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse for 35 years was Civil war veteran Captain William Duclon who lived there with his wife, Julia, and seven sons. She wanted to give her children a musical education and taught her sons how to play the Rosewood piano which William paid a month’s pay for it. The boys formed their own band and were favorite entertainers in the area. They would take the piano with them by removing the legs to get it out of the lighthouse.
Traveling Lighthouse Piano
The Dwarf Lake Iris isn’t easy to spot since the flower stem is only about two inches tall and it is also a federally threatened species. Found around the shoreline of the Great Lakes, its habitat has been reduced by shoreline development so it can be a rare treat to find this wildflower.
Dwarf Lake Iris
