I guess I was one of the ‘leaf peepers’ the other day as the red and yellow are making their appearance. I was actually looking at the wind damage and I saw other huge limb of the maple broken so I was taking a picture of the limbs and the yellow leaves just got in the way!
Signs of Autumn
In the middle of the Civil War, Raspberry Island Lighthouse’s fifth-order, fixed lens was exhibited for the first time on July 20, 1863 as part of the lighthouse system guiding sailors in the Apostle Islands area.
Isolated on an island may seem appealing to some but it also presented some hazards too. Light-keeper Francis Jacker was almost dismissed when his light was out on September 13, 1887. A westerly gale forced Keeper Jacker to move the station’s sailboat from the dock to a safe anchorage near the eastern end of the island. He was unable to haul the boat up to the boathouse due to the the dilapidated condition of the boatways and in the darkness, Keeper Jacker sailed beyond the end of the island.
Unable to fight the gale back, he drifted over to Oak Island, where his boat was heavily damaged. On the desolate island without food or fire and only scantily dressed, Jacker finally was able to hail a passing Native American after nearly three days.
The light was out the night of the 13th, but fortunately Keeper Jacker’s family had arrived for a visit on the 14th and displayed the light for two nights until his return. Lighthouse officials reinstated the position of assistant keeper, which had been abolished at Raspberry Island in 1882, after this incident and Keeper Francis Jacker was not discharged due to the credible reason for the outage.
Raspberry Island Lighthouse
This female Common Mergansers looks like she is scared of something and hiding like my cat yesterday in the thunderstorm, but instead the duck is looking for fish and in a blink of an eye, she is gone under the water. Common Mergansers are sometimes called sawbills, fish ducks, or goosanders. The word “merganser” comes from the Latin and roughly translates to “plunging goose”, which is a good name for this very large and often submerged duck.
Common Merganser
When I posted the picture of the tree trunk and people ignoring it for the colored leaves, someone pointed that the roots are ignored too but just important. Well to take that a step farther, one must remember the ground the roots are in and the rock base where the ground rests on. The top of this rock wall is covered with hardwoods and pines and by this week, the contrast between the green and red foliage would be as striking as the ferns and red rocks below the trees.
Red and Green Below
The “leaf peepers” might not only ignore the tree trunks, but the late fall wildflowers too even if bright red and yellow like this little flower in the morning dew. A single blossom too little to be see driving by on the road but might catch your eye if a cluster of them are waving their colors in the breeze.
The Plains coreopsis, also known as Golden tickseed, Goldenwave, or Calliopsis, is a native wildflower to the Great Plains but has been introduced to most regions of the United States. And while the annual does not grow very tall and has to compete with taller grasses and wildflowers, it does attract a variety of insects such as bees, flies, butterflies and beetles.
And apparently some insect chewed a hole in the petal so while the people out driving looking for autumn leaf colors may ignore this wildflower, the insects didn’t!
Plains Coreopsis
With October around the corner, more and more “leaf peepers” will be out looking at the color leaves and most people will be looking up and the tree trunk will be ignored. It stands there silently supporting all the limbs that display the beautiful autumn leaves but it is often overlooked and forgotten.
Forgotten Tree Trunk
I wonder if this sea gull is keeping a watch on the time but then it probably doesn’t take 15 minutes to ‘unload’ and if it is trained sea gull, he will keep the white parking lines nice and white!
Unloading Sea Gull
This lab seemed to like retrieving the thrown tennis ball especially on a warm fall day in the 80s but I not sure I would like the 59ºF temperature of Lake Superior to go swimming in.
Retrieving Lab
The harbor in Cornucopia is protected by a breakwater which provides refuge from Lake Superior’s sometimes angry disposition. But sometimes the lake’s anger disposition still wins as it sounds like there were some issues after the current breakwater structure was built in 1957.
There is a long line of older wooden posts which probably was the original breakwater but are now abandon and feeling the pounding of Lake Superior. I saw requests for a breakwater for Cornucopia in 1911 so these weathered warriors probably started their duty sometime after the request was approved.
Weathered Wooden Warriors
Apparently these geese heard that hunting season was open and they are hiding in the reeds instead of the hunters.
Hiding Geese
