These small yellow mushrooms are easily overlooked since so tiny on the forest floor, but to an insect they might look as large as the rocks in yesterday’s picture and hard to jump from one to another.
Yellow Mushrooms
Picture of the Day for September 18, 2013
Lookout Point on Hermit Island of the Apostle Island was once a sea cave and then eroded to an arch until it collapse in the summer 1975.
Hermit Island got its name from a mysterious man who lived alone from 1847 to 1861. Few hard facts remain, including his name, although the old maps speak of this place as “Wilson’s Island.” Rumors has it that Wilson lit out for the wildest country he could find, trying to outrun his sadness of finding his parents dead and his intended bride married to someone else.
There on Hermit Island, Wilson built a log cabin after losing a fist fight and no longer the “best man on Lake Superior” and found his own island to be king on. He planted a garden, and raised chickens. To earn a few dollars, he kept up his work as a cooper. Fishermen would stop by to purchase barrels for their catch, but the Hermit did not encourage them to linger. Yet some writers say he had no need to raise cash. They say that on his rare trips to town, he attracted attention by paying for supplies from a purse filled with silver Mexican coins. Others whispered of a store of gold, buried somewhere near his cabin.
Although now labeled as wilderness, after the hermit died, Hermit Island was home to a number of quarries for its brownstone from the 1860s to the 1890s. And it appears that the birds like the point on Lookout Point as it is ‘white’ stone instead of brownstone.
Lookout Point on Hermit Island
Picture of the Day for September 17, 2013
A calm day on Lake Superior at Meyers Beach with Eagle Island on the horizon and the sea caves located on the far point of land. Part of the fun combing the beaches is to look for rocks and driftwood. Finding the unique and interesting piece is always a fun adventure and it always makes me wonder how far the driftwood had traveled; did it come from the mainland or from one of the nearby Apostle Islands or did it come all the way across the lake from the Canadian side.
For some reason I wasn’t able to put this piece of driftwood in my pocket but it made a nice spot to sit while listening to the gentle waves rolling in.
Driftwood Log on Meyers Beach
Picture of the Day for September 16, 2013
When thinking of waterfalls on the western side of Lake Superior, famous waterfalls like Gooseberry Falls or Baptism High Falls come to mind but sometimes you can find a gem hidden away from most people. With a two mile hike in the forest area of the Bayfield Peninsula, a little gem of a waterfall set in a sandstone glen can be found on Lost Creek Number One.
I’m glad Lost Creek was ‘found’ as it is a breathtaking view to see the small fifteen foot waterfall at one end of a glen with high cliff walls and the small stream running across flat rocks and little boulders. Moss and ferns cover some of the rocks but when a piece of sandstone breaks off, a bright reddish-orange color is revealed.
The thick trees and the glen cut off all sounds of man-made sounds and you hear the water plunging and flowing away, the wind in the tree tops and an occasional bird call like the pileated woodpecker. The sandstone has been eroded away behind the falls so you can walk behind and peer out down the ravine through the veil of water.
I guess I am a bit selfish, but I hope Lost Creek Falls stays ‘losted’ for a while longer as it was so peaceful not to have to share the view with anyone else and it was my tranquil spot, at least for a few minutes away.
Lost Creek Falls
Picture of the Day for September 15, 2013
The welcoming rays fill the eastern sky on an early fall morning sunrise.
Welcoming Rays
Picture of the Day for September 14, 2013
The old train engine from yesterday might be retired, this commercial fishing boat isn’t and as soon as the sea gulls hear the motor start up, they leave their resting spot on the water and flock to the boat, following it out of the harbor in the hope of a snack.
The steel hulled Courtney Sue has seen 65 years of work and still heads out before sunrise in search of fish on Lake Superior. The Courtney Sue is 39.4 feet in length and 4.2 feet in depth which was built by the Hugh Lee Iron Works in Saginaw, Michigan in 1948 for the Halvorson Fisheries in Cornucopia, Wisconsin.
Sea Gulls Chasing the Courtney Sue
Picture of the Day for September 13, 2013
The end of the work week is coming but I think this railroad engine has run out of steam and won’t quite make it!
Tired Engine
Picture of the Day for September 12, 2013
Picture of the Day for September 11, 2013
This squirrel is going to get hollered at since he should not be in the bird feeder but squirrels can quickly figure out most “squirrel-proof” feeders.
Bad Squirrel
Picture of the Day for September 10, 2013
This grain thresher was a M. Rumely Company. The M. & J. Rumely Co. became the M. Rumely Co., and then the Advance Rumely Co. The Allis-Chalmers Company acquired the business in 1931.
The logo on the side says The Farmers Friend Stacker on the top circle and M. Rumely Co, La Porte, Ind. in the Manufacturer line. In the small print inside the circle it states “It’s the Farmers Friend and no mistake”
Excerpt from ‘MACHINES OF PLENTY’, By Stewart H. Holbrook (Chapter Nine-Page 105)
‘WHEN JEROME CASE died, Stephen Bull, his brother-in-law, became president of the Threshing Machine Company. During his regime the concern introduced a single crank self-feeder for threshers that eliminated both the feeders and band cutters of threshing crews. Because the self-feeder increased the amount of straw entering the machine, it called for more labor at the other end, where the threshed straw came out. This labor in turn was reduced by an endless conveyor stacker, which swung from side to side of the threshing machine as the straw moved away from it.
‘Even the conveyor stacker, however, several men were required to swing the stacker every little while and to stack the straw. An inventor named J. J. Buchanan soon came out with a patented wind stacker operated by a fan that forced a blast of air through a big pipe. Seldom has a new invention been so successful from its introduction as the wind stacker. It blew the threshed straw high and far in the air to fall and make a pile. Stacking was eliminated.
‘Not only farmers and the makers of farm machinery recognized at once the great improvement of the wind stacker. It was also recognized as such by a group of Hoosier lawyers who bought Buchanan’s patent rights, formed the Indiana Manufacturing Company, and set out to license actual manufacturers who wanted to add wind stackers to their threshing machines. This amounted to virtually everybody in business, including the Case Company. The new device was called the Farmer’s Friend Stacker. The concerns licensed to make it agreed to sell it at a fixed price, or $250. Of this amount, $30 went to the Indiana lawyers as royalty.
A Farmer’s Friend
