The Snow Storm

The Snow-Storm

By Ralph Waldo Emerson           

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,

Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,

Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air

Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,

And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.

The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet

Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit

Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed

In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north wind's masonry.

Out of an unseen quarry evermore

Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer

Curves his white bastions with projected roof

Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.

Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work

So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he

For number or proportion. Mockingly,

On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;

A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;

Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,

Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,

A tapering turret overtops the work.

And when his hours are numbered, and the world

Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,

Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art

To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,

Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,

The frolic architecture of the snow.

Charity Island Lighthouse Dinner Cruise

When we visited Michigan in June, we took a sunset dinner cruise to Charity Island.  The boat was docked at Port Huron.  It was an hour boat trip to Charity Island and we toured the lighthouse and learn the history of the lighthouse and the islands.  The dinner was delicious and the sunset was gorgeous.

Port Austin Harbor and Coastal Wetlands

Harbor Beach Lighthouse

Pointe Aux Barque Lighthouse

Coastal Wetlands of Lake Huron

 

 

I am always posting pictures of Florida marshes and wetlands but the great lakes also have beautiful wetlands.

"Ends of the Earth" Port Austin Harbor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These pictures are posted in sequence of my walk.  I love the aqua waters of Lake Huron against a endless horizon.  Located at the tip of the thumb of Michigan, Port Austin is know for fishing i.e. lake trout, walleye, yellow perch, smallmouth bass, brown trout, salmon and steelhead.  It was a quiet and rainy day with very few people at the pier.  One of the best walks for scenery if you enjoy walking to the "ends of the earth."

There is a band "Lord Huron" that named themselves after Lake Huron.  One of their songs is entitled "Ends of the Earth"

"Oh, there's a river that winds on forever
I'm gonna see where it leads
Oh, there's a mountain that no man has mounted
I'm gonna stand on the peak"

Wagener County Park - Beware!

Wagener County Park was not very crowded and the view from the shoreline was beautiful but there is a problem with this park, it is a health hazard for anyone camping there and using the beach.  There were children dressed in swimsuits at the campsite and I don't know how it could be enjoyable when you have to watch every step you take.  The beach is not a clean beach; there were animal feces all over the sand. It is not a bathing beach; it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the beach sand contains more fecal bacteria than seawater.  I don't like it when people walk their dogs at the beaches in St. Augustine.  Even if the owners clean up after the dogs, it still contaminates the sand.  I hate to ruin someone's visit to the beach this weekend but be warned.  Multiple scientific tests have detected high levels of fecal bacterial in sand.  Beach authorities routinely monitor beach water for high levels of bacterial but they don't monitor the sand so sun bathers beware! 

Sea Flowers Lake Huron

 

These are some of the flowers growing wild at Wagener Park and private beach sites on Lake Huron, Michigan.

Harbor Beach Lighthouse

 

The cloud formation and lightening is what makes this picture.  The lighthouse is small but the various shades of the blue horizon filled with Cumulus clouds and sunlit parts makes it very picturesque.

Harbor Beach

The exact name of the park is "Judge James Lincoln Memorial Park".  The family must have made a significant contribution of funds to have this park developed.  It is a very nice place for families to picnic and enjoy the beach.   I like walking the boardwalk and watching the seagulls and boats sail by. It rained the first day I visited and a tornado touched down in another small town in close proximity.  We could see the cloud funnel forming from the distance.  We knew we were in for a severe storm.  The winds were so strong that trees and branches were falling across the roads.  We drove in the opposite direction of the tornado warnings and still faced a savage rain beating against the windows. Weather changes very quickly and without warning.

Last Remembrance of Fall

 A lone tree sitting against the blue sky in a field of rusty grass glowed with brilliant colors for the Christmas holidays at Lake Huron in Michigan.  Of course, the snow started falling within an hour of this photo.  There were only moments remaining to see fall colors and all would be covered in white.

"I hear lake water lapping"

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

 

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

 

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

 

By William Butler Yeats 1865–1939

The Unnamed Lake

The Unamed Lake

It sleeps among the thousand hills
Where no man ever trod,
And only nature's music fills
The silences of God.

Great mountains tower above its shore,
Green rushes fringe its brim,
And over its breast for evermore
The wanton breezes skim.

Dark clouds that intercept the sun
Go there in Spring to weep,
And there, when Autumn days are done.
White mists lie down to sleep.

Sunrise and sunset crown with gold
The pinks of ageless stone,
Her winds have thundered from of old -
And storms have set their throne.

No echoes of the world afar
Disturb it night or day,
The sun and shadow, moon and star
Pass and repass for aye.

'Twas in the grey of early dawn,
When first the lake we spied,
And fragments of a cloud were drawn
Half down the mountain side.

Along the shore a heron flew,
And from a speck on high,
That hovered in the deepening blue,
We heard the fish-hawk's cry.

Among the cloud-capt solitudes,
No sound the silence broke,
Save when, in whispers down the woods,
The guardian mountains spoke.

Through tangled brush and dewy brake,
Returning whence we came,
We passed in silence, and the lake
We left without a name.

By Frederick George Scott, 1897

 

Frederick George Scott (7 April 1861 – 19 January 1944) was a Canadian poet and author, known as the Poet of the Laurentians.  Scott published 13 books of Christian and patriotic poetry. Scott was a British imperialist who wrote many hymns to the British Empire—eulogizing his country's roles in the Boer Wars and World War I. Many of his poems use the natural world symbolically to convey deeper spiritual meaning. Frederick George Scott was the father of poet F. R. Scott.