Sleeping Bear movie

this is the official movie trailer for a movie coming out titled “Sleeping Bear” – looks pretty interesting!

HT: @AwesomeMitten

morel mushrooms

a spring tradition in Michigan is morel hunting out in the woods.  we’ve gone out looking for them twice this past week out at the homestead, and came home both days with some morels.  Thursday we found a small patch of them (weighed them to0 – 3.6 oz), and then this afternoon, we brought home about twice as much (8.2 oz) as Thursday.

today’s haul included this monster morel.

so tonight for dinner, we used some leftover steak and baked potatoes we had cooked on the grill last night, along with chopped onions and sweet peppers to make a delicious hash to pair with the sauteed morel mushrooms. check it out:

Steak, potatoes, onion, sweet peppers, & fresh #morel mushrooms. vine.co/v/b0DXvgIE7AI—
thad g (@my2fish) May 12, 2013

 

Great Lakes shipping: St Clair & Detroit River HD time lapse

this video is a tad long (and quiet… could use some background music or something!), but overall it is a very neat view from a shipping freighter as it makes it way down the St Clair River, into Lake St Clair, and then down the Detroit River and into Lake Erie.

The rivers serve as an important transportation route connecting Lake Michigan, Huron, and Superior to Lake Erie, Ontario, the St. Lawrence Seaway and Erie Canal.

 

lake superior north shore [video]

this is a sweet video made using a Hoverthings HPV with a GoPro video camera to capture stunning views of the north shoreline of Lake Superior in northern Minnesota. a few of the areas that are in the video:

Temperance River, Cascade River, Tettegouche, Judge Magney, and Gooseberry Falls are among the state parks featured, as well as Grand Marais and Palisade Head.

as usual, worth it to load this up in high definition and watch it full screen.

HT: Moldy Chum

a spring clean for the may queen

I took this last week off from work (our boys were also on spring break) – but mine wasn’t really a vacation – I spent the week cutting down trees, brush, and clearing various other things at our property.

to back up a little bit… last year we found a nice piece of land nearby where we currently live, and eventually were able to purchase it (long story).  we had been looking for 3 to 5 acres… but stumbled on this piece which is almost 20 acres!  the downside… it’s a mess of a forest, and smack in the middle of it is a burnt down house.

talk about curb appeal.

well, immediately after closing, we hired a demo contractor to remove all of the existing structure, and to clear the brush back along the ~800 ft long driveway.  but since then, we hadn’t been able to do much with the land.

so for several weekends this February and March, I would take my wife and boys out to the land, and we chopped down some dead trees, and cleared some of the brush by hand… but it was slow, back-breaking work.  we had piles and piles of cut up firewood.

but several hours of work would barely make a dent in the brush, though.

and also left us with giant piles of brush to deal with.

so this past week was a full-time dedicated week of work to get as much done as I could.  Sunday night, I trailered down my dad’s 25-hp John Deere tractor (complete with a bucket on the front end and a back blade at the 3-point hitch, and I also bought a york/landscape rake for the 3-pt hitch).

I had a truck full of tools to go with it: chainsaw, axe, various lopping shears, shovels, chains to pull logs and brush out, etc.

I spent Monday using the tractor to haul out some of the bigger chopped down trees and logs.  on Tuesday, my dad and 2 of my brothers-in-law joined me for the day.  I rented a big chipper to shred the piles of brush and tree limbs into mulch – that thing was amazing!  2 of us would take turns feeding the brush from the piles into that, and it just shredded right through everything.  my dad spent most of the day using his tractor to clear more brush, and drag it down to a burn pile.  we were able to burn a ton of the brush as well – it worked really well for some of the nasty piles of tangled brush left behind by the demo contractor last summer.  Wednesday through Friday it was just me, although several contractors met with me during the day to discuss our plans to upgrade the driveway a little bit as well as build a barn.  while I wasn’t busy with that, I used the tractor to haul the mulch piles back into the back woods, where there are several walking trails already made.

I also used the york rake to clean up more of the brush scattered in the areas where we had cleared, and kept burning more brush as I collected it.  on Saturday, my wife and boys came down and helped a bit more cleaning up more brush.  I ran into a little bit of tractor trouble that afternoon, but was able to sort of fix it enough to get it back on the trailer and hauled back home to my dad’s house.

Sunday afternoon, I capped off the week by planting something new: some transplants from my dad & mom’s garden – black raspberry bushes and some asparagus.

all told, it was a great week of work – thanks to my dad for his help (and the use of his tractor), and my 2 brothers-in-law as well for their manual labor, and I think the property is slowly coming along.  you can start to see the potential.  and the change from what it was before:

to what it looks like now:

I’m super excited to see how things change when spring turns everything green.

greater detroit 2013 Sunfish race schedule

the Greater Detroit Sunfish Club (GDSC) has released their 2013 Sunfish race schedule (you can find it with additional information posted at their Yahoo Group).  you can also check them out on their Facebook page.

this year is also the 50th anniversary of the GDSC!

• April 28th – Maceday Lake (only a month away!)
• May 19th – Watkins Lake
• May 26th – Watkins Lake [10:30am start!]
• June 9th – Sailing & Rigging Workshop @ Big Lake
• June 29th & 30th – Lakeport State Park – a camping & sailing weekend with an Open Regatta.  sailing this year will be based at Armstrong’s Resort in Lakeport.
• August 17th – Portage Lake
  • this one is part of the Scowfish Invitational (Sunfish & MC Scows)
• August 31st & September 1st – Tawas Bay – a camping & sailing weekend at Tawas Bay on Lake Huron (launching from Timber Lane Resort‘s beach)
• September 22nd – Watkins Lake
• October 6th – Big Lake

all Sunday races start at 12:30pm [uno]

the Sailing & Rigging Workshop day is planned to be:

a day of teaching-learning for sunfish sailors.  Topics suggested include rigging strategies, maintenance, repair, practice starting.  Bring your boat and whatever lines, parts, and tools you think you might need

I said this last year, and didn’t get a chance, but I’m again going to do my best to meet up with this group for some races this year.  it’s shaping up to be a pretty busy summer already, though!