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Royal Emus Redux
At Home, With The Royals A.V. Walters Of our five emu chicks, two were adopted by a fancy, Napa Valley vineyard/winery. Those two little emus had been our favorites, the ones we named C3 and Sleepy....
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Rick’s Hat-trick
Rick’s Hat-Trick A.V. Walters It’s a season of firsts for us. Rick’s first set of snow tires (I get mine on Wednesday,) and our first snow shovel. These are all steps in acclimatizing ourselves to...
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We Are Not Alone
We Are Not Alone A.V. Walters– Over Thanksgiving, about 8 inches of snow fell in Western Michigan. If, up to then, we’d had any doubts about winter, or where we’d moved, that white blanket made it...
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Winterizing
Winterizing (from November 1, 2013) I haven’t done this since I was in college, renting cheap housing and doing everything I could to make it habitable for the cold months. We didn’t move in time to...
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Monochrome
Monochrome A.V. Walters Bluff View Winter. Pretty much black and white, right? Hardly. Maybe because we are cloaked in a postcard perfect layer of white, it forces one to take a closer look. There’s a...
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The Other Side of Winter
The Other Side of Winter A.V. Walters I get comments, (mostly by email) from friends and family when I post a blog. They’re usually supportive but, occasionally, they’re smart-assed. There was a range...
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Musings from the Polar Vortex
Musings from the Polar Vortex– A.V. Walters– Just enough snow. Now there’s a new phrase for you, eh? The only vortex part of it is the rushing-in from the void of all the misinformation about weather,...
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The Other Side of Winter II
The Other Side of Winter II A.V. Walters Too windy even to bury the car! It’s blowing and cold out there. It is snowing, but the wind is so strong, that it’s tough to tell what’s new snow, and what’s...
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Laundry
Laundry A.V. Walters Today is one of those mundane days when you have to take care of the basics. Little else is more humbling, in modern life, than a trip to the Laundromat. When we first found our...
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Winter Mix
Winter Mix A.V. Walters Winter Mix? Sounds to me like something you’d serve as an appetizer at a holiday gathering. In reality, it’s not so friendly—it was today’s weather report. Winter mix is...
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Winter Freedom
Winter Freedom A.V. Walters— Winter Freedom! Yesterday, we tried out our new snowshoes. I remember snowshoes from my youth. They were cumbersome affairs, long and wide with bindings that seemed to wrap...
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PunxsutawneyPrognostication
Punxsutawney Prognostication A.V. Walters Phamous Phil –Everyone is waiting for Spring. The signs are here: the days are growing longer; the cats are shedding, and my mother’s seed catalogs have...
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Meanwhile…
Meanwhile, Back in California… A.V. Walters — This, we miss. In California, they’ve had the warmest winter on record and the third driest. My California friends have raved about the weather (even while...
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Freeze, Thaw, Freeze, Thaw, Freeze, Thaw…
Freeze, Thaw, Freeze, Thaw, Freeze, Thaw… A.V. Walters- Yeah, yeah, I know — lather, rinse, repeat. This is the part of March that drives Spring-starved folks crazy. They crave the warmth, and the...
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Ahhhh, Shoes…
Ahhhh, Shoes… A.V. Walters– I did a laundry run, yesterday. I gambled, and wore shoes. It’s the first time I’ve stepped out of the house, in shoes, since November. What lightness of being! What...
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The Broken Back of Winter
The Broken Back of Winter… A.V. Walters– We’ve stopped tallying the snow totals. Once you’ve bested the old records, every additional inch isn’t quite so crucial. Last night dropped another four, wet,...
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Spring has Sprung
Spring has Sprung A.V. Walters We’ve been busy here in Empire. We’re gearing up to build—and hoping that the snow will melt in time for construction. Spring is making inroads into winter’s territory....
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It’s Official
It’s Official, Spring Is Here A.V. Walters Almost all the snow is gone. We’re forecasting days of rain this week (“April Showers”), so that will be the end of that. The days are not warm, but neither...
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e) All of the above…(every little bit helps)
e) All of the above…(every little bit helps) A.V. Walters– INVEST IN SOLAR AND WIND POWER! Now that we have warmer weather–we can all do our bit to save energy and enjoy the best the season has to...
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Garden Surprise
Garden Surprise Michigan Meets the Bucket Garden Another Bucket Garden A.V. Walters– I had resigned myself to not having a garden this year. There’s just too much going on. We have building to do—and...
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Okay, Work With Me Here…
Okay, Work With Me Here… A.V. Walters– The unfortunate placement of this volunteer spruce begs the question. It kicked on at 10:20 in the morning, and it got me thinking. It’s a beautiful day. Clear...
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Right Plan…
Right Plan… A.V. Walters — A walk in the woods It’s said that, when the Europeans arrived in Michigan, a squirrel could cross the state, Great Lake to Great Lake, without its feet ever touching the...
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Slash and Burn
Slash and Burn A.V. Walters We learned about it in grade school. It’s a “primitive” agricultural practice of cutting down the forest, burning the “slash,” any unused timber products, and then planting...
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Bunker Mentality
Bunker Mentality– A.V. Walters– We’re building. It’s a small footprint, our cabin at the edge of the woods. We picked the site for its view across the valley, and so that we’d get sheltering shade in...
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Sundays and Making Wood
Sundays and Making Wood… A.V. Walters– We’re busy building. I suppose, given how late it is in the season, we could/should just power on through and build every day. But there are other priorities in...
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Progress
Progress A.V. Walters Things are looking up. We’ve been fighting the weather. As you might imagine, we are not big agents of change in that fight. Mostly, the weather is winning. This is not about...
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Autumn Olive
Autumn Olive… A.V. Walters — With olive-like leaves Also known as Russian Olive, the Autumn Olive is considered a pest species. In the want ads of our local newspaper, guys advertise that they’ll pull...
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One Year Counting Blessings
One Year Counting Blessings A.V. Walters It’s an anniversary of sorts. A year ago today, two exhausted ragtag souls arrived in Michigan, California cats in tow, truck, trailer and pick up. It was a...
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It’s Canadian Thanksgiving!
It’s Canadian Thanksgiving! On Monday. And I forgot to send a card. No, really, usually I celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving with a turkey and the whole traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Thanksgiving is my...
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First Snows
First Snows A.V. Walters I’ve been off for a couple of days of travel for the day job. It’s just as well. I’m not much use building right now because of a pesky little broken rib. It’s my own fault. We...
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A Long, Dark Winter–
A Long, Dark Winter– A.V. Walters Long time, no blog. It’s not all dark. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving, up in Copper Harbor, driving into, and then, back out of winter. We enjoyed an initial, if...
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Observing the New Year
Observing the New Year A.V. Walters There must be near as many ways to bring in the New Year as there are people. My mother thinks it’s bad luck to start the year with any of her ironing left undone....
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Banking on Winter
Banking on Winter… A.V. Walters– After several false starts, I think we can finally say that it’s winter. The last eighteen hours have dropped six inches on us, with another five or six expected over...
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The Tyranny of Round Numbers
The Tyranny of Round Numbers A.V. Walters This is my 200th blog. Next week, I’m coming up on my third anniversary of blogging. I’ve been stuck on this momentous event. Somehow, it felt like I was...
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Second Hand Blues…
Second-Hand Blues… A.V. Walters– There it is, in all it’s blue glory. (Rick calls it the Blubaru.) If you have followed this blog, you may have gleaned that I’m a bit of a Craigslist maven. Indeed, I...
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Single Digit Cuisine
Single Digit Cuisine! A.V. Walters– It’s nippy out there. We’re pretty winter hardy but low single digits, and lower, get our attention. That’s frostbite weather. It’s also the range at which our...
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Snow or Blow?
Snow or Blow? A.V. Walters It’s been an adjustment, moving from California back to the land of winter. Winter is not just a season; it’s a culture. It’s been cold this last week, single digits and...
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Timing the Jump
Timing the Jump.Filed under: agriculture, California, climate, climate change, climate disruption, country living, drought, environment, life changing events, Quality, safety, season, skating Tagged:...
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March of the In-Betweens
March of the In-Betweens A.V. Walters Critter calling cards on our stoop. T.S. Eliot was dead wrong. April is not the cruelest month. March is. One day it’s warm and lovely, the next, snow is falling...
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Wrapping up the Season
Wrapping up the Season A.V. Walters Post bucket We’ve had nearly an extra month of fall. Tomorrow, though, temperatures are expected to tumble down to seasonal norms. We’ve been rushing around to...
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The Reward of the NewBees
The Reward of the NewBees– A.V. Walters. Perhaps, a tiny basement apartment isn’t really the best place to process honey. After all, it is a sticky business. Last week, we “harvested” the honey—which...
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Author Readings?
Author Readings? A.V. Walters– In a twist on the usual book store fare, author A.V. Walters will be giving author readings at Horizons Bookstore, Friday the 13th, in Traverse City. She’ll be reading...
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Just Past Peak
Just Past Peak. A.V. Walters– With color so late this year, everyone was trying to pinpoint exactly when we’d experience “peak color.” Folks want to snap a picture at the exact epitome of the season,...
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April?
Break out the snow shoes. Who said anything about Spring? It is beautiful, though. We woke up to another six inches. It’s spring snow, sticky and heavy. And still falling… It changes how you look at...
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Fruitful
First, you have the place. You’ve looked at it, in all four seasons. You note the light, the winds, and the soil. You prepare it, deeply digging in nutrients and organic matter. Then you have to pick...
View ArticleDressed for the Occasion
Today was the big day. We’ve been watching the weather and today was possibly the last day. Tonight it will rain buckets. Tomorrow the temperatures begin to fall, and we’ll descend into winter-like...
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The Last Day
Autumn has been a long run. Mostly it’s been beautiful, if a little on the wet side. We consider ourselves lucky. For the first time, we’ve actually finished the necessary outdoor chores, before being...
View ArticleYou know, it snows there?
Six years ago we moved here to Michigan from Sonoma County, California. We considered staying there, but the costs were climbing so fast, we couldn’t keep up. The straw that broke the camel’s back was...
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(Pride) Goeth Before a Fall–Part Two
Like success, the garden, in the distance. Before we could get to the 2020 garden season, we had to make it through the winter. As all of you know, 2019/2020 has had its challenges. Mine started...
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