"Survival trip"

I haven't done much posting about wandering, I've realized. I'll get back to it eventually.

Last Friday I went on what my buddy Matt kept calling a "survival trip"—the idea being that we just go out with (more or less) nothing for a night and just practice skills. He brought just the clothes on his back and I think he was a little bummed that Clay (the other guy who came with us) and I brought knives. I also brought water, which was frowned on. My bad. (And a blanket, which I didn't use.)

We basically started trying to get a fire going right away. And failed. For hours. The hand drill stuff we had just wasn't working out.

Some nice big blood blisters to show for my efforts.

Sand Lakes Quiet Area

I didn't do a whole lot of wandering while I was out there but I got some in. We were out there from mid-afternoon last Monday until about mid-afternoon on Wednesday. It was mostly a good time but there was a lot of stuff getting me down too. I'm trying to let it go.

Mostly pictures today.

Bountiful blueberries?

 

Not really. Not on Tuesday at least. When we went to the UP a few weeks ago, in the beginning of August, I think the berries were about a week out of prime—but the beautiful thing was that you could find them pretty much anywhere. Two years in a row we've went down a random two-track in the UP and came home with a decent supply of blueberries.

We get them in the lower peninsula too, but they don't seem to be as prolific. Brambles tend to be the most common berries around here.

A few belated pictures from last weekend's UP trip

I went to Muskallonge Lake State Forest campground last weekend with my entire immediate family and our grandfather. We only stayed for three days but they were good days. Personally I would have preferred to camp in a more private and totally "rustic" setting, but it was still pretty good—despite having to walk a few hundred yards to an actual toilet every time I had to pee.

I didn't post these last week because I was mad about breaking my camera while we were up there (busted the screen), and also because there aren't really any wilderness-related shots. I just uploaded them to my computer though and decided I could throw a few up. Not much commentary.

There was a bear ranch somewhere outside of Newberry. From what I understand most of the bears are rescued, which is pretty cool, and they all looked happy (if hot!). This was after we started picking cherries and throwing them in.

A Copper Beech(?), Some Berries and a Track

Saturday was a day for berries. We collected a pretty decent amount of raspberries, black raspberries, mulberries and serviceberries.  We wandered around quite a bit just exploring too, and made some decent discoveries.

Can't tell in the picture, but this bush had some big raspberries on it—like store-bought size. Personally I had a hard time even believing there were berries on it; it was a bush right on the trail, but apparently nobody wanted them! People!

Check Out This Spider!

I just ran outside for a minute to see if this plant was Queen Ann's Lace or yarrow and sitting atop it was this white and red spider. I've never seen anything like it before and initial internet searches aren't turning up anything.

It was hard to get a good picture of it because the breeze kept blowing the flower around (and I'm using a 6-year-old point-and-shoot and I'm not a photographer to begin with) but I think I got a few decent ones. When the wind blew it did this crazy thing with its front legs like it was having trouble holding on.

EDIT, two minutes later: It looks like it's called a goldenrod crab spider and can actually change colors from white to yellow and back. They do exactly what you're probably thinking: lay in wait on a similarly colored flower and then ambush unsuspecting prey. They will also imitate flowers. There were actually other bugs around and I was waiting for/hoping to see it lunge at one of them, but no such luck.

(Michigan) Tree Books

I've considered myself an "outdoor enthusiast" or whatever for a few years now, but only since last fall have I really began to feel quite aware of my surroundings. In that time I've also felt my connections with what's around me grow.

It's a little embarrassing to admit that even as recently as this spring I simply didn't know much about trees; I knew maples from oaks, beeches, birches, white and red pines, and as of a maybe a year ago hemlocks and cedars. So the last six months or so have been an explosive time as far as learning trees goes. I could try to list all of the trees I now know by sight and it would be pretty long, and I'm sure I'd forget some, but I don't know them all—not even close.

In the last two months or so I've been looking over different tree books, and all have helped me to some extent.

During the winter I spent about $30 on field guides of different subjects. I was buying on a budget to so I didn't exactly get the most helpful ones available. As far as trees went, I bought a book called Trees of the Great Lakes Region by Steve Harrington for $7.95. It's 192 pages, pocket sized, and includes a pretty good array of species with hand drawn black and white pictures mostly of leaves, sometimes including twigs and buds.

It's helped me identify quite a few trees—sometimes just helping me distinguish between different species withing a genus, other times helping me with trees that were totally new to me. The images are somewhat lacking I guess, but they aren't bad. The book includes a key, but it's rather limited and hasn't helped me with identifying anything I don't think.

Overall, however, I feel like it's a decent book for what it is. Its small size make it nice for when I don't want to carry a bigger book around with me, and it still has pretty good descriptions of each tree's characteristics as well as its habitat and common traits.