Sunset Theater

Saturday dawned blue and beautiful, filled with November haze and blessed with temperatures warmer than we’ve got any right to expect this time of year. It was a great day for a walk, and out at the W. K. Kellogg Experimental Forest southeast of Gull Lake in Kalamazoo County, people were seizing the opportunity.
I was [...]

Unless You’re a Deer Hunter

I have a theory and I’m about to prove it. But first, how many of you are deer hunters? Raise your hand.
Very good. Kindly exclude yourselves from the following poll.
As for the rest of you, how many are huge fans of November?
Hmmm…okay, let’s try that again: if you love the month of November, raise your [...]

Tom Turkey

Let me introduce you to a friend of mine. This is Tom, and he’s a real turkey.
I know that’s not a very nice thing to say about someone, but in Tom’s case, truer words were never spoken. Tom is the resident turkey of the small animal farm at Bowen’s Mills. He’s also about as nice [...]

Swan Song of the Leaves

This is the time of the last of the leaves. As I write, a deep low pressure center is moving out of northeast Minnesota into Ontario, dragging with it a steamy plume of unseasonably warm, moist air and high winds across the Great Lakes region. It is the inevitable leaf-stripper of late October that denudes [...]

Battlefield at Bowen’s Mills

Call me superstitious, but I feel unlucky whenever a cannon is pointed directly at me. So I felt glad when they turned this one downfield, where the Southern army was massing it’s forces—all twenty of them, from what I could judge. Granted, it wasn’t much of a massing, but it’s hard to muster up Confederate [...]

Algonquin Lake

Algonquin Lake is located in Rutland Township in central Barry County. This is a popular man made Michigan lake of 240 acres, with reported depths of 45 feet. It is a private lake with no known public access.
On the southwest side of the lake, one will notice the dam with the overflowing waters spilling down [...]

Out to Lunch

The other day, after spending the better part of the morning investigating  south west Michigan, our stomachs told us it was well past lunch time. We wanted something other than the typical, fast food restaurants, so we stopped at the Gun Lake Diner on M179, just north of Gun Lake, Barry County.
The food was typical [...]

Along the Thornapple River

It takes thirty-five gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of maple sugar. That’s not the only thing I learned from Steve Hays at Maple Manor, but it’s one tidbit of insight I picked up when I stopped by his maple sugar refinery in Vermontville, Michigan. There’s more to tell, but I’m saving that [...]

Charlton Park

I’d been this way before any number of times over the years, but this was the first time I ever noticed the old cabin tucked back in the woods. Probably that’s because I haven’t made a point of driving through in the winter. Not that the road is bad—the drive into Charlton Park is quite [...]

Head Lake

Head Lake is located within in Hope Township. Head Lake is a delightful small Michigan lake of 97 acres of waters. It is rather shallow, with depths up to 12 feet. It is a private lake with no known public access.
Well located in central Barry County, Head Lake is close to many other Michigan lakes, [...]

Next Page »