Barry County Michigan

Along the Long Lake Trail

This has been the quietest May I can recall weatherwise. The peak month that I and hundreds of other storm chasers have spent the better part of a year anticipating has turned out to be a dud. Maybe around the latter part of the month things will improve, but there’s nothing to look forward to for at least the next week.

If the weather isn’t going to offer anything chaseworthy, then the way it has been is exactly the way I want it to be: blue, crisp, and beautiful, warm but not hot, with the sun smiling down on a landscape that’s getting on with the business of spring.

A couple days ago, I took a walk down the Long Lake Trail just north of Gun Lake State Park in northern Barry County’s Yankee Springs Recreational Area. It had been a while since I had hiked the trail, and this time of year is perfect for the venture, so off I went. The first mile or so of the trail winds through hardwood forest, skirting a small bog and a tract of red pine, then sets you on a quarter-mile stretch of boardwalk through part of the swamp that surrounds Long Lake. It’s a lovely hike that offers plenty to see if you know your native plants and their habitats.

Here are a few of the highlights. The odd little plant to your right, which somewhat resembles miniature corncobs, is called squawroot (Orobanche americana). It is a common woodland plant, parasitic on oak trees. Click on the image to enlarge it.

The trail winds through some particularly pretty territory. The photo below gives you an idea. There are a number of other images at the bottom of this page to keep it company.

Ferns were in the process of unrolling their fronds. They never look more dramatic or more artistic than this time of year, when they’re in their “fiddlehead” stage.

Farther down the trail, where the boardwalk commences, marsh marigolds scattered Pointillistic fragments of butter-yellow across the swamp floor. Picking up on the golden theme, the first few flowers of small yellow ladyslipper orchids (Cypripedium calceolus var. parviflorum) peeked out shyly from among lush skunk cabbage leaves.

The swamp is full of poison sumac, a small tree with which I’ve had considerable experience recognizing and avoiding. It is related to the cashew and also, of course, to poison ivy. Eating poison ivy at age six was not one of my intellectual zeniths, and it’s not an experiment one should undertake casually. Long after the initial bitter burst of flavor has faded, the experience lingers in a way a body is not apt to forget. Word has it that poison sumac is even more virulent than poison ivy. That’s not something I care to put to the

test. Interestingly, the sap of its equally toxic cousin, the Japanese lacquer tree, is used as a varnish which produces some beautiful objets d’art, though how a body works with a medium like that is beyond me.

But enough of the swamp and its sumac. Stepping off the far end of the boardwalk and farther into the woods, I encountered an elegant young beech tree standing sentinel on a mossy bank.

I walked a bit farther, then turned back. The slanting sun rays were filtering long through the leaves, the temperature was cooling, and it was time for me to go practice my horn–which, by the way, I’ve been doing pretty consistently. But that’s material for another post. Right now, check out the rest of my photos in the gallery below.

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May 15, 2012 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Uncategorized Tagged With: Barry County Michigan, conopholis american, cypridepium calceolus var parviflorum, Gun Lake, hiking, Long Lake Trail, marsh marigold, Michigan nature, native plants, small yellow ladyslipper, squawroot, wetlands, wild orchids, Yankee Springs

Sunset at Hall Lake

The biggest weather news lately has been the heat wave that continues to brutalize the central and eastern United States. Thankfully, these last two days have been easier to take here in Michigan. Friday evening a weak cold front passed through and dropped the dewpoints down into the livable mid-60s for a short while, and since then, variable cloudiness has helped to modify the temperatures.

Yesterday we were in a slight risk area, but with a warm front laying along the Indiana border, the southern tier counties are where convection broke out in Southwest Michigan. One cell near Cassopolis showed sustained, deep rotation on the radar, and Kurt Hulst and I discussed going after it. Given the distance and marginal conditions, we decided to let it go.

Instead, I headed out the door later on with my saxophone and my fishing rod, as well as my camera and laptop just in case storms developed within easy range. Not that I expected any, and none materialzed to divert me from casting a line into the water for the first time in a couple of years.

It felt good to get back at fishing, and picturesque Hall Lake in Yankee Springs Recreational Area was the perfect place to do so. Forty-two acres in size and sporting a small island in its middle, Hall Lake attracts just a handful of fishermen, to whom it offers a tranquil option to the much larger, all-sports Gun Lake to its west. Tucked in a wooded valley, where it is bordered to the south by Gun Lake Road and cradled by the glacial hills of Barry County, it is a place where a man can go to withdraw from the madly rushing world, stand at the water’s edge casting topwater lures into the evening, and let his thoughts slow down to a casual stroll.

I’m no great fisherman. What I do with a rod and reel is more accurately described as dredging. But the fish were eager feeders yesterday, and it took only a few casts before I landed a nice little 12-inch bass–big enough to keep, but I released him. I viewed it as my Father smiling at me for getting back to a hobby that I’ve never mastered but always enjoyed.

More casts netted me nothing, and presently my interest shifted to the sky. The sun had slipped below the treeline, and a flock of fractocumulus passing overhead articulated the twilight. No fiery sunset, this, no Van Gogh sky; just a gently fading afterglow filled with nuance and calm emotion, silhouetting the forested shoreline and glimmering, spirit-like, in the quiescent mirror of the lake.

It was a scene worth capturing with my camera, and I have done so. Click on the images to enlarge them. I like them, and I hope you will too.

July 24, 2011 by Robert Hartig

Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Nature, Outdoors, Photography, Storm Chasing, Weather Tagged With: Barry County Michigan, bass fishing, fishing, Hall Lake, heat wave, landscape photography, Michigan outdoors, sunset photographs, Yankee Springs State Game Area

A Walk in the Middleville Fen

Yes, I do have a life outside of jazz saxophone and storm chasing, and from time to time I like to let it leak out. While Stormhorn.com focuses on the above two interests, it’s good to break away now and then. So join me on a leisurely stroll through one of my favorite nearby natural areas: the Middleville Fen. Orchids are in the forecast, along with golden evening light filtering through tamaracks, dancing on a dimpled stream, and stretching long rays across meadows of rippling marsh grass.

Early June is the time when the showy ladyslipper, Cypripedium reginae, unfolds its creamy pink-and-white blossoms. Also known as the queen ladyslipper–hence the Latin name reginae–this plant is indeed a regal beauty, presiding in stately splendor over the Michigan wetlands.

Like most wild orchids, it is selective about its haunts–but then, finickiness is the privilege of royalty. Remember the story of “The Princess and the Pea.” You can’t expect a queen to rest her roots just anywhere. However, six miles down the road from me she has found a satisfactory place of repose among the red osier dogwood, shrubby cinquefoil, and marsh asters.

The trail into the Middleville Fen begins at the north edge of a park on the south end of town. Walk in 100 feet or so, look to your right, and you’ll see the queen ladyslipper holding court among the shrubs. Look, admire, but don’t

pick. Like every wild orchid, C. reginae is uncommon and protected in the state of Michigan. For that matter, you’re smart to not even touch her. The hairy leaves and stems are known to cause a nasty rash similar to poison ivy.

The showy ladyslipper is unquestionably the drawing card of the fen in early to mid June. But other, subtler attractions abound: tiny, insectivorous roundleaf sundew plants crowding the stream banks. Feathery tamaracks arching across the trail. In the autumn, fringed gentians nestled pointillistically among the cinquefoil like fragments of September sky.

A few years ago, purple loosestrife threatened to take over this magnificent little jewel of a wetland. But thanks to a tiny beetle with an appetite for loosestrife, released into the fen by a wetland conservation group, the invader appears to have been repelled and the Middleville Fen remains a diverse and beautiful haven for unusual plants and wildlife.

The trail is little more than a quarter-mile long and easy to hike, with a picturesque wooden boardwalk and bridges to keep your feet from getting wet. Bring your camera, a half-hour or so of your time, and an eye for nature. Your sense of wonder will be awakened and rewarded. Especially now, when the queen is in her royal robes.

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