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Post by snowmom on Jun 3, 2015 5:14:50 GMT -5
awesome trip and write up. Precious time together. When my kids were still at home, we did our best talking on long trips in the car. Great pictures, looks like you guys had a blast! It is hard to tell from the photo, your pink flowers may have been spring beauties. They grow in clumps that increase yearly and they are among the first to bloom in the spring. they look almost white when the blossoms first unfold but get more pink as they age, before dropping the petals. Did they look like this? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claytonia_virginicaThanks for taking us with you. I haven't been to the UP yet, but we are much closer now we live at the tip of the mitt. Its on my bucket list!
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Post by snowmom on Jun 2, 2015 5:40:22 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing. Quite a beautiful water snake. Fantastic markings. The newly born babies are quite bright with black and white markings, you can see how that pattern matches the sunshine and shadows on the limestone. The little guys are surprisingly zippy and they sometimes burst out of their hiding places as you approach, causing you to jump a bit as you perceive the sudden movement, usually almost underfoot (feeling the vibration of my steps no doubt). As they get older here they get quite dark until many older adults are black or almost so, with the pattern hardly showing. The one in the pic I think is a juvenile/very young adult because it is still quite light in pattern. Of course individuals vary. I think they are all beautiful and I really enjoy seeing them on the beaches as I go along.
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 17:47:59 GMT -5
cool! love that the pattern was preserved too!
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 17:46:00 GMT -5
lookit that color! way to go! (find more!!!)
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 17:29:26 GMT -5
you find the coolest stuff! Love the pendant. Can't wait to see cabs of that first mystery purple stuff. great finds.
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 17:20:39 GMT -5
Thanks for sharing the photos and get away D!!!! Do you collect broking glass? We call it sea glass out here (If its worked over by the ocean)...So many colors out there..I put mine in a mason jar and display it.... lake washed glass is very popular here and sought after. I never see worn pieces, I think the lake makes sand of them pretty quick here in many places. I do find lots of broken glass, which I pick up if I can, hate to think of people on some of the swimming beaches getting into it. I try to pick up the bottles and cans and plain nasty filth I run across in my wanderings, it just offends the nature lover and even more so the (now retired but not quite) cleaning lady in me to just leave them there. I've been picking up messes for too many years to feel comfortable just ignoring beach litter.
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 17:15:53 GMT -5
That looks like a rough walk and reminds me of our basalt beaches. Hard on the feet and on the hiking boots. Thanks for clarifying that the you found an aluminium piece of fishing gear. At first glance I thought you found a wave tumbled trilobite. Darryl. LOL Darryl, trilobite- I wish. I wish! I think of this beach when you post some of your photos from Fundy. Its one of the roughest in the area for hiking.
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 17:13:29 GMT -5
Ok, I found this. How can you tell the difference between and omarolluk and a piece of limestone with a hole? There are so many stones with holes around here that I didn't think they were glacial erratics. I am going to just plain guess and say that from the description of the migration(glacial transport) path of the Omars, we are finding them here too. I know some of the other rocks we find are from the same glacial travel. But I know we also have several other kinds of limestone formations. Here, there are 3 separate limestone formations which are sort of layered through the tip of the mitt. I suspect they are all mixed together and it would take a scientist/geologist to know the difference. I belong to another group of people who hunt Great Lakes rocks and minerals, and they use the term freely to show rocks which are deeply eroded in tunnels and holes such as the pictures in that wiki link and the one John is holding. I could be using the wrong term completely, but it seems to be in common usage for great lakes rocks which appear to be like these. kind of a regional term such as pudding stone and Petoskey stone, meaning slightly or greatly different things to some who use them? best guess from here anyways.
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 8:26:02 GMT -5
aaaack! beautiful country but that sounds like way too much excitement for me! watersnakes here are very similar, they get much darker to all the way black as adults. I surprise small ones often while roaming the beaches, have only seen a couple large adults. They usually spot me first and flee. They are impressive swimmers in the water, love to see them! thanks for taking us with!
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 8:16:53 GMT -5
oooh that's beautiful. I didn't even know there were blue ones!
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 8:15:06 GMT -5
tried to edit photos to eliminate duplicates. couldn't figure out how to do it. not sure how that happened. The duplicate dead fish photo was supposed to be of my spouse and the omar he found. the duplicate photo of the aluminum floats was supposed to be the snake. I blame photobucket for the copy of link failures (that's my story and I'm sticking to it) trying the snake again.
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UH-OH!
Jun 1, 2015 8:04:01 GMT -5
Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 8:04:01 GMT -5
snuffy, it was posted on facebook to a rock page I follow when somebody commented that she thought 100 lbs of rocks collected was excessive and that perhaps we all should think of leaving rocks for others to enjoy. She got 'explained' to quite thoroughly and somebody posted this article, which I had never seen before. I meant to amuse not to dismay. I guess in light of comments like that Facebook poster and some of the policies sited by Don (Jakes Rocks) it is easy to see why a person reading this through the first time might think somebody was being serious. what a world!
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 7:58:43 GMT -5
there was a lot of trash on the beach, old bottles, oil filters, etc. I will go back next week with a few black trash bags and start a pick up project. meantime I found these. The, seem to be floats and are all aluminum. No holes in them, hollow. Maybe from a fishing net? thought somebody here would know for sure. while flipping rocks I exposed this poor cold Northern water snake youngster. it was only about 50 out. probably colder near the ground where she was. She sat absolutely still, didn't even flick her tongue. saw a few large impactites near water level. The glacial erratics are almost all covered with the limestone shards farther up the beach. The Lake keeps some uncovered in the water and right at the edge of it. it was a great day to be out, mosquitoes were not in evidence at all on the beach though the little dastards were waiting in swarms in the parking lot. Thanks for looking!
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 7:46:20 GMT -5
Went to Thompson Harbor state park yesterday. 50 degrees and pretty breezy. Waves predicted to reach 6 ft but we didn't see any like that. As always on this very rocky site the sound of the (smaller than 3 ft) waves against the rocks was awesome. I say walk on the shore but more like a hike. the big shattered limestone shingle/ rocks( Karst) are hard on the feet and in many places loose and can be treacherous. we saw a bald eagle hunting the shore, probably has a family to feed by now. This is presumably leftovers from a past meal. Anybody know what kind of fish this was?
John learned about Omars and began to search for them (never thought I'd see the day, up til now he has referred to them all as "sex stones" (just another f'n rock)
There were wild flowers everywhere, paintbrush,columbine, yellow moccasin orchids, and the wild black cherry were in blossom everywhere, as were the beach plums (shown with the moccasin flowers)
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Post by snowmom on Jun 1, 2015 5:05:31 GMT -5
hmm, the Onion is known for it's silly pieces written tongue-in-cheek "news style". I should maybe have put a little note in my post. Meant to be a joke.
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Post by snowmom on May 31, 2015 16:17:26 GMT -5
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Post by snowmom on May 31, 2015 5:25:22 GMT -5
polished up a treat! I'd been passing by a lot of smaller pudding stones with only one or 2 jaspers in them, this makes me want to bring them home, break them up and try this! Thanks for the post.
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Post by snowmom on May 31, 2015 5:18:14 GMT -5
very nice!
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Post by snowmom on May 31, 2015 5:11:17 GMT -5
wow! never saw anything like that! what a cool color. or should I say hot? would be interesting to find out just how hot it is... so neat. Thanks for the post!
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Post by snowmom on May 31, 2015 4:54:34 GMT -5
welcome from MI, where is the land of glacial till? I have only been a member here for a year, and the knowledge and helpfulness of this group is amazing. I can't believe how much I have learned from them in that time. Glad you are with us.
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