#pointturnstone — Public Fediverse posts

Day five, packing up. Sun spills through a gap between dark blue waves and low cumulus at dawn and lights the point. Farewell for now. Not much walking to speak of today.

#pointTurnstone

Day four, six-odd miles off trail through dense forest. A few brutal sections of blown down beech, a redtail alarming over the canopy, tired legs. A lovely mossy spot for lunch and a wild, dizzying swim in huge waves back at camp.

#walking #pointTurnstone

Day three, fourteen miles after a late start. Two wavy hours on the government boat only to end up just down the beach. We made up for it with a brisk pace across the island. Elderberry, sugar maple, more beech thickets. A hidden lake just as the rain arrived, five long miles back to camp, to swim.

#walking #pointTurnstone

Day two, seven steep miles. Another spring, a cabin in ruins, one dune fossilized by forest and a second still at work. Feeling good.

#walking #pointTurnstone

The first of five days of fieldwork on the island. Twelve miles off trail led to two springs, steep valleys flanking the moraine, endless beech thickets. Back along shore for a swim at sunset. Cooked.

#walking #pointTurnstone

A week of solitary work on North Manitou Island wraps up. A storm delays the boat, so it continues for now. Damp, thundershaken, sipping tea.

#walking #pointTurnstone #lakeMichigan

August turns to September, and a new installment of 'Polylith' arrives in the tumble.

This month we consider the valence of the margin.

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/066/

#towardThePolylith #walking #pointTurnstone #holarchy #fractal #ecoPoetics

Long dune–shore–wrackline walk today. I can report that there are enough mysteries in each to last a few lifetimes of walking (trotting, swimming, gliding etc).

#pointTurnstone #walking

The July installment of 'Polylith' (my monthly newsletter) is here, in which we consider the image of an empty eggshell floating in shallow water.

#towardThePolylith #pointTurnstone #hesiod #chaos

https://cscottmills.com/polylith/052/

Tern skull found at the end of a long day working at the point. Long light draws down again.

#pointTurnstone

Four more plover eggs hatch at the point. The adult carries each of the shells from the nest, and drops one in the calm water where it bobs offshore like a delicate vessel. Four more little creatures dry in the sun.

#pointTurnstone #pipingPlover

Happy Solstice to you all. Long light here on the island today — indigo bunting called the sun up early from a birch over my head.

#pointTurnstone #summerSolstice

Sunday morning at the point: big wind from the north, breakers, rain. Nineteen newly-hatched plovers warm under the adults out on the open cobble. A bunch more soon.

#pointTurnstone

Lilacs on the island bloom two weeks after the mainland, so May redux in June. Don’t mind.

#pointTurnstone #flowerReport

Still smoky here. A cruise ship passes the point — I can’t rule out something interstellar. Who sees it but me? Pin cherry at peak bloom.

#pointTurnstone #flowerReport

Thin fog moves in to circle the island. Or is it smoke? A sudden wind raises whitecaps on the passage and the mainland slips in and out of visibility.

#pointTurnstone

Potentilla, merganser, morning work. Reminds me to stretch the spine out for the day.

#pointTurnstone

First evening of the week at the point is quiet, nearly still. Waiting for a pair of plovers to change places on the nest while smoke rises from a smoldering pine plantation on the mainland. Cottonwoods leaf out slowly.

#pointTurnstone

The first piping plover nest of the season at Point Turnstone: two perfect eggs right at home in an expanse of cobble. Many more to follow.

#pointTurnstone

First full day at the point. Harrowing boat ride into nauseating six foot waves. Then the beach and the dunes, camp, calm. Sun and birds. Here again.

#pointTurnstone