Uncategorized – Page 103

Untitled.

Glamour shot.

First tomato, 2019. Glendale, Arizona.

When we were children my mother cooked aebelskivers for breakfast on special-occasion mornings, with a skillet she bought in the Danish-American community of Solvang in central California. For our siblings-only trip to Michigan, my sister Jane secretly packed her aebelskiver pan and covertly bought ingredients for a surprise treat. They were perfect.

My sister Julie had purchased honey at the tulip festival street market the day before, and generously shared some for our breakfast. It is a product of Backwoods Sugar Shack in central Michigan, and it had the most incredible flavor of blueberry and cherry from the flowers the bees service. The beekeeper, Cody, also produces delectable maple syrup. Also good on aebelskivers.

I met this imposing turtle moving between ponds on the trail at Mitchell State Park. Its carapace was about 14 inches (36 cm) long, its head (including snappers) was baseball-sized. Even its parasites were over-sized. The leeches (around its head in the bottom photo) were some of the largest I’ve ever seen.

Eastern snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina), at Mitchell State Park, Cadillac, Michigan.