Fading Glory

On Monday afternoon I went for a walk down Kauffman to the Township Cemetery and then out to Crystal Point. It was a lovely day and I wanted to enjoy autumn's fading glory.  Winter is coming, and soon walking on my road will be anything but pleasant!

The oaks are fading to brown.

Thimbleberry is closing up shop for the year.  The tart fruits
can be made into jam with lots of sugar.

An abandoned homestead in a cedar tree.

The Presque Isle Harbor Association (PIHA), the housing development, maintains an extensive private trail system throughout its property.  PIHA's Men's Club grooms the trails, removing fallen trees and other obstacles.  Motorized vehicles are banned, but ATVs sometimes get on the trails, turning them into mud wallows.

Hunting is not allowed on Association property.  But I don't
like walking the trails during hunting season, just in case.

The Township Cemetery provides a shortcut to Crystal Point.  I've spent a lot of time in burial grounds over the years — a professional hazard.  Many modern cemeteries prohibit headstones because they make grass-cutting more difficult.  Here, however, many gravesites are outlined with rocks or low walls. In many cases the effect is charming and bed-like.  Unfortunately, this past summer one family decided to spray paint Aunt Maud's outline rocks a fire engine red.  It's awful!  There's no accounting for taste!  The township authorities are asking them to remove the offending rocks.

The cemetery's back entrance.

This couple will spend eternity in a kind of "double bed."

 Walking through the cemetery I was pleased to find one gravesite outlined in puddingstone.  These are conglomerates which incorporate more or less rounded stones in a more finely grained rock, often sandstone.  Michigan puddingstone often  includes red and brown jasper pebbles, along with white quartzite, in a contrasting material.  These rocks reminded early British settlers of their traditional boiled Christmas pudding — hence, the name.

Puddingstone originated in Canada where metamorphic stones were cemented together through sedimentation, usually in stream beds.  During the Ice Age glaciers carried chunks of puddingstone from Ontaria down into the eastern Upper Peninsula and northeastern Lower Michigan.  Most are small "hand" specimens.  However, one of the memorials honoring war dead at the county courthouse is affixed to a magnificent 6-foot-tall puddingstone boulder.

Puddingstone.

Crystal Point, just beyond the cemetery, is PIHA property and the site of its water wells.  The name designates the north end of North Albany Point, which forms the southern arm enclosing Presque Isle Harbor.  The Old Presque Isle Lighthouse sits on the northern arm.  Crystal Point serves as a picnic and boat launch site.  It's also a great place to watch the Fourth of July fireworks over the harbor.

This tree retains its fall brilliance, at least for a few days.

Crystal Point.  The Old Lighthouse is in the distance,
across the harbor entrance.

The afternoon sun breaks through clouds.

Last night, as I was trying to get into my e-mail (the SpeedNet system was being uncooperative) I got recruited to serve as "official photographer" for The Olde Fashioned Community Christmas celebration on Saturday-Sunday, December 3-4.  Hard to believe the holidays are almost upon us! •••