A winter walk on the Lake Michigan shore
I took this photo late yesterday afternoon north of Leland. You can get it larger right here, see some more photos from the day in this set and watch a little video too!
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I believe that the last time the mercury cracked 30 degrees was during the Truman administration. Maybe not that long ago but it certainly wasn't this week ... or last week. In fact, I did an informal poll this morning with Steve (who was shoveling last night's 2" of snow) and 100% of us agreed that this was the longest run of very cold weather we have had for years. All that cold has kept our snow cover excellent and with President's Day on Monday, you'd be wise to get out and enjoy it this weekend!
February 8, 2007: Light snow & teens (18Ëš/12Ëš)
February 9, 2007: Light snow & 20 (21Ëš/15Ëš)
February 10, 2007: Light snow and teens (19Ëš/9Ëš)
February 11, 2007: Mostly cloudy, flurries & teens (21Ëš/8Ëš)
February 12, 2007: Flurries & teens (19Ëš/1Ëš)
February 13, 2007: Early sun, afternoon clouds & low teens (16Ëš/6Ëš)
February 14, 2007: Mostly sunny & low teens (12Ëš/6Ëš)
A concert featuring Seth Bernard and Daisy May will be held next Saturday (Feb 24) at the Old Art Building in Leland. Seth & May are well known to Michigan music fans and play original songs on acoustic guitar and violin. You can learn more about Seth & Daisy May at their web site and please be sure to watch this video below of a performance at Lansing's Creole Gallery.
Tickets are $10 adults/$5 students and sold only at the door. The concert is sponsored by the Friends of Fine Arts at Suttons Bay School and underwritten by Northern Lumber and the Sparling Co. and all proceeds benefit fine arts programs at Suttons Bay schools.
All this "snow, wind and teens" has me looking south, to Spring Training with the Detroit Tigers in Lakeland, Florida. Head over to Absolute Michigan for a whole lot of preview and if you make the journey to Lakeland, drop me a line or postcard ... or take me along if you are feeling particularly magnanimous!
Speaking of postcards, here's a photo from 1991 of Allan Trammell by James Phelps (available for purchase at JMP Photography).
Here's a (belated) announcement of a Michigan food products trade show in the Silvertree Deli gallery space from 10 AM until 4 PM TOMORROW (Tuesday, Feb 13). The show is open to members of the restaurant and specialty store industry from 10-2 PM and to the general public from 2-4 PM. The products are all Michigan made from:
The annual TC Kite Derby will be held next weekend (Feb 16-18). The likely location will be at the Bingham access on South Lake Leelanau (most likely, but it depends on wind). There will be a Free-Ride Session at the Event site from 2-5 PM on Friday. On saturday, GPS speed runs & freestyle exhibition from noon-2 PM and the distance run around the lake from 3-4 PM. Makeup times are Sunday. Check the link to the official site below for more.
For more information, visit the TC Kite Derby web site, read Kite Derby sails away in last year's Grand Traverse Herald and/or watch a really cool video of a kite skiers on a Michigan lake (which may or may not be Lake Leelanau).
Photo credit: Kite Skate by Andrew McFarlane.
The annual Empire Winterfest will be held this Friday through Sunday (Feb 9-11). Highlights include Friday night bonfire and ice skating on South Bar Lake, kids games at noon on Saturday followed by the legendary Polar Bear Dip, a potluck Saturday night followed by live, coffeehouse-style entertainment, the Lions Pancake Breakfast at the Township Hall on Sunday morning and the Winterfest Parade from the top to the bottom of Empire's Base Hill.
Yesterday the Traverse City Business News reported that the former owners of the King's Challenge golf course are suing Sugar Loaf Development LLC to foreclose.
The investment group, headed by John D. Sills and his SJS Development Co., said the new owners failed to make a required payment of $12,500 on Dec. 5 and owe about $27,000 in Cleveland Township property taxes due last September. “The land contract has been in default since Sept. 15, 2006 or longer,†Norman Droste, attorney for Sills and his partners, wrote in a letter to the current owner. Droste said he sees no chance that the new owners will retain control of the golf course. “The foreclosure has commenced, and a judgment will be entered three months after we filed the lawsuit,†he said. That means the foreclosure would be final in early April...
The golf course is south of M-22, next to the now-shuttered Sugar Loaf resort. The resort's failure to resume operations has been seen as a drag on the viability of King’s Challenge.
Sugar Loaf Development paid $3 million for the golf course, its buildings and its fixtures, nearly $1 million for 115 adjacent acres, and about $400,000 for several additional parcels.
The deal involved a $1,900,000 upfront payment, and the remainder was scheduled to be paid in monthly installments until May 2010.
It's come to our attention that folks might not be following along with how we're doing the whole Leelanau backgrounds/wallpaper and photo thing these days. For 8 years we posted them every so often on our Leelanau Backgrounds Page. Now, with the ability to take photos at such high resolutions and with the photo hosting site Flickr allowing us to upload those big and beautiful pictures, doing the backgrounds and photos the old way would take a lot of time that could otherwise be spent taking pics or just walking around enjoying the area's beauty.
Plus, with so many other people taking great pictures of Leelanau County and the Traverse City area it seems kind of silly to deny you the chance to see their work. We feature photographs of the area in the daily updates to our Leelanau Blog in general and on our Leelanau Almanac pages.
You can click the links for wallpaper-sized photos or for the photo category. Many of those filed under "photos" are big enough to be used as wallpaper. To get them, all you have to do is click the photo to go over to Flickr. Once there, click the "" button to get to the wallpaper-sized image. For some of them, you may have to be a Flickr member (it's free) and/or a contact of the photographer.
Yesterday the Traverse City Business News reported that the 
" button to get to the wallpaper-sized image. For some of them, you may have to be a Flickr member (it's free) and/or a contact of the photographer.