Sunday, March 29, 2009

ICEBERGS ON LAKE SUPERIOR


WINTER IN SPRING

NEW MINERAL ART

GHOST FOREST

After checking out my daughter-in-law's blog, I decided that it is time to enter the 21st century and start a blog. I have received a lot of positive feedback over the years about my webpage's monthly update (www.agatelady.com). Thus, I may as well use the blogging format to provide more frequent pictures of Grand Marais, my mineral art, and other items of interest. I can also keep friends, family, and museum patrons up to date about the Gitche Gumee Agate and History Museum. I have not yet taken the time to figure out if I can arrange the photos within the text, so they are catagorized above, but not included with their relative sections of text.
As many of those who know me already realize, I like to go on adventures. This past year or so, my passion has been the Grand Sable Dunes, located just down the road from my house in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Since I hike, ski, or snowshoe almost every day, there will be plenty of opportunity to document the different moods of the dunes, as well as other favorite spots around Grand Marais.

Yesterday, I went on a 3 1/2 hour snowshoe across the Grand Sable Dunes with my friends, Kathy and Steve Corell. There was exposed sand in the dune areas that have received a lot of sun. There were also other spots, especially in the forested sections between areas of dune, that the snow was still plenty deep.

Even though we wanted to eventually end up over by the bridge that accesses the dunes from Sable Falls, we headed north from Sable Lake straight to the "Big Lake." As we neared the bluff overlooking Lake Superior, we were surprised to come across the real ghost forest. There is a graphic interpretive sign located near the access bridge describing the forest. Thankfully, the actual location of the ghost forest is not revealed by the park service. It is also not easy to get to since it is sandwiched in between current-day forests and high dunes. I am afraid that if every tourist in the area had access to the Ghost Forest, the delicate natural pieces of art would dissapear, just as many of the specimens have dissappeared from the Petrifed Forest in Arizona.

It was a great day to be in the dunes yesterday with partly sunny skies and only minimal wind. The view of the icebergs and floating pancake ice was spectacular. It was mesmirizing to watch the undulating motion of the pancake ice as it floated on the waves hitting up against the icebergs.

This past few days I have been working on developing some new products. At the request of a customer, I just finished making an agate shade for a floor lamp. I also have started making functional art for people's desks including agate in-out trays, business card holders, and pen & pencil holders. Finally, I have included a picture of a triangle tower lamp that I just finished making last week.

Now, it is time to go and see if Michigan State is winning in the March Madness basketball tournament. I've also included pictures of what it looks like outside right now: winter has spread over into spring!