Blogfoddermania

Lately, sometimes I have difficulty coming up with a blog. Some weeks not much happens in my average life. But I didn't have that trouble this week.

I could start by updating last week's blog about my floundering found on the ground fund. It's technically gone. While my wife and I were up north this past weekend my son decided to do us a favor and take my cannister full of change to one of those Coinstar machines that will count your quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies--albeit for a price--and in exchange give you a slip you can turn in for real currency.

But wait! I had a silver dime and a collectible Michigan quarter in my stash. Scott didn't run that through the Coinstar machine too, did he? The quarter he held out. Whew! But the silver 1952 dime he didn't. In fact, he said there was a dime the machine wouldn't take and kept kicking out. He thinks it was the silver dime. So he threw it away.

What!!?? Didn't he see the dime featured in my blog last week?

"I don't read your blog," he replied.

Think I'll start making my blog required reading in the family.

Then Wendy and I spent last Friday night mingling with fellow beer lovers at Michigan's Summer Beer Festival in Ypsilanti. Mmmmmmm, peanut butter and chocolate ale. Not as bad as it sounds. The agave peach ale was not my favorite. And the strawberry rhubarb wheat beer? It was just okay.

We've been to this beer festival in the past but what made this one more memorable was not the eccentric flavors but the weather. We had not been there an hour when the skies opened up and it began to pour. There were lots of tents to huddle under, but many folks got wet anyway. But few people left. The beer might be watered down anyway; what's a few more drops.

This past weekend Wendy and I headed to my parents' cabin on Hubbard Lake. While there, I took my father's kayak up Sucker Creek to see how far I could get. It must have rained up there some as the usually lazy creek had some current. And my kayaking skills were a bit rusty.

While navigating an area of deadfalls and low hanging branches, I capsized when the kayak went sideways while I tried to avoid a branch protruding from the water. I wrestled the kayak to the muddy shore, which turned out to be a mere a pile of silt and quickmud (see how it encompasses my foot in the picture).

I should add that I saw nobody else while on the creek, which meanders through a rather remote, swampy area off the lake. With much effort, I drained the water out of the kayak--I think my nephew sold the used craft to my dad because it was too heavy to portage--and continued on my way. Much more carefully, I should add.

By the way, I'm not sure why they call it Sucker Creek, though it is known to be fully populated with blood-sucking leeches. I'm terrified of blood-suckers, to the point that I've avoided rocks, logs and places where they congregate throughout my 50 or so years of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. I never emerged from the water there at Hubbard Lake carrying a leech.

Until this past weekend. Sure enough, I spied one wriggling atop my foot after I walked up the beach to the cabin after rinsing the mud out of the kayak. I calmly told Wendy how to remove it (lighted match). Hmmmm, I said "calmly", didn't I. Well, thankfully for me, Wendy doesn't read my blog either.

In fact, I'll have to postpone that family blog-reading requirement for another week or so.