night dancers~

Who goes there after dark?  Raising havoc on my lawn?

Is it the fairies?

"The Fairy Dance"


The fairies are dancing — how nimbly they bound!
They flit o'er the grass tops, they touch not the ground;
Their kirtles of green are with diamonds bedight,
All glittering and sparkling beneath the moonlight.


Hark, hark to their music! how silvery and clear —
'Tis surely the flower-bells that ringing I hear, —
The lazy-wing'd moth, with the grasshopper wakes,
And the field-mouse peeps out, and their revels partakes.


How featly they trip it! how happy are they
Who pass all their moments in frolic and play,
Who rove where they list, without sorrows or cares,
And laugh at the fetters mortality wears!


But where have they vanish'd? — a cloud 's o'er the moon,
I'll hie to the spot, — they'll be seen again soon —
I hasten — 'tis lighter, — and what do I view? —
The fairies were grasses, the diamonds were dew.


And thus do the sparkling illusions of youth
Deceive and allure, and we take them for truth;
Too happy are they who the juggle unshroud,
Ere the hint to inspect them be brought by a cloud.


by Carolina Eliza Scott (1777-1853)

Folklore abounds with the tales and stories of the fairies and the fairy ring dancers.  It is said that if you are so fortunate to have a fairy ring in your yard you possess a magical aura that has attracted the fairies to your place.
  

Well....

Phooey on that noise!!! If I have the fairy aura... wash it off of me ... or whatever you gotta do to get rid of it; because I don't want it ~  the dang fairies are raising havoc with my lawn!!  and my nerves!!

It starts with a simple little cluster of mushrooms ~

At first it's just a small ring of them ~

They may even go un-noticed until the grass begins to turn a different shade than the rest of the lawn ~ and then you notice you have a ring of mushrooms... also referred to as a fairy ring.

Within days or a few weeks ... depending on the weather conditions and I suppose how much fairy dancing has been going on ... you get this:

All the grass within the ring begins to die off.  For years... yes... years!!! later you have bald spots on your lawn where grass won't grow.  

Like this ~ 

We have spent a good share of money on antifungal's to kill them off ... home remedies ... such as dish soap solutions, beer (yup... I wasted good beer on those dang fairies), bleach, vinegar and epsom salt solutions to get rid of these mushrooms... yet they still keep coming back!!!  We're frustrated!!!  I've even taken a torch and tried to burn them out ... still they return. 

I did read one solution which was to dig out all the dirt in the area down to a foot deep and a foot beyond the edges of the ring and then put in new top soil.  Well yeah... like that's going to work .. I'm not about to dig up my whole property.  Seriously!  I'm not gonna do it.
  

Folklore also says that if you try to disturb the fairy ring that bad luck will fall on you for your remaining days on Earth.  Also, if you step inside the fairy ring you can lose your vision ... or worse yet ... your life.  Well guess what fairies ~ my vision already sucks and I've had a good life ... so bring it on!!

... to avoid any hard feelings about me and cruelty to the wee people ...

If someone out there wants my fairies ... come and get them ... because they have lost all their magical, mythical fascination with me.

No more night dancers...

I have to get rid of these fairies...
No more dancing after dark without me...
I'm feeling terrible wicked today for some reason...
Oh that's right; because my lawn is getting over run with mushrooms...

I think I'm going to go and boil up some water and concoct a solution...
While it's boiling I'll soak my  feet in some epsom salts ...
Drink a beer...oops... only half a beer....
Take the boiling water...
My dirty feet soaking water...
My leftover beer...
A jug of vinegar...
Some dish soap...

A splash of bleach...
And mix it all together...
Go pour it all over the mushrooms...
And see what the fairies think about that!

I hope they slip and slide and break their little necks and die.

Until next time...

So it goes in my neck of the woods.

~mel

another day in the northwoods~

Went fishing again ...

It was day before yesterday and Sara and her soon to be hubby Don and I took advantage of our neighbors new dock ... that my nephew Mark makes and installs through his company ~ Northern Pier.

It started to rain...
but we kept on fishing... or at least Don and Sara did ... I grabbed my camera and started to wander around the shoreline a little bit to see what I could see.

Like this pretty little yellow flag and it's cousin the blue flag:

and this cinnamon fern ... showing it's cinnamon stick ~

Some reindeer moss and lichen  and a pretty little root sticking out of the ground that makes a nice hand rail when walking up the hill from the dock ~

some tree branches ~
balsam:

cedar:

one of Sara's fish ~ a little bluegill ...

You should have seen the one that got away!  She was reeling in a perch and a musky grabbed hold of it.  She had on too light of tackle and lost it right at the dock when we tried to scoop it up with the landing net. 

some snake berry buds and bunch berry blossoms ~

a pretty little island bog ~

and an old petrified log ~ no doubt from the "Old Days" of river logging ~

and a menacing sky ... full of rain clouds that the sunshine was trying it's hardest to peek through ~

Until next time...
So it goes in my neck of the woods.
~mel

the graduates~

Night before last,  Grandma Mel and Grandpa Slim had a very important event to attend ... the 4YK Graduation Ceremony.

Here is our proud granddaughter, the graduate ~ Bailey

and our great niece ~ the graduate ~ Julie

and our neighbor children that we baby sat until school started for them ... the graduates Morgan & Megan ~

Big sister Brooke... getting bored with the whole thing. 

a family shot of my daughter Staci with her crew

It was so fun watching the little ones get their diplomas. Now they will be in Kindergarten class next fall.   They will be the high school graduating class of 2023.  Wow... if that doesn't make a person feel old.
~~
Slim and I went fishing yesterday...

all we caught besides a good sunburn were undersized small mouth and large mouth bass

got reprimanded by a loon for being too close to her nest

which someone put boards around to protect it from boaters and a little deck on it ...

notice the two eggs in the nest

We were also getting the evil eye from this goose.  There was another one there with it ... and I believe some little ones in the taller grass; but we didn't see them.

Cool Reflections

When we got home the weather was looking pretty threatening... big rain clouds building up.

My poppies finally opened while we were gone...

and this morning the wind and rain has them all laying down... but they'll

pop up again when the weather clears.  I guess that must be why they're called 

poppies!

I snapped off two photos of them when we got home last night from fishing.

Until next time...

So it goes in my neck of the woods.

~mel