Maybe it's the fact I get to wrap a scarf around my head when I forget a knit hat, maybe it's the burning wood smell from neighbors' chimneys, or maybe it's all the leaves, feathers, and mushrooms on the ground...but welcome to my favorite time of year...scary to think of the season that follows this time of beautiful color, but right now we will live in the moment with jackets zipped and mittens in reserve.

Instant Collections....Beauty in simplicity, natural, and contained under glass to preserve found love and fascination in a rock, a piece of driftwood, a rare strip of birch bark lying on a sandy shore.

When in Doubt, Stay Out

Lesson learned: never venture further into a cave, unless you fully know what lies ahead.

We spent the day in the porkies and visited some of our favorite spots: Lake of the Clouds, Union Bay, the Ontonagan playground. On the drive from one spot to another, I see this cool cave along the roadside. I tell Mike "Turn around, I just saw something cool." He tells me, "No, tell me what it is first." I reply, "No, just trust me." We find the old Carp River Mining tunnel. I try to convince Mike we should venture in a little further, even without a flashlight. He insists, no, and we don't. We see a descriptive sign, and I ask Mike to check it out. Mike hollers to me, "You won't believe this!" I come over to see and to my frightened surprise, the old mine shaft is (brace yourself, here): a home for thousands of bats. EEEEKKK. I understand the importance of bats, but they still creep me out...really, a lot. So glad we had not walked in any further, what would have happened if my camera flash had gone off?
(but, me being swarmed by thousands of bats would have made for a very exciting blog entry)