It’s summer and we are approaching the 3rd weekend of July. That can mean only one thing in Marquette, Michigan…Happy Hiawatha! The 31st Annual Hiawatha Traditional Music Festival happens at the Tourist Park 17-19th.

Above is one of the music workshops held at 2nd Stage last year. Pictured are Seth & May, and Mike Waite. I was sitting at their feet singing away and ran back to my camper not 200 feet away to grab my camera.

There will be food vendors and artisans like Beth Millner, a local silvesmith and Birchleaf Designs. Beth does wonderful work in copper and silver. I own several of her pieces. Birchleaf makes “whimsical wood and fabric playthings.”

(Pictures depict 2008 event and artists vary from year to year. Visit Hiawatha Music Co-op for more festival info).

Please drop by All Things Girl to see the July/August 2009 issue. In the Arts area you will see three of my photos: Blue Web, Empty Nest and Bike Path. My friend Trina is also published in this issue: Rainy Day and Triangle Shadows. n certainly need to support publications that work to promote the arts.

I picked up three Jone’s Soda glass bottles from the beach. One Corona. A handful of bottle caps. Someone had marked out the corners of the beach volleyball field. I could not find the fourth bottle.

The July 5^th walk from Picnic Rocks to McCarty’s Cove is scattered with ghosts. Grand sand-castles with stick embattlements. Stones. Mote.

This is my first beach walk since the snow melted and Mike walks with me. I skip thru the water, jog around my boyfriend. Weeks of muscle spasms, this is the best I have felt in a long while. I want to swim but don’t.

I want my first swim to be at Wetmore. Sliding off a granite dinosaur into the cool.

I’m making changes.

Tomorrow I will scramble eggs after a run on hemlock shaded trails. I will meditate on the image of a father and a young blond-haried son on the dock at Teal Lake. Fishing before 9a.m

I was driving to work, a Ziploc bag of honey-nut cheerios wishing for bananas and a day to read a book straight thru on a deck overlooking blue waters. It’s who I am in summer. Who I was. But now I work where I can.

My physical therapist says—you can do all you need to, right? And my anger rises at the lifestyles I have surrendered. I think of fingertips, a slow trail on water, and a slow crawl towards what’s next. How I am afraid to dare.

Massage practice closed now 4-years. Lost. Seeking harbors. That’s where I’ve been

I want to tell the physical therapist I most certainly cannot do all I need.

Words are an offering I write them on gum wrappers as a gift. Joy. Want. Hope. Art. Be. Zing. Drift.

Green ripples to gold and copper shining thru the ore dock of my photograph.

I feel the need to travel. (I wonder if Raphael will guide me.)

You know one of those long drives around the shore. Some great lake shore. Michigan highways. A curl of black-gray ribbon winding ahead into a mirage that never reflects. I approach and it is gone.

On today’s agenda is the Carp River Gardens and fireworks in Neguanee. I am so far behind with sharing of photos and writing. I keep promising to do better–and I shall. I have signed up for the August Free Write Fling and I must gear up for Ludington Writers Conference in September. I also will be redoing my blog–website set-up and getting online sales of photos up and running in the next 3-6 months.

This shot was taken at the Marquette Community Gardens in the Park Cemetary, Marquette Michigan. Mike and I caught a few shots last night then dashed for the lake shore and storm shots over town and lake. I will process these soon. I took bracketed exposures and will try my first HDR images. All purely on accident–my camera just ended up in this mode most likely as I picked up the whole tripod and moved it to capture what was behind me and get past a railing that was in the way–So since the universe gave me this accidental camera mode setting of high, low and just right exposure. I think I ought to create with it.

Here is an image not played with yet. My Magic Man Mike!

The muscle spasms continue and I manage to function, head to work, hold grandson, cope with headaches, and yes, create. I pray for balance in my neck, shoulders, life.

Things have been a bit “quackers” for me. I am suffering from muscles spasms and migraines. I know this shall pass, once again (it always does). But I feel so many things are unattended to. Please enjoy this odd little fellow. (I think I have identified this duck as a Red Breasted Merganser).

I have always wanted the big purple spray of delicate blooms in my gardens. This shot was taken down the hill from my home under a tall tree in the shade with a circular polarizer filter on my Canon s5 IS. I was headed to the lake front. I found the filter plus shady into light conditions gave me bokeh. Then in PS7; I used actions from Optikverve with their Virtual Photographer freebies and created this image.