I know, I know – in my absence you have been starving for Babs Young’s images. Here are the last three from 2012 – more to come.
I especially loved this one, taken just before the December storm. Babs wrote: The water level in Lake Michigan is very low, much to the dismay of many. However the camera sees this differently. I rather like the look. I found it pretty fascinating myself, and want to write something about it soon.
Babs sent you Christmas greetings, too. She wrote: We will have a white Christmas around here. We had a great snow event last Thursday and Friday. Some lost power and I understand some still don’t have it back. I was lucky and didn’t lose power. Only Charter failed us. Our internet was out for a day or so. Anymore that’s a big loss. Almost worse than losing the phone. Enjoy your holiday.
And finally this farewell to 2012. Babs writes, It’s all white here and chilly. This is a view of Grand Traverse Bay from a vista near Royal Farms just off US31. I’ve put some photos I have taken recently up on Flickr and you can view them here. Happy New Year!!
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Torch Lake Views 
Martha
January 3, 2013
And the poor Mississippi. I wonder what things they may find at the bottom of the river…
Gerry
January 3, 2013
The skeletons of ancient Asian carp.
uphilldowndale
January 3, 2013
Now we want to know all about the water levels. My boys says it will be lower in winter because of the water being busy as snow, is he right? How much lower than usual is the water? We have some we can spare you, the UK is sodden and very grey.
Gerry
January 3, 2013
Must tell you about the photo first – it was taken on the eastern bay of Grand Traverse Bay, and is not what Lake Michigan itself looks like. Having said that, the lake level is about to decline to its lowest since the mid-1960s. In geological time the lake has been much, much lower than it is now – and much, much higher as well. Still – I think it’s a good 20 inches lower than it was back in the late ’90s when the waves threatened to bring down the bluffs along the shore.
Anyway, while it is true that cold winds across open waters turn the moisture to snow, it is also true that a decent ice cover on the lakes, with a nice blanket of snow over that, keeps water from evaporating. But last year we had a “warm” winter. The whole middle of the country has been in an extended drought, with scattered clots of blizzardy snow or torrential rain just to keep things interesting. It’s . . . unsettled and unsettling.
Someone remarked recently that water doesn’t really disappear, it just shifts around on the globe, over the land, under it, and in the atmosphere. It was sort of comforting to think about, but not so much when you’re flooded and we’re parched or vice-versa, eh? Mama Nature on a tear.
kiwidutch
January 3, 2013
Beautiful! Thank You and Happy New Year to you too !!!
Gerry
January 3, 2013
Thank you – and happy New Year to you too.
Bruce Laidlaw
January 3, 2013
Nice to have a pretty view of the low water situation. Unfortunately, the low water makes some of the lake shore areas very ugly.
Gerry
January 3, 2013
It does indeed, and I have a few pictures like that. It’s going to be an Interesting Winter.
shoreacres
January 3, 2013
In the winter, we get low water from strong northerlies. Galveston Bay is so shallow (consider 10′ average) that a wind like we had last week, 35 sustained with 40-50 kt gusts, can flat empty the lake, the ditches, the bayous and such. It’s not all bad, as the flushing is good for what lives and spawns in the waters, but it can be amazing to see.
They closed down a marina a few days ago because the water was so low a strange “something” appeared in the mud. It seemed to be a bomb. In fact, it was old ordinance and not active, but it does make you wonder what else might be down there. (Apart from a certain bronze anchor roller that’s still in slip D-12. I try not to remember that little incident.)
I did read that the Corps of Engineers is busily scraping gravel somewhere in the mid-Mississippi, to try and keep things afloat. You’re right – it’s time for a little more ordinary, for everyone.
Gerry
January 4, 2013
I have a foggy recollection of a story about big winds emptying a shallow lake and depositing the contents at a distance, giving rise to the expression “raining frogs and fishes.” Better that than unexploded antique ordnance, eh?
Maybe the story that really needs to be written is not “When the Extraordinary Intrudes into the Ordinary” but “No Ordinary Times.”
(One day I will extract the story of slip D-12. I am very patient.)
Fee
January 4, 2013
Our ever-cheerful weatherman informed us that 2012 was wetter than normal, as if we hadn’t noticed! It’s also feeling surprisingly mild, but I can’t help but wonder if Mama Nature is lulling us into a false sense of security…
Gerry
January 8, 2013
Alas, so much of the Flow of Important News restates the obvious . . . We might as well just sit around at the local coffee shop trading observations on the passing parade. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much what I do. Oh dear.
I’m pretty sure that Mama Nature has a few surprises in store for all of us. I wonder if we ever surprise her?
sybil
January 6, 2013
You should visit the Bay of Fundy. You will see sand vistas that go on and on and on. Then six hours later the water would be well over your head. Just spectacular !
Babs has quite the “eye”.
Gerry
January 8, 2013
The Bay of Fundy is high on my list of places I wish to visit. Unlike some of the others, it is also a realistic possibility. I would just love to watch the tides.
isathreadsoflife
February 1, 2013
Beautiful pictures. Please thank Babs for all she shares with us all along the year. Wishing you both more good wishes for this New Year. We never have enough of it, don’t we ?
I am going to have a look on Babs’ flickr photostream now.
Gerry
February 20, 2013
Isa, hello! Many good wishes for you in 2013 as well.