Browsing All Posts filed under »Everything else on Torch Lake Views«

The Road to Barnard, Part 3, in which Harry Potter appears

June 9, 2025

13

When the people of a small community go to the trouble of putting up a memorial to their neighbors, I always want to know more about those memorialized. We covered the story of Leslie T. Shapton in Part 2. Let's go on to Harry Potter and Harold Cole.

Still here after all these years . . .

June 9, 2025

13

I just loved doing Torch Lake Views and would very much like to revive it on a regular basis but it’s not at all clear to me how best to do that.  It’s OK.  I’ll keep working on it in between other chores. I’m busy sorting books so that I can keep the ones I […]

Making America Great in 1915

April 30, 2017

38

This is my grandmother, Hazel Hystedt, circa 1915.  From 1914-1917 she was a public school teacher in a one-room school near Funkley, Minnesota. By her own account, she had 24 pupils in eight grades, and taught manual training, Home Ec, and Agriculture, and “was wanted to start a Sunday School.”  (She declined that last.) One […]

Nature Walk 2: Splashing through the Swamp

July 5, 2016

23

My neighbor Tommy is fleet as a deer. He can leap from hummock to hummock without getting wet. He also possesses a very good sense of direction and an intrepid friend named Anabelle. Perfect. Off we went into the depths of mystery.

Nature Walk 1: Summer Road

July 2, 2016

22

The roadsides are full of flowers and critters and the occasional berry. The bluff is covered with equisedum, an ancient life form that crowds out practically everything else, but has somehow made space for the wild rose. Those wild roses have grown in Michigan for a long time, too.

A little rain in June is a good thing

June 8, 2016

28

Fungi in the woods, the swamp at its best, and a couple of happy dogs.