Reading

Much to my husband's dismay, I have always enjoyed Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga. This summer the newest book in the series came out, so of course, I had to get it. It was quite interesting. It's the same story told in Twilight except this version is told from Edward's perspective rather than Bella's. 

Sigh

A staff member at school has tested positive for Covid-19, so I'm back to teaching from my dining room table. (Right now that person is asymptomatic, and doing alright.)

 

 I cannot tell you how impressed I am with my students.

They show up on Zoom, every morning at 8:30 on the dot, ready to work on the day's math; they work without me for a while, and then Zoom again later in the day. They've been bright and cherry and have diligently worked on every assignment I've given them. No teacher could ask for better kids - or parents!

 

As of right now, it looks like we'll be Zooming until Wednesday the 14th. Then, hopefully, it's back to school. And just in case you're curious, I always get parent permission before I use student photos on my blog.

** 10/18: Edited to add: Due to staffing issues the administration decided to keep us virtual all this week. As of today, the plan is to return to face-to-face instruction tomorrow. (10/19/20)

Happiness is

 

 

...fall flowers...

Special Delivery

UPS travels to the Island on the freight boat in the standard brown UPS truck. Once on the dock, the packages are taken out of the truck and loaded onto a dray to be delivered around the Island. In the winter the packages come to the island via airplane.

A couple days ago I was walking down Main Street and a box on the UPS dray caught my eye. Do you see it? Nestled between goodies from Amazon and Target is a box labeled "extreme caution! LIVE SCORPIONS." 

Here, take a closer look:

At first I was a little surprised, I mean who on Mackinac would be ordering live scorpions? Other than the Butterfly House, but my son works there and I think he would have told me if they were adding new scorpions to their display. I did a double take and saw the box was actually a box of Michigan Chillers  books, by Jonathan Rand, headed to the Island Bookstore. I certainly appreciated Mr. Rand's sense of humor; he had me giggling all the way home.

Finally

We finally got the last of our returnables back to the store. It took us two trips with the car since the 14 kitchen-sized trash bags full of bottles and cans wouldn't all fit in the car at the same time. Thank goodness we have plenty of storage space in the basement.

When all was said and done, we had almost $90. If you're not from Michigan, we have a bottle return law here. Each time you buy a carbonated beverage, you pay a ten cent deposit on the container. You get your ten cents back when you return the container to the store. During the spring, all stores in Michigan stopped accepting returnables due to Covid. They're taking them back now, but at both Wal-Mart and Meijer only half the machines are open to keep customers socially distanced. Plus, both have a $25 per person, per day limit. Luckily, there were four of us.

Hunting

During our last week of summer the kids and I spent a lovely day on Nine Mile Point. (Nine Mile Point is located between Petoskey and Charlevoix on Michigan's lower peninsula.) No day on Lake Michigan would be complete without hunting for Michigan's state stone, the Petoskey stone.

Petoskey stones are actually pieces of  fossilized coral (Hexagonaria percarinata if you're curious.) When the stones are dry the don't look very interesting, but when they're wet or polished, the shape of the coral is easy to see.

In just a half an hour or so, we found quite a few. Our next step is to get some different grits of sandpaper so we can work on polishing the stones (following these directions.)  Hopefully, once they are polished, they'll look something like this one.

Not my picture (this one is for sale on Etsy for $65.00,) but it gives you an idea of what they look like polished.

First Day 2020

The first day of school is here any my wonderful coworkers talked my teenagers into taking a first day picture with me.

My daughter is 14, my son is almost 16, and I am the shortest one in the family...

Back to School

It's hard to believe it's been 178 days since we left school (on Friday the 13th no less.) Tomorrow we'll be back at it, in person, and I'm glad to be going back.

My classroom is ready to welcome the kids I have the privilege of  working with this year. My tables are set up for socially distanced lessons, with lots of space and plexiglass between students. Our entire elementary, K-6, is only 17 students, so we're able to do some things larger schools just can't.

Tomorrow will be my 28th first day of school, in the classroom I love, with kids I can't wait to get to know better. I know this year isn't going to look like the past 27 years, and it's going to everyone a while to adjust to this "new normal," but I feel confident. We've got strict protocols in place and the entire staff at MIPS is going to work tirelessly to keep all the Island's children safe, healthy and learning.

Nope

I noticed this sign a week or so ago during 

Mackinac Island's annual Fudge Festival. 

Oh Rybas,  did you forget
how to make plurals?

Remember, when a word ending

in a consonant + y is changed into a plural, 

the y is dropped and ies is added to the end.

Mummy becomes mummies.

Baby becomes babies.

Family becomes families.

Journey becomes journeys.

(It does! Look again - there is no consonant before the y.)

So, taffy becomes taffies.

I have to admit it - I am that person. 

I do feel the uncontrollable urge to silently correct

the grammar on signage.

Most of the time the issue the incorrect 

use of an apostrophe, but that's a rant for 

a different day.

 

That said, I freely admit that I do
occasionally make mistakes, and
I try to be gracious when I am corrected.

Mornings

There is something about mornings on Mackinac that I adore. All summer long I've been doing physical therapy for my back; which means going across to the mainland twice a week. I purposely scheduled my appointments so I could go across on the first boat each morning. Several of my friends thought I was nuts - why would I purposely make it so I had to be up and at the dock for an 8:00 am boat? Yuck.

I'll admit it - I like the first boat. Partially because it's considerably less crowded than the boats later on in the day. There have been a number of Covid-19 exposures on the boats this summer, so anything I can do to avoid crowds people is a good thing. (I'm also trying to always ride on one of the open-air decks rather than inside the cabin. Star Line claims to be fogging the cabins to disinfect them between every trip, but I've been on the boat a lot this summer and I've not seen the fogger used more than I have seen it used.)

I also love how peaceful Mackinac is in the morning. Town is dramatically different in the early hours than it is later on;  there's space on the sidewalks, I don't have to weave in and out of people and it's so much quieter. Don't get me wrong, I love the tourists - without them the Island's economy would fall apart. It's just nice sometimes to not be right in the middle of the craziness.

Masks for School

We are going back to school in person in September and the high school students and all staff will be required to wear masks while in the building. I decided I needed some fun masks for school, because, you know, I need some fun ones.  Daleks, Harry Potter, NASA and chickens all make me smile. And, this way I will have enough masks to get through an entire week at school without having to do laundry.

Quarentine Project: The Cat Quilt

During quarantine  and this odd summer, I've tried to keep busy. Last winter I made a quilt for my son, so it made sense that this year it was my daughter's turn. We repainted her room last spring, and it was time for some new, more grown-up bedding.

I wanted it to match the walls in her bedroom so I chose the turquoise -

she wanted wanted it to match our cat, so she chose the pattern.

Once it was on her bed, she was happy with it; well, mostly happy. She didn't think it was soft enough. I tried to reassure her that after a year or so of  washes, it would be just as soft as the other well-loved quilts we have in the house.

Good Deed

 

I found this monarch caterpillar in the middle of Grand Hill as I walked home this afternoon. It seemed an odd place for a caterpillar so I scooped him up, determined to drop him off on the nearest milkweed plant. (Their numbers have dwindled in recent years and while they aren't listed as threatened endangered in the US yet, they are considered "a species of special concern" in Canada.

I carried him for a half mile or so; looking for milkweed the entire way, but not finding a single plant. Luckily, I veered off the road to look in the back of an empty lot. I made sure he was happily munching on the leaf before I went on my way and headed for home.

Pinch Me

Some days I just have to pinch myself. I am so lucky to get to live where I do.

I've spent the vast majority of my life living less than a mile or so from one of the Great Lakes; I can't imagine living anywhere else. 

 

Lucky me...

Hopeful

Our school lost our principal / superintendent on June 30th - leaving things a little up in the air. I've tried to put the worries out of my mind, but it's me so that really hasn't happened. When I was at school this week I was excited to discover a blur of activity! (Our new superintendent / principal started on Monday.)

There was equipment everywhere.

Dan was painting, roofers were up on the roof,

the floor guys were refinishing the gym floor, and the tech people were prepping our new laptops.

I am looking forward to tomorrow - to our first staff meeting where I will get a good look at our Return to School Plan. I still don't know whether or not we will be able to start school, in person, on September 8th, but seeing everyone there working has filled me with hope.

Outdoor Fun

Do you know what that picture means? Every kid on Mackinac Island does. It means there are kids hanging out at that house. See all the bikes parked in the yard? They're a sure sign that something fun is going on. That's been our yard for the last couple of days.

There was a hammock tower in the back yard complete with snacks and the soundtrack from Hamilton,

and there were outside video games.  (You've got to love the dad who is willing to drag all the electronics outside and set them up.)  I know the kids weren't as socially distanced as they should have been, but they tried. I don't know about all the neighborhood kids, but I know my two really needed some time with friends - some time to just be normal kids, or as normal as they could be since we wouldn't let them have friends inside the house. They might not want to admit it publicly, but they are ready to go back to school. They miss their friends, but they also miss the routine school brings to their lives. And to be honest, so do I. As of today we've been out of school for four and a half months - it's the longest I've gone without being in school for the past 28 years...

Still Baking...

I present to you, my very first Victoria Sandwich cake. Another bake inspired by the Great British Baking Show. It looks impressive but it was easy. (Though it wouldn't have been with a two hour time limit and virtually no recipe like the bakers get in the show.)  It's just two layers, buttercream icing and jam. The cake isn't very sweet because the sweetness of the jam would be too much with a super sweet cake. The only changes I made were I used blueberry jam instead of raspberry and I iced the top and bottom edges. (I had extra icing so, why not.)

Too Close for Comfort

I haven't enjoyed riding the ferry this summer. Unless I ride at an off time, the boats are absolutely jam packed; and that makes social distancing rather difficult. My solution has been to always ride on the covered upper deck whenever possible. At least if there are people close to me we're outside in the open air. 

The other day Star Line was running a different boat to Mackinaw City - one of the boats with an uncovered upper deck. Of course the day I needed to go across it was pouring down rain, so the upper deck wasn't really an option.  I sat below - in the very last row of seats. 

People continued to board the ferry behind me, trying to spread out as best they could. It was the first boat off the island in the morning, and as is typical for the 8:00 am boat, there weren't a ton of passengers. As I'm patiently waiting for the boat to head out into the Straits, a woman slides in right next to me. Never mind that there are five empty rows of seats in front of me - five empty rows, and this woman chooses to sit right next to me in the same row.

Now, it is important to know the boat lines are following our Governor's mandate that masks must be worn in public places. On every trip Star Line tells passengers they are "required to wear a mask covering their nose and mouth for the duration of the crossing." This woman was the only person I would see on the boat who wasn't wearing a mask.

I politely asked her, "If you're going to sit here, would you please put on a mask?" 

She gave me a dirty look and snapped back, "I have a medical exemption."

I choose not to argue with her - maybe she really did have a medical condition. "OK," I said with a smile, "then would you mind choosing a different seat?" and I motioned to the plethora of empty rows. After an exaggerated eye roll and a huff she did get up and move, although she ignored me when I thank her.

I get that masks are uncomfortable. I get that she didn't want to wear one. I even get that there is a slight chance she might actually have a legitimate medical reason not to wear one. What I don't get is why she chose to sit right next to me where there were all those empty seats available. Why not go sit in a row by yourself? It was almost like she was intentionally trying to provoke me into an argument. I wasn't going to bite.

Baking Again...

Orange meringue pie this time...

Our neighbors had some friends up to visit, and as is common on Mackinac, those friends brought presents. People realize it's a little more complicated to get things on the island, so when they're coming to visit they usually offer to bring up anything we might need. (When our friends ask, we generally request cases of caffeine-free diet coke, if you're wondering.)

Their friends brought two bags of oranges and our neighbors didn't think they could eat all of them before they spoiled, so they gifted a bag to us. We weren't going to get through our bag before they spoiled either, so I used fresh squeezed orange juice to make the pie.

Not the best picture, but trust me it was delicious! Although if I make it again, I will substitute the lemon juice the recipe calls for with more orange juice.

Crazy Chicken Lady

We got the chickens back considerably later than usual this year, due to the Covid-19 lock down. I didn't realize just how much I missed having them around until we got them back in June.  Then, the kids and I picked up a few new feathered friends up in Dafter. (They are buff orpingtons with the fluffiest little backsides you've ever seen!)  They're growing fast and I think they like me. That, or they've realized I'm the one who brings the treats. Either way, they're a hoot. I enjoy my visits with them, at least I will, until I get pooped on...

We've been getting two to five eggs every day from our older girls - which is great. It's enough for us and the neighbors,  leaving a few to preserve for the winter (when the girls head back to our friend's house in Cheboygan.) If you're curious, we're preserving the eggs using lime water. We'll see how it goes. It's kind of an experiment at this point. Two years ago I froze 15 dozen to get us through the winter, but they took up a lot of freezer space. I'm excited about the lime water method since it will free up the freezer space for other things. I'll let you know how it goes.