Wet

Mackinac has had a wet spring. Not wet as in lots of rain, but wet as in the heavy snow pack has melted. Now the ground is saturated with all that water and it's finding its way into places people don't want it- like basements. One spot on the island is so badly flooded, that these pumps have been running, round the clock, for several days now. 

Busy!

March and April were busy months for me. I signed on to be the lead costumer for the Mackinac Island Community Theater's production of Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It was a ton of work but it was all worth it when the sets, the costumes, the performers, and the music came together on opening night. It really was a treat to be part of this show!

Classic Mackinac

The other day when I said we got "a few" groceries, I may not have clearly explained how many groceries we actually picked up. We hadn't left the Island in months, so our cupboards were bare - quite bare. Everything on that cart is ours. (You can't see it in the pictures, the everything on that cart is labeled with our name.)

As is typical on Mackinac Island, we asked the dray to haul our groceries to the house. (We live about a mile from the dock, up hill.) Using the dray service is fairly cheap and everything is usually up to the house in a couple of hours. That was the case the other day. Except...

When we started to unpack we discovered one bag, the denim blue cooler in the top right of the picture, wasn't ours. It looked identical to ours, but didn't have our name on it. Someone had inadvertently taken our cooler and left theirs on the cart with all of our stuff. Since the entire cart was ours, the dray driver  assumed the cooler was ours too, and delivered it. It looked just like ours so, at first, we didn't even realize there had been a mistake. Once we discovered it, we weren't super worried. Our cooler had our name on it, so we knew we'd get it back. We also knew the owners of the other cooler would be concerned; their bag was full of high-end cuts of meat.

After an hour or so when we still hadn't heard anything, I posted a photo of the cooler in the Mackinac Island Residents Facebook group. I hoped someone would see it, realize their mistake, and call me. Nope.

After another hour, I decided to call one of the police officers, just to let them know the pricy meat was safe and that we would happily return it to whoever it belonged to. Luckily, he decided to pop down to the dock were he met a very worried man returning our cooler which he accidently took because it looked like his. (He didn't notice our name until he was ready to unpack it.) Small towns being what they are, about 15 minutes later the police came up to the house, swapped the coolers and everyone got busy happily putting away their items. 

Later that night I did get a message from a parent who had seen my Facebook post and given my phone number to the owner of the unlabeled cooler. The Police Chief just beat them to the punch and got everything moving in the right direction before they cold get ahold of me. 

Hopefully the new island family learned a few valuable lessons about island life from their experience:

1. Label everything with your name and phone number. It makes getting things back easier in the rare occasion of a mistake.
2. Check to make sure what you take from the dock is yours. Refer to #1.
3. Whether or not you appreciate Facebook, the Mackinac Island Residents page can be a very useful tool.
4. Mackinac Island people are honorable. Things might get "misplaced" for a while, but things are almost never "stolen."

Boats!

The boats started running yesterday - hooray!

Allen and I were lamenting not being able to get to the mainland to see Project Hail Mary in the theater and then, surprise - the boats started up again. We were thrilled! We both read the book and had been really looking forward to the movie. Living on Mackinac Island makes seeing movies a bit of a challenge. We often have to wait for them to stream, but this was one of those movies we knew would be better on the big screen.

I was super worried they would change many of the parts of the book I loved, but thankfully the film remained pretty darn true to the book. There were changes of course, but not so many or so large as to ruin it. (I'm sadly remembering the film version of Ready Player One here.) It would have been better as an eight-part miniseries, but overall I enjoyed it. And, because we had boats, we were able to pop over for the night, see my mom, pick up some much needed groceries, and catch the movie. 

If you are a sci-fi fan, a science nerd, or a science teacher I highly recommend the book!

Happy Easter

Easter tends to be pretty quiet at my house - TV, baking, that kind of thing. This year I made these cute little cookies for us to munch on. Let me tell you - I am in love with rolled buttercream. It looks like fondant, tastes like buttercream frosting, and it's easy. The only caveat is you need to have something to mold it with (think cookie molds or embossed rolling pins.) My family does not appreciate the flavor and texture of royal icing, so discovering this has been wonderful. Plus I have a gazillion cookie molds, so I was good to go.

We celebrated today with some cure bunnies for Easter and suns for spring; 'cuz everyone on Mackinac Island is ready for sunny weather!

Spring Break 2026

It hit 50 degrees (about 10 C) on Mackinac this weekend. It was so nice outside, Allen and I spent some time on the front porch enjoying the sunshine. We often don't travel over spring break - it's city 'budget season' and the weather is often iffy for flying. So, I'll be content with a wee bit of sun...