HIGH MEADOW

I wanted to hike and take photos. Just up Highway 22 from Glen Arbor, Michigan, the farm house and barns were picturesque and the fields roll up from Lake Michigan’s beaches to forested hillsides, left behind by retreating glaciers maybe 12,000 years ago. Near the driveway, a man was mowing on a tractor. I pulled up, he stopped and I asked if I could walk the property and take photos. He turned to me and said he thought that would be fine just as I saw the National Parks logo on his shirt. “It’s yours after all.” he said. So I walked and took photos with my little 35mm Sony, shooting Kodachrome 400 film. That was almost twenty years ago; I keep coming back. I take a lot more photos now with the Canon 60 D, at 18 mega pixels and no limit on how many frames I can take. 

The High Meadow is part of the old Dechow, family farm which was incorporated into the National Lake Shore. The buildings have been restored and maintained, and you can walk the property anytime. I came during a blizzard in February, 1998; shot 400 ASA black & white film. The photos were interesting and I still have the negatives somewhere. Today, clouds were broken but not much sun coming through. The tall grass was heavy with dew. Shortly my feet were sloshing and my jeans were soaked up to my pockets. A few years ago they removed trees from old fence lines and volunteer pines and maples that had invaded the meadow as well. It left the place scarred up with two-track, wannabe roads through the native grasses but the grass has healed itself and there was no dry place today to put my feet. 

There are old apple trees along the tree lines, seeded by birds from nearby orchards. Some of them are still making apples and the deer beds under their branches make perfect sense. Nothing goes to waste here. The tallest grass has stems six feet tall with gold inflorescence while the waist high variety has red seed clusters. The short, knee high stuff hadn’t gone to seed yet. I was pushing up hill on the far east end of the meadow, coming out of the red top grass into knee high stuff. I had been holding my camera up to keep water off the lens and watching my foot placements. Just as I put my foot down I saw a brown blur. The fawn had held its position, frozen by instinct until I was literally on top of it. It was full speed on its first leap and no taller than the grass. Several times, I saw its spots as it bounded away from me. Then it was gone and I was standing there, wondering where its mother was, confident that they would find each other, very soon. 

I’m sitting in the cafe at Cherry Republic, in GlenArbor. It’s tradition by now, something very cherry is very necessary, any time you’re in town. There are several types of cherry wine; we drank one bottle of Cherry Red last winter and I probably need to replace it. The chocolate covered cherries are right next to the cherry chutney and cherry salsa. You have to go over to the cafe to get the “Boom-Chugga” cherry soda and chocolate, cherry chip cookies. I’m taking a cherry muffin with me when I leave. I still have to go to the beach. I’ll look for Petoskey stones and make believe I’m as young as the woods and the beach make me feel.

 I’ll come back, maybe October for fall colors. The meadow will be loaded with orb weaver spiders, their webs stretched between tall grass stems like miniature sails on thousands of miniature ships. Milk weed will be done for the year but naked stems and dry seed pods will remain long after the butterflies have gone south. I’ll walk up to the sugar shack where Park Rangers demonstrate in early spring, how to make maple syrup. It’s in the high, far corner of the meadow. From there, everything is down hill unless you want to climb up the old, maple forested, glacial moraines. Sometimes I do that but it always ends up in a mosquito feeding frenzy. It makes more sense to curl up in the sun, in a deer bed and take a short nap.