Blog

This is it! Follow the signs from M-22 to Grace Road and beyond to Putney's Self Serve Blueberry Picking Patch. I picked six and half pounds in less than 45 minutes. $2/pound. Big and sweet, one of the best things northern Michigan has to offer, just like her barns. My painting pictured here is in Port Oneida, only an hour or so from where I live in Frankfort, MI . Stop by and enjoy all you can -- blueberries and barns! If you can't make it in person, today I invite you to imagine how sweet life can be right where you are -- and have a taste for me.

Summer is finally here in northern Michigan and I finally tore myself away from my studio to enjoy the great outdoors. We have so much of it so close by, it's sometimes easy to forget to go a little farther afield to seen even more.

Yesterday my husband and I drove the 12 miles from our home in Frankfort to reach Old Indian Trail in The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We walked out on one of the officially discontinued trails, through the birch and beech forest, past some reedy wetlands and, at last, out onto the dreamlike dunes. The morning shadows were long and lovely, just the way I like them. Lake Michigan was glassy, flat and blue, reflecting the cloudless sky. We waded thigh-high but decided to wait until afternoon before plunging in, then took ourselves back across the dunes onto one of deeply shaded "official" trails.

After I got home, I couldn't shake the feeling of the place so I filled the afternoon with painting a panorama of the dreamy scene. A nice change from barns! And more summer and paintings yet to come ....