FANTASYLAND OF ICE AT PICTURED ROCKS

Each winter temporary ice formations form along the orange sandstone cliffs of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Wherever a tiny stream cascades over a cliff, or where water oozes through porous stone, ice forms upon hitting the frigid temperatures of a Lake Superior winter. These formations are reliable enough to have descriptive names given by the ice climbers who return each winter to test their skills on the frozen columns.

I have photographed the formations over several winters, but the winter of 2023 was my favorite because Karen (my wife) and I experimented with backlighting the ice at twilight and at night to give a sense of the color and translucency of the beautiful formations. I find the natural artistry of the ice as stunning as the sandstone formations of the Utah desert, but these are ephemeral and have to recreate themselves each winter. What an experience!

Ice climbing on Curtains at sunse

Karen Rentz at Amphitheater ice formation, with ice daggers overhead

Amphitheater ice formation

Details of ice formations in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Curtains ice formation lighted by us at night

Curtains ice formation at the end of a winter day

Two views of naturally sculpted ice behind the Curtains

Behind the Curtains ice formation, lit by the photographer’s lights and by the twilight outside

Ice Daggers of the Amphitheater formation

Curtains ice formation lighted at night

Ice climbing on Curtains; note the ice tools, rope, helmet, and crampons

Northern White Cedar twigs encased in ice in the Curtains ice formation

Behind the Curtains ice formation with blue twilight coloring the translucent ice

Details of Curtains ice formation lighted at night; the round bubble-like shapes are created by water drops melting from the ice column above

Late afternoon light on the Amphitheater ice formation

Sculptural details of the Curtains ice formation lighted at night

Karen Rentz at Amphitheater ice formation: the ice columns emerge from seeps in the sandstone

Karen Rentz exploring behind the Curtains ice formation

Behind the Curtains ice formation, the translucent ice is reminiscent of a bridal veil

Front view of Amphitheater ice formation named for the shape of the alcove in the cliffs

Details of Curtains ice formation; note how the ice takes different shapes

Details of Curtains ice formation lighted at night

Amphitheater ice formation used by ice climbers in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Icicle details of the Curtains ice formation

Dagger icicle details of the Amphitheater ice formation

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is located along Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Its namesake cliffs are miles long and make for great adventures all year, whether kayaking, backpacking, day hiking, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, or taking a guided cruise past the cliffs at sunset.

When we go in winter, we wear Kahtoola MICROspikes when navigating sheer ice at the ice formations, and we watched many people trying to stay upright when they walked in regular snow boots. Wear them! We also take snowshoes in case there has been a fresh snowfall and the trails are buried in deep fluff, though the short trails from Sand Point Road are often packed down by climbers. We also take cross-country skis to use on the nearby groomed trails. When venturing out in winter, we always wear insulated boots, and dress in layers of merino wool long underwear, waterproof snow/rain pants, and down, fleece, and a Gore-Tex shell. Mittens are essential, and chemical handwarmers can help when it’s really cold out. Take high energy snacks. To us, navigating winter is far more rewarding than enduring the bugs of early summer in the Upper Peninsula; just be prepared.

Important information about Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore:

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore information

Sand Point Ice Climbing and Viewing Map

Munising in Winter

A DAY AMONG THE AMISH

Loading freshly cut blocks of ice onto a horse-drawn sleigh at an Amish farm

Today was a gift from the universe.

I had an instinct that today (4 February 2023) could be the day when Amish farmers cut ice from their ponds to fill their icehouses after the cold snap of the last week, a warming weather trend ahead, and tomorrow the sabbath. We drove out into the Amish community this morning, and almost immediately saw a freight wagon loaded with ice. We drove on, and found another farm where wagons were lined up in front of a pond, where men wearing straw hats were cutting ice.

We parked at a respectful distance, watching and discretely photographing for about an hour. Then an Amish man came walking up to where we were parked along the road. He was a young man and kindly asked if we had ever seen Amish ice cutting before. We said “only at a distance,” and he invited us to come down closer to see it. I asked if it was okay if I took pictures, and he said “Yes. Just not too close.”

So we went down near to where ten men and teen boys worked as a team to cut the ice with a gas-powered circular saw and load six sleighs and wagons, each drawn by two draft horses. Assorted young boys all wearing matching dark knit hats and a dog completed the perfect rural scene.

We got to talking with the young man and his little brother, and he invited us to have a meal with them. So we sat down for a noontime dinner with the father, mother, 11 of their 13 children, and a couple of young men from a nearby farm. After a hearty meal, they went back to ice cutting and me to my pictures. Magic happens.

As I said, a gift from the universe to two shy people.

Amish men cutting and moving floating blocks of ice to conveyor lift

Cutting ice with a large circular saw blade

Notes from our conversations with an Amish family:

Since most English (the word used by the Amish for non-Amish people like us) know little about the Amish, I will tell you about our discussions with this kind and generous family.  My wife Karen and I talked to the farmer and his wife, as well as with some of their sons, both before and during the meal, learning a bit about their lives. They have 13 children, of whom 11 still live at home. The other two are the older adult children, both married, with the son living on a small farm in an Amish community in Illinois and the daughter at a farm nearby. The children were spaced quite regularly in age, with the youngest son being two. Of their children, nine were boys and four girls. The eldest daughter still living at home now teaches at an Amish one-room schoolhouse eight miles from their house.

The Amish have not been here for as long as they’ve been in Pennsylvania. My parents moved to the area in 1980, when they built the house that we now own. A couple of years after they moved in, one of their friends said that Amish were starting to buy up the surrounding farms, and that the land was about to blossom with new activity and a flourishing of crops. The farmer in my story moved here when he was a boy, in that first wave of Amish. He said that the price of the land was good. The families here have done well, with what appear to be prosperous and beautiful farms.

Amish men moving floating blocks of ice to conveyor belt lift

Using ice tongs to move blocks onto sleigh

A full load heading to the icehouse

The family has an extensive summer garden, where last year they planted and harvested over five acres of pumpkins and winter squash. Some of their crops are sold at a local open-air produce auction, which we’ve driven past at times when it wasn’t open. It is like a farmer’s market, open only prescribed days each month. At this time of year firewood and hay are for sale, but in summer and fall there would be a wonderful variety of produce and flowers. I remember last year seeing a horse-drawn farm wagon with clear plastic sheeting forming a greenhouse structure over the wagon. Inside there were colorful hanging baskets of flowers protected from wind by the plastic.  I think the flowers were headed to the farm auction. Here is an article about this particular auction facility: Stanwood Produce Auction

The young man who initially invited us down to see the ice cutting is 18 years old, friendly, and personable. He talked about the economics of the farm. They have a sawmill, as many of the local Amish farmers do, where loggers bring loads of softwood logs. The farmer brings the logs one by one into the mill, where they are sawn into 2×4’s and other dimensional lumber that is sold to a pallet maker south of Grand Rapids; that factory is perhaps 80 miles away, so the wood has to be transported by truck to the buyer. I’m sure the sawmill is a major source of income for the family. I mentioned that there has been a great increase in the number of Amish farms in our area with sawmills and wondered about the competition. The father said that so far it wasn’t a problem, that there was enough demand and that some of the sawmills were for softwood and others for hardwood. I think they also have a maple sugaring operation, as do many of the local families.

Loading blocks of ice onto a freight wagon to take down the road to another farm

Stopping to chat

The farmer would also grow corn and hay for feeding the livestock. In early spring he would use a horse-drawn plow (on local farms we’ve seen up to six draft horses pulling a plow!). Horses would also be used in the harvest of hay, with freight wagons piled incredibly high with freshly dried hay.

The farm has ten cows for milking, which has to be done twice each day. In fact, the purpose of this family’s ice harvesting is to build a store of ice that can be used the rest of the year to keep the milk cold. The milk is sold to nearby people who come by once a week to pick up a gallon as part of a farm share program.

We asked the son if Amish had to get jobs to make ends meet. He said that in the last few years the economics of farming alone don’t work, so it is common to have to get a job outside the community. In the local Amish community, all the farms have a small business of some sort: making rustic furniture, creating poly-wood furniture, repairing clocks, caning chairs, butchering cows, making rugs, selling eggs, making boat covers, and probably a dozen more crafts that bring in money.

The day looked like fun for all involved, especially the young boys looking on

On our visit there were two families working together to cut ice to fill two icehouses. The patriarch of the host farm operated the gasoline-powered circular saw used to cut the ice. This year the ice was only about six inches thick; more commonly it has been eight or up to twelve inches thick, so it would be harder to heft those blocks. The ice cutting machine is homemade, with a long lever used to raise and lower the spinning blade. He cut the pond ice almost all the way through, stopping about 1/2” short of cutting through. Then another man used a long steel pole to break off the blocks. A heavy rope stretched across the pond was used by two workers to move the floating blocks of ice to where the loading conveyor belt was located at one end of the pond. Then the men used pitchforks to prod the blocks onto the conveyer, which is also their hay lifter, powered by a gasoline motor. The Amish use some modern assistance when they deem it appropriate.

The family that owns the ice pond uses horse-drawn sleighs to transport blocks of ice to their icehouse, while young men from the farm down the road used horse-drawn freight wagons. We counted a total of six sleighs and wagons, each pulled by a team of two massive draft horses. They took turns at the conveyor machine that was lifting ice from the pond. Once one vehicle was filled with a layer of ice, the driver would quickly move it away. Another was already lined up to move into position, with the driver sometimes using the team of horses to back up the wagon to the loading chute. Managing horses to back up this way is an incredible skill and they do far better than I do trying to back up a trailer with a car! Most of the sleighs and wagons were drawn by two Belgian horses, the predominant breed in our area, which are usually chestnut-colored with blond manes. A few of the wagons were drawn by black Percheron horses. We were told that the white horse in one team was actually a Percheron, born black and then it had turned pure white.

The massive Belgian horses make great teams for hauling ice and plowing land

One young boy named Neil enjoyed talking to us and telling us about his life on the farm. He asked if we had a farm, and we had to answer no, but that it looked like a lot of fun to live on a farm. He was in the fourth grade at school; I asked him what his favorite subject was and after thinking for a moment, he said “reading.” He said they were reading a book by Laura Ingalls Wilder called “Little House in the Big Woods.” He said that sometimes the teacher reads and that the children also take turns reading. He said that another grade level reads “Farmer Boy,” another Wilder book that I told him I had read as a boy. It has been many years since I read it, but I remembered that I first learned about tapping maple trees from that book. I needed a refresher about the story, so here is what Wikipedia says about Farmer Boy: 

“The novel is based on the childhood of Wilder’s husband, Almanzo Wilder, who grew up in the 1860s near the town of Malone, New York. It covers roughly one year of his life, beginning just before his ninth birthday and describes a full year of farming. It describes in detail the endless chores involved in running the Wilder family farm, all without powered vehicles or electricity. Young as he is, Almanzo rises before 5 am every day to milk cows and feed stock. In the growing season, he plants and tends crops; in winter, he hauls logs, helps fill the ice house, trains a team of young oxen, and sometimes — when his father can spare him — goes to school.” 

This sounds exactly like the life of young Neil: no wonder he loves the Laura Ingalls Wilder books!

I asked Neil if he milks the ten cows, and he said he was still too little for that, but that he feeds their five calves and many chickens each day. He also collects the eggs daily from two chicken coups. I asked him how many eggs: he was unsure of the numbers, but maybe 30-50 from each coup (he said the total was never 100). He pointed out the pony they had gotten and was very fond of it. We asked if they name their animals and he said “no” and he laughed; that seemed like a strange idea to him. He was really glad that this year ice cutting was on a Saturday when he wouldn’t be at school, so he could watch and be part of it. He recalled when they had a backhoe come in to dig the large bowl-shaped pond for the ice.  Later we saw him riding on an ice sleigh, and it looked like it would be a day of heaven for a ten year old! Neil has an infectious smile and enjoyed telling us about his life.

With six sleighs and wagons, there was always a wait to get to the loading area

This scene could have been from 150 years ago

My dear readers, you must be wondering what it’s like to be inside an Amish house; I know we have been curious for years. We finally got our chance when we were invited in for noon dinner. We drove into their driveway and were shy about knocking on the door, in case the Amish wife hadn’t been told of our arrival. After a moment, she appeared at the door with a small son and I walked up to say hello. She said “Will you be joining us for dinner?” So of course I said “yes.”

We went inside, and she escorted us from the entry room, through the dining room/kitchen, to the living room. The living room had a wood-burning stove and the dining table/kitchen area was warmed by the cook stove. The openings between the rooms were large, giving the feel of one big room and also helping to provide even heat to the first floor. We believe that the large room is also used for community church services, but on some farms they use the barn instead of the house. The Amish don’t have a church to go to; instead, they take turns holding services for the nearby community. Every two weeks the community holds Sunday services; each farm hosts for two Sundays, then they rotate to another farm. This family was going to host church services at their home the next day. We have seen Sundays when a farmyard is filled with buggies, perhaps 20 to 30 at a time. Recently we saw children walking home from church, the girls in their black woolen coats, white aprons, and black bonnets, and the boys dressed formally as well.

The Amish house where we had our noontime dinner is in the distance

There is no electricity in an Amish home, so natural light during the day and oil or gas lamps at night are the sources of illumination. No televisions or computers, of course. And no plush furniture. Around the perimeter of the living room were wooden rocking chairs, which is where Karen and I sat while waiting for the meal. The youngest boys sat lined up on rocking chairs along one wall, reading long hand-written letters. I didn’t ask who the letters were from, but I could imagine that they could be from the family of their brother who had moved to Illinois and other distant relatives. And, unlike most English children today, they had no problem reading the letters written neatly in cursive!

The house was a comfortable temperature. The lady of the house said she is fortunate that her husband has a sawmill, because there is always plenty of wood to keep their home warm. They cooked on a huge old cast iron wood-burning stove, which also helped heat the house. 

There were no family portraits or pictures on the walls, since the Amish don’t wish to have recognizable pictures of themselves, instead believing that humility is to be honored, and individuality and pride are harmful to the community. They follow the Biblical commandment “Though shalt not make unto thyself a graven image.” I took pictures after getting permission from one man and nobody seemed to object, but I was careful to photograph the activity and not the individual. No portraits.

After a few minutes, the Amish wife told us it was time for the meal and indicated two places where we could sit. As you might imagine from the size of the family, the long rectangular table was huge; I think there were 13 of us sitting around it, with the father at the head of the table. Three daughters remained in the kitchen and served the food. When everyone was seated, the Amish father bowed his head; everyone took his cue and bowed their heads as well and all thought a silent prayer for about a minute. Following that, bowls of food were passed.

Dinner was hearty; after all, the men working outside had been cutting and hauling ice, hitching and unhitching teams of huge horses, and lifting heavy blocks of ice into and out of wagons. They were hungry! There were two sets of bowls serving each of the foods because the table was so large. The young men took huge helpings of mashed potatoes and gravy. The meat entree was excellent meatballs and sauce (Karen had to poke me for initially trying to take three meatballs when she noticed that everyone else took two!). There was a bowl of mixed vegetables, a smaller bowl of cabbage salad, and a plate of sliced cheese. After everyone had their fill, two desserts were passed: a chocolate pudding pie and an apple dish that might have been apple crisp. The oldest daughter was the baker.

The young Amish men were curious about our Washington license plates, and we told them we live there most of the year. They asked about Washington state and had heard that part of the state got considerable rain. They wondered why rain and not snow, since it was about the same latitude as Michigan and they seemed to understand when we explained how the influence of the warmer ocean moderates the temperature.

The family enjoyed hearing our story from several years ago of driving an icy road and coming upon a wagon loaded with ice blocks off the road in a ditch. I stopped and asked if I could help. The young man asked me how many horse power I had under the hood of my Subaru and we all laughed. They had another team of horses on the way to help.

They wanted to know where we lived locally and what we did during the day, though what we do is less interesting than what they do! We were at a bit of a loss as to what to say we do, as it didn’t seem appropriate to tell them how much time we spend with our computers or watching television. We asked a lot of questions about their lives and they were pleased to answer. Nice people. I noticed that the school-age children said virtually nothing during the meal (perhaps something about being seen and not heard!). They also all noisily completely cleaned their plates with the sharp sound of silverware striking china. No food was wasted.

After dinner, all bowed their heads again to thank God for the meal. Then everyone disappeared to complete their ice cutting tasks, with the women and girls staying inside to clean up after the meal. In Amish life the roles of men and women are well defined and traditional.

The men had to gather up the horses, who had also been given a break from the harness to feed on hay in the barn, so they all had to be reattached to their sleighs and wagons. We said our thank-yous and goodbyes, pulled on our boots, and went back to our car. I took a few more pictures–actually, the best of the day–and we took our leave. It was an extraordinary experience for us, and it felt like the family enjoyed talking with us, letting us into each other’s lives for a few hours. I bow my head in grace for the time we spent among the Amish.

A day’s work well done, with all enjoying the experience

This article was completed with the kind help of my wife Karen, who contributed immensely to the memories, writing, and editing. To see many of the photographs I’ve taken over a lifetime, go to leerentz.com

SNOW SOFTLY FALLING

My wife and I made a decision long ago that we enjoy the dramatic cycle of seasons in the north, so we avoided the rush of our generation to move to Florida or Arizona. I’m paler as a result, but am especially enjoying winters in central Michigan because of the snowfall. In fact, when the fat flakes are softly falling, I will often venture out on foot or in the Subaru to see what I can find to photograph.

The pictures here, taken over the last six years in Michigan, the Canadian Rockies, Newfoundland, Iceland, and a few other places represent my passion for falling snow. I love how the thickly falling flakes dissolve the landscape into what seems like molecules, where I get a glimpse of the fundamental nature of the universe. Nothing is as solid or as stable as it seems, and everything we know and love is made up of infinitesimal and fundamental particles buzzing around each other in the void. My glimpse into the great mystery.

You can click on any of the photographs here to see it larger and to view all of them using the arrow on the right. Each is available for $100 in a 12 x 18″ print that you can mat and frame however you like. Free shipping in the USA and each limited edition cotton print comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and a description of the photograph. Contact me at lee@leerentz.com for information; you can also go to http://leerentz.com for more options, including metal prints.

GLOWING PINK FLYING SQUIRRELS: Biofluorescence Revealed

Southern Flying Squirrels, Glaucomys volans, glowing hot pink on their underbellies when illuminated by a 365 nm UV flashlight, in a rare phenomenon known as biofluroescence

I awoke last night at midnight to flashes of light from a motion sensor floodlight on our deck. I wasn’t thinking of prowlers, because I suspected the flashes of light were triggered by Southern Flying Squirrels coming to visit for the sunflower seeds I had tossed out just before going to bed.

I crept downstairs and carefully opened the sliding door, letting in frigid February air. The deck light came on briefly, enough that I could see the tiny squirrels dashing up through an opening in the deck around a huge Northern Red Oak. Each squirrel would come up, grab a sunflower seed, then dash down the tree trunk out of sight. This happened so fast that I couldn’t see how many squirrels there were, though at one point I saw three. There may have been more. On this night they were nervous and did not stop long enough for any photos.

We’ve had Southern Flying Squirrels at our home in Michigan each winter, and I’ve photographed them at night several times using incandescent lights on the deck. They made for good photographs, with their gray-brown fur and a cuteness factor of huge bulging eyes and little pink lips, but their coloration was subtle to my eyes and essentially no different from most mammals, which are colored for camouflage rather than display.

Then scientific knowledge suddenly changed. About four years ago a Wisconsin forestry professor, Dr. Jonathan Martin at Northland College, was in the woods at night looking up toward the forest canopy with an ultraviolet flashlight for lichens and other fluorescing lifeforms, when a hot pink missile glided overhead. He identified this as a Northern Flying Squirrel, and its normally white belly lit up hot pink in ultraviolet light. He found this astounding, and asked a colleague to investigate flying squirrel skins in a couple of museum collections to see if the phenomenon could be confirmed. It turned out that in those collections, the bellies of all three species of North American flying squirrels–Southern, Northern, and Humboldt’s Flying Squirrels–glowed bright pink under UV light. Even specimens over 100 years old. Male and female, young and old, they nearly all glowed.

Since we have easy access to flying squirrels at our home in Central Michigan, I decided to observe this phenomenon for myself. I obtained a 365 nm UV flashlight that is powerful enough to look almost into the treetops and began looking at these squirrels on nights they chose to come to our feeding station. They don’t come every night, but when they do I often get up in the middle of the night to observe and try to photograph them. It isn’t easy to photograph little nervous squirrels by a relatively dim (to our eyes) UV light, but I’ve had some success represented by the pictures here.

Southern Flying Squirrel showing biofluorescence under UV light on the left, with the same species illuminated by tungsten light on the right. The belly fur changes from off-white to bubblegum pink when struck by UV light.

Why do flying squirrels glow? That is still unknown. What is known is that at dusk, dark, and dawn, the air is bathed in proportionately more ultraviolet light and far less light from the visible spectrum than in daytime. This UV light–when converted to visible light by fluorescence–makes the flying squirrels more visible to each other. This is even more true when snow blankets the forest, since snow reflects UV light. It also appears that flying squirrels’ eyes, unlike ours, can see into the UV spectrum, so this ability may also be involved.

Again: why do they use biofluorescence and UV light at night? There are a couple of possibilities that spring to mind. Based upon the three flying squirrels I observed on that recent February night, I think it’s possible that the squirrels use their bubblegum pink undersides to keep track of each other at night. These squirrels are highly social, with reports of 25 to 50 Southern Flying Squirrels roosting communally in a hollow tree. So why wouldn’t they follow each other to food sources? Some of my pictures show them sitting side by side, dining quietly together on the sunflower seeds I put out. They seem to enjoy a more peaceable kingdom among their kind than do the daytime Eastern Gray Squirrels and American Red Squirrels we also get in Central Michigan. Feeding together also means more big eyes to look for predators–much as goldfinches and other songbirds feed communally as a strategy to detect hawks.

There is another tantalizing possibility for the pink color. Three large owls that also live in this region–Barred, Barn, and Great Horned Owls–also have bellies that fluoresce hot pink under UV light, though their coverings are feathers rather than fur. These owls are the chief predators of flying squirrels. Do the flying squirrels mimic the owls to fool the predacious birds into thinking they are seeing other owls when in the air? Maybe. I find this possible. The fluorescing fur is mostly on the belly and undertail of the squirrels, with just a minor hint of color change on the back and virtually none on the tail. Once a flying squirrel lands on a tree trunk, its back and tail make it almost invisible to predators because the glowing belly is nearly hidden.

Alternatively, perhaps the owls are mimicking the flying squirrels, fooling the little squirrels into thinking they are seeing others of their own kind. This would allow the owls to silently approach the flying squirrels and suddenly grab the little creatures.

Or perhaps all three of these mechanisms are in play: bubblegum pink signals the presence of flying squirrels to each other, but also both disguises them from owls and identifies them to owls, if any of that makes sense. Coevolution at work.

Biofluorescence also extends to the Virginia Opossum in this region, but is apparently unknown in other mammals here. It turns out the phenomenon is new enough that the chemical and physical mechanism is still unknown. I suspect this will be studied in coming years, with possible applications for industry. Or not. Knowledge is its own reward.

I will be watching these creatures over the coming weeks and years, both with and without the assistance of UV light. The mysteries of nature are an ingrained part of my life and I find observations and photography endlessly fascinating.

The photographs above are a good representation of the Southern Flying Squirrel in UV vs visible light. The final photograph shows the deck setting at night where all the pictures were taken, and includes one flying squirrel for scale. Click on the photographs to see them larger.

Here are some other sources that examine this discovery:

Ultraviolet fluorescence discovered in New World flying squirrels (Glaucomys) (Journal of Mammalogy)

Southern Flying Squirrel (Wikipedia)

Flying Squirrels Glow Fluorescent Pink Under Ultraviolet Light (Smithsonian)

THE AMISH IN WINTER

The Amish live close to the land, necessarily incorporating seasonal rhythms into their lives. After all the plowing and planting and nurturing and harvesting, the landscape breathes a sigh of relief as the world enters winter dormancy.

But not the Amish. Their lives are still busy with the daily rhythms of farm life. The horses and chickens must be fed. The children must walk to their one-room schools. Ice must be harvested. Laundry must be washed and then dried out on the line. The sawmills continue operating. Wood must be cut for warmth. Barns are built. Quilts are sewn. Sunday worship is not to be missed, as the believers gather in one home, converging from nearby homes by foot and by buggy.

It is a life apart, and that’s what those of us viewing from the outside find enchanting and ultimately unknowable, because we can only view the surface.

The photographs here represent six winters of quietly and respectfully observing these families at an undisclosed location in central Michigan.

Girls and boys walking home from school in a blizzard

Amish men from the community come together for a barn-raising

Amish laundry in black and white

Buggy tracks in fresh snow

Amish corn shocks in a blizzard

Deep snow passage

Affection among the work horses

Transporting ice blocks freshly cut from a pond

Towels drying in a winter breeze

One room school

Coming together for Sunday Services

Three sheep with greenhouses

Heading home in a blizzard

Two sleek horses taking a break from hauling buggies

Ready to leave

Mother and child in an Amish barn

For more information about my photography, go to leerentz.com

ICE STORM!

Sometime around 10 p.m., the temperature edged down a degree, and the light rain took on a sharper edge. The cold drops stung a bit more, and the asphalt took on a glossy sheen. The Weather Channel had warned of freezing rain, and it was arriving right on schedule.

Branches began glistening in the headlights, as the cold rain polished every surface in a thin transparent layer of ice. As the night wore on, twigs of the lesser trees began snapping, sending a cascade of crystal to the ground. Power lines sparkled when touched by headlights.

Tree limbs were tugged by gravity as the relentless weight of crystalline water accumulated. As more rain fell and ran down the branches in little rivulets, icicles started to grow at the tips as the water froze faster than it could drip. By the wee hours, the icicles at the branch tips were one centimeter and growing. As the weight gradually sagged the branches, the icicles curved, always seeking gravity’s pull.

At 5:00 a.m., the first massive maple branch collapsed on a power line, blinking out the lights and heat of a hundred homes. Then a sycamore went down, then an elm, then a hickory. All over the region tree limbs fell in the forest, and nobody heard, but when a tree limb fell across the highway the sirens blared and the red lights of emergency vehicles sparkled eerily off the crystal forest.

Our power went out before dawn, and we awoke to a slightly chilled house. It would get ever colder over the next three days, as our veneer of civilization cracked under the weight of the ice.

Meanwhile, I took pictures.

This storm occurred in Michigan just before Christmas; I would like to thank the relatives who took in those of us without power and made the holidays special. After three days, power was restored.

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my NEW website at Lee Rentz Photography or go to my Flickr Photostream.

PACIFIC CREST TRAIL: Still Living the Dream

Hiking down from Trap Pass along the Pacific Crest Trail on a perfect summer day, I saw a single hiker ahead, trudging up the trail toward me. It was a man of roughly my age, carrying a heavy backpack. When we met and exchanged greetings, he asked if I was with the Forest Service. I said no, but I realized that I was wearing a light green shirt and dark shorts, and it did look a bit like a U.S. Forest Service uniform.

Then he remarked on my “Michigan” baseball cap, with its indigo color deeply faded by many days in the high country, but the maize embroidery of my alma mater’s name still bright. He said he had gone to the University of Michigan as well. He asked when I attended and I said I was there from 1968 through 1972. He said he was there from 1970 through 1974. He asked what I had studied, and I said I was in the School of Natural Resources. Turns out, he was too, so our paths would have crossed many times during the two years of overlap. Alas, neither of us recognized the other’s name, but I would have been two years older, and our classes would have been different.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, most of us entered the School of Natural Resources because we loved being outdoors and dreamed of a career that would keep us close to the forests and lakes and mountains that we loved. I loved hiking and fishing; others loved hunting ducks and deer, but all of us had the wilderness in our souls. The school had a feeling of camaraderie at the time, and I think most of us thought of ourselves as natural resource students first, and University of Michigan students second. In addition, both of us were at the school when the first Earth Day happened, so our environmental interests coincided with the awakening feeling that caring for the environment should become an urgent national priority.

He asked who my favorite professor had been, and I answered S. Ross Tocher, a charismatic man who taught park planning and nature interpretation, and who introduced me to photography and spurred my buying of a good quality camera. Dr. Tocher gave me a start on my careers in interpretation and photography through his classes, and asking me if I would like to participate in an arboretum design for Chippewa Nature Center in Midland, Michigan, along with a landscape architecture student. This was the first time I participated in a project at a professional level, and it was thrilling. Tocher later moved to the Puget Sound region and spent his retirement years about ten miles from where I now live, though we didn’t get reaquainted in later years, something I now regret, since this great man passed away several years ago.

My new trail acquaintance had spent the early part of his career working for the U.S. Forest Service in the Monte Cristo Ranger District in Washington State’s Cascade Mountains. He wasn’t a forester, but he recalled asking his forester colleagues if the timber harvest they were hauling out of the woods was sustainable. That would have been in the early 1980s, when logging was increased dramatically on Forest Service lands. They laughed and said absolutely not, but there was nothing they could do about it. One of their agency’s goals at the time was to make sure that all the old-growth timber on the district was harvested by 2010. They didn’t quite reach their goal, despite a valiant effort that left much of the Pacific Northwest with a brush cut, because the increasing scarcity of the Spotted Owl intervened and effectively cut off the harvest. Thank God and his little owl.

I told my new friend about my zigzag career path, having worked as a nature center director in upstate New York and as a freelance nature photographer in the years since, as well as shorter stints with the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management. I even did three summers of challenging work fighting forest fires in the California mountains.

He spent the latter part of his career working for Seattle City Light doing environmental projects. And he spent lots of his own time in the mountains, enjoying the glorious yearly summer respite between spring and autumn rains in this moist region.

This conversation got me thinking about others I went to school with and the paths their lives have taken. Most I lost contact with, of course, but I’ve run across the names of some through the years in various ways. My roommate at forestry summer semester went into the Peace Corps and spent five years working on natural resources in Columbia, before the drug trade turned it into a terrifying place for outsiders. He later became a craftsman, creating a company that forged decorative bronze bells. I ran into him at an art show some 15 years ago in Cleveland, where we each had a booth.

Another friend, for whom I was an usher at his wedding, went to graduate school, and later became a professor in Arizona. I heard him talking on NPR’s All Things Considered a few years back about tourism, his specialty. Another worked at a nature center, then departed for grad school and spent the rest of his career in Wisconsin doing graphics and photography for a university.

I was in college at the peak of the hippie era, and some of the guys I knew followed their passions in completely different directions. One formed a band performing in the style of old western music: they had an NPR program for many years and did a gig at the White House for Ronald Reagan (this guy also started the “Paul is Dead” rumor that swept the USA like wildfire–though Paul McCartney just gave a dynamite performance for 45,000 people in Seattle a week ago, so the report of his death was a bit premature, or else he’s had a great imposter for 40+ years). Another man–a man with a talent for talk–became an agent booking country and bluegrass acts out of Nashville. Still another became a restaurant manager in Cleveland.

Our lives and careers have taken many routes. But as my new friend said as we departed: “It’s good to see some of us are still living the dream.” Indeed. I cannot imagine a life without spending a great deal of time outdoors in beautiful country. I invited him to join us on a week-long hike in The Enchantments, but he declined. He had other plans, and another route through life.

One last thing: the man remarked twice to me: “I can’t believe how young you look!” Well, take off the baseball cap and you see the lost hair that once flowed long and blond, while the sunglasses mask skin damage from so many days spent outdoors in the days before sunscreen. I like my disguises and have no illusions of youthfulness.

We departed. He headed up the trail toward the pass and I headed down the trail to join my wife and our friend on the hike back to the trailhead. Old times and early ambitions were coursing through my head as I thought about forks in the road I’ve taken. Some with regrets, but most just are what they are. At this point in life, I’m as happy as I’m likely to be, and things have turned out pretty well. Life is our own personal version of the Pacific Crest Trail, filled with adventures on a long and wandering route through space and time.

To see my web site, which includes photographic prints for sale, please go to LeeRentz.com (just ask me to email you a small version of a particular photograph you like if you can’t find it on the site; my website is not up to date). 

To see thousands of my photographs in large file sizes for use in magazines or other printed materials or electronic media, go to my PhotoShelter Website.