While we were at the Dimond cottage at Torch Lake last weekend for the Mini Tri Camp, I saw something attached to a tree just off the front deck and I didn’t know what it was. You know me well enough to know that I couldn’t just let it go, and I believe you can find anything on the internet. So I went to an “all experts” website, selected a category and a person who should know what it was and asked the question:
“I was at a friend’s cottage in the northern part of Michigan. Attached to a birch tree was a hand carved piece of wood in the shape of a “T”. The base was about two inches long and was about as big around as a pencil. It was flat on one side and was tacked to the tree with a wedge at the bottom to make it perfectly vertical. The “stem” of the T was round, started out about the diameter of a small nail and tapered to a point. This piece was about 15 inches long. It was quite supple and I noticed in the morning the tip end was about 3 inched below horizontal. In the afternoon it was about 1/2 inch above horizontal. What is it?”
The answer came back: “This is what’s known as a “weather stick” popular in the new england region of the U.S.   simple to make, cheap to buy. easily found if doing a search. try this link for lots more info and the science of it. thanks for the question.”
http://www.new-potato.com/wstick/Science/science.html . Now we can all sleep better tonight.
Thursday evening I was talking to some friends who were about to leave for a couple of months for their place in Montana. Since the cottage at Crooked Lake hasn’t sold, I’ve thought seriously about taking it off the market and renting it year round for a year or two until the housing climate gets better.  They have rented their place at Gull Lake for 17 years from September 1 to June 1 and have only had one bad experience. You know my luck in the past, so my one in 17 years bad experience would probably happen the first year. Anyway, they were telling me of all the ways they had offered it for rent and suggested I go to Craig’s List and look at the listings so I did.
I was looking through the listings of “wanted to rent” for Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. I just happened on the following one in the Grand Rapids listings:  $100 Need One Bedroom For Me And My Mistress-Afternoons  My mistress and I would like to rent a bedroom of someone’s home for $100/month. We only need a place in the afternoons, and an occasional overnight. Would prefer a discreet, upscale house with a proximity to downtown GR and northwards.
I figured this must be a joke, but the more I thought about it, I’m thinking it may be real. Just when I thought no one would ever reply to this ad, we talked about it Friday night and Becky thought it would be a good way to make a few bucks. She seemed genuinely disappointed when I said the person wanted downtown Grand Rapids and north. I thought it would be a lot of work to wash the sheets every day and she said they could wash their own. Besides, she continued, they would probably only use it every couple of weeks. I answered that if they were only going to use it every couple of weeks, why would he want a mistress. We could see that the conversation was headed South so we dropped it at that.
Just (Learned A Bunch Of New Things This Week) Jack