My apologies for not doing any updates for several weeks.  My PC had a virus that locked out my e mail scanning capability and I didn’t want to risk sending out something nasty……It has been fixed and we are up and running now….
 
   I hate to say it but, everyone left by Labor Day and the weather has been stellar ever since….. Other than a bit of color in some of the trees, it might as well be August…It’s the first time that I’ve been warm all Summer.  Town has been busy with a lengthily Salmon season and the Lakes and beaches are all still used daily….Speaking of lakes,  two friends swam Crystal this Summer…Chris Rodes,pictured with Mom Judy, swam the length of the lake (9.5 miles) in about 6 1/2 hours.  While Cathy Walker, pictured with husband and coach, swam the 20 miles around the lake. She did it in 30 stages, totaling 20 hours.  Bruce kayaked along side as safety officer and guide…….Congratulations to both of you both, for having a goal and attaining it…
   The Fall Festival in Frankfort is coming up Oct 10…Great fun for all ages.    Get involved and volunteer for a few hours on Saturday the 10th.  Help is needed in all areas of the festival.  Contact Joanne or Donna at the Chamber for details  352-7251…(having a reason to go, is much more fun than just going)….
    The sunset cruises will end Sept 30, so you have a few days left to get in an evening jaunt.  The daily cruises continue until mid October..
    The Cougar question in Benzie Co has apparently finally been laid to rest…In the flesh…. A man in Thompsonville shot one and there are pictures…(follow up shortly)
 
  Be well,  Jay

     Nothing to report except the weather has been wonderful.  Go out and enjoy the day… Todays picture is the Crystal lake sunrise yesterday…
 
  Be well,  Jay

Date: Monday, July 13, 2009, 6:41 PM
Busy weekend with lots of folks enjoying a letter perfect stretch of weather….The sunset cruise goes past Betsie just after 7 and again about sunset….adding something new to your sunset pictures. I was off Betsie this weekend and it was nice to have someone else out there with me. I can chat with them on the radio but I don’t think that I show up on radar….so I have to be careful because I’m invisible (I’m checking to find out the mechanics of this whole Somali thing) ((I’m kidding of course)) This year I’m trying to build a back log of warm pictures to mix in with the January and February ice pictures….

Keep having a good Summer, Jay

Greetings all,

Shortly after noon on Saturday May 2, the archivist cottage, Pilgrim Place, caught fire and suffered medium structural damage and lots of smoke damage. Eleanor Comings and Rick Myers saw the smoke coming from the building and raised the alarm.  The fact that the cottage was closed up tight kept the fire at a low ebb.  It didn’t have the oxygen to fully engulf the building.  It mainly burned straight up.   A wall space heater is the suspected cause.  No one was in the building, so no one was injured.  The Frankfort Fire Dept did a wonderful job in extinguishing the blaze with minimal water damage….Tammy Royal, archivist,  had come over from Saginaw for a visit  and arrived shortly after the fire trucks had departed.  She wondered what everyone was doing over by  “her office”.  She was devastated to say the least.(and no raccoons were harmed)  All of the old records that were in the file cabinets are fine. Two book cases were destroyed and everything else has smoke damage .  When you come North this summer, a bucket, a brush and some good old lye soap would be appropriate……

The group in the last picture decided there must be a better way to draw a crowd, on a sunny Saturday afternoon…..

Be well,  Jay

This is the one time of year when “waterfront”, may not be such a good thing.  There are NO homes currently jeopardized on the lake.  As you can see, the ice by M-22 & Crystal drive on the North shore is within inches of the shoulder and stacked up 4′ in some places….There is a South wind today, so the South side of the lake is open water and clear of ice…..  Our significant snow ended up being  8 inches and has all melted, so we are back to Spring mode….and that’s all the excitement from up North….

Date: Tuesday, March 17, 2009, 7:49 AM

A big Thank You for coming out to start the “season”. It’s not exactly summer as yet…..It was fun meeting new people and seeing old friends out from under the Winter hibernation.  I was surprised we didn’t have anyone OD on chocolate, there more chocolate desserts than you could count. (& I tried them ALL. For professional purposes only of course and they were excellent)…We’ll have to do it again, as soon as we can add 20 degrees to the temperature and give a bit more warning……also thank you to those of you who sent regrets from TX, PA, CA, MO, MI, FL, and elsewhere…Sorry you couldn’t attend..

Thank you again,  Jay

The strange picture below is a melting ice chunk on the beach. Mother nature making “drip sandcastles”….

I think that I’ve caught up on my sleep and am ready to rejoin the human race…  Shiver By The River ended up being an absolute hoot. As with any first time “test flight”, you do everything you can think of ahead of time.  But in the end, all you can do is stand back and see if it’s going to fly on it’s own….It did.  The weather even cooperated.  We had a daytime snow storm of 8 inched which added to the ambiance, big time.  The support of the community, for the event, was nothing short of phenomenal. The folks of the area should feel deservedly proud.  At the end of the day, we have a unique and cohesive community….. ( short story: A Snow Cross Mom asked a resident “Where a drug store was.” She was on foot and at the boat launch at the time.  She was given directions to the drug store at the other end of town, handed a set of car keys and told to leave them in the car when she was done…….Needless to say, she was floored…)   This link goes to a TV 9&10 write up the day before the event.  There is a video on the right side of the page.http://www.9and10news.com:80/category/story/?id=149394

I think that winter is, for the most part, OVER…  Monday was the coldest night that I’ve seen all Winter, but we’re into the 40s now and the next few days.  Hopefully the seasons they are a changing.

If anyone is interested (man or woman) in working on two small, simple, trebuchets (catapults) for the kids to use at the Fall Festival please let me know.

> This is a link to a time lapse video that Ken Scott  shot from the Elberta light this past Fall,  Quite interesting.  He is doing one of Point Betsie and I’ll pass the link along when I get it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48UDwMPDG3w
> (best to watch in hd, link is under the volume button)

 In the doldrums of winter, a bright spot.  For those not interested in things winter. This past week was spring like.  To include two days of 50 degrees.  We’ve had more sunshine in the past two weeks than we sometimes have ALL winter . The snow pack is gone to the point than my barbie emerged from a drift and I was able to fire it up tonight….

    On the flip side of all this, it is difficult to put on a Winter Festival when the ice and snow keep melting…..But we march onward and the curtain goes up on Saturday, regardless. Actually, things are in good shape, in spite of the adverse weather. We’ve had snow guns, from Crystal Mountain, running in the open space for several days as well as trucking in snow from the piles around town.  The community support is just astounding….

    Sadly, we lost to men on a snowmobile in Crystal Lake last week.  Ron Wilkins, an electrician with Huron Electric and Ellwood Holmquist who worked up at Paul Oliver.  They went through the ice off of the Yacht Club…

      We have snow due tonight which will help cover up bare areas around town, which helps psychologically if nothing else.

        Everyone be well, Jay

Just a quick note, covering the things that I forgot to mention in yesterday’s CRYSTALNEWS.  Saturday snowshoeing at the Land Conservancy dune in Elberta.  9 AM.  Also the Good folks at Dinghy’s are hosting a buffet fund raiser and silent auction Tuesday, starting at 5.  I’ve seen some of the auction stuff and it looks good… (Dinghys buffets are always a treat….)

For today’s picture, I was out looking for my pier group but couldn’t locate them….so took the picture instead

be well,  Jay