Coastal Ingenuity: Up North Tales 
In honor of the official beginning of summer, I shall relate some maritime history of the Great Lakes. I knew almost nothing about maritime history until last summer, when my husband and I visited the Sleeping Bear Point Coast Guard Station Maritime Museum near Glen…
Debra RienstraJune 22, 2019
Pitcher’s Thistle
What is the value of a thistle? We don’t entirely know. I suppose God does. I suppose the little prickler gives praise to God in its own thistly way, just by being itself in cooperation with other nearby creatures being themselves. Is that enough for…
Debra RienstraAugust 18, 2018
To Love Michigan in Summer
Sumac and scrubby grass, dense-leaved oaks and maples, jumbles of every possible green. Blue spruce, Douglas fir, white pines, red pines, the astonishing symmetry of jack pine trunks in a sudden stand. Dead trees like skeletons rising from swamps. Everything stubby and scruffy and sassafrassy.
Debra RienstraJuly 1, 2017
