Just Around the Corner

Just Around the Corner Our page shows a sampling of our Vintage and Collectible Cottage Décor. Lots of original and painted finish furniture. Glassware, Pottery, Vintage linens

10/03/2026

Six bands will take the stage this Saturday for the annual Roscommon Rocktoberfest in the Village.

The live music, which will take place from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., is free and will be held at the AuSable River Center, located at 211 Main St., Roscommon.

09/13/2026

The old-fashioned trick that extends the tomato season by weeks.

THE METHOD: Before a hard freeze, pull the whole plant. Shake or hose off most of the soil. Hang upside down from a rafter, hook, or beam in a frost-free, ventilated space — garage, shed, basement, or unheated porch. Ideal temperature is cool but above freezing, roughly 55-65°F. Fruit ripens progressively over several weeks.

WHY IT WORKS: Mature green tomatoes have already accumulated enough internal resources to complete ripening. Remaining moisture and stored compounds in the vine support the process. Ripening is driven by ethylene, which the fruit produces itself.

WHICH FRUIT WILL RIPEN: Only MATURE GREEN or later. The signal: full size for the variety, GLOSSY (not dull) skin, and often a slight color break or pale patch at the blossom end. Small, hard, dull, dark green fruit will not ripen properly.

THE OTHER METHODS: BOX OR PAPER BAG — pick mature green fruit, place in a single layer in a box or bag with a ripe apple or banana (ethylene sources). Check every few days and remove any that soften or spot. WRAP INDIVIDUALLY in newspaper for slower, staggered ripening. WINDOWSILL — works, but is NOT necessary; sunlight isn't required for ripening and can cause uneven softening.

NEVER REFRIGERATE unripe tomatoes. Cold permanently damages flavor compounds and causes mealy texture. This is well documented.

WHAT TO DO WITH TRUE IMMATURE GREENS: Fried green tomatoes, green tomato chutney, pickles, salsa verde, or green tomato relish.

FROST WATCH: Light frost damages fruit even if the plant survives. When frost is 24-48 hours out, harvest everything.

09/13/2026

Florida just paid farms to stay farms, and 6,200 acres said yes before the developers could blink.
Here's the secret history nobody tells you about conservation: most of it fails because it waits until the land is already ruined. By the time the bulldozers show up, the price tag is astronomical and the habitat is already half-dead. Florida has been watching this playbook repeat for decades. Citrus groves become subdivisions. Cattle ranches become strip malls. Wetlands get drained for parking lots. The state would buy "natural" land after the farms were already gone, which meant they were buying scraps while the working landscape — the actual connective tissue of the ecosystem — got paved into oblivion.
So Florida flipped the script. They approved protection for more than 6,200 acres of working agricultural land, but with a twist that makes developers furious. The farms and ranches stay in production. Cattle keep grazing. Crops keep growing. The land keeps working. But the soil, the water, the rural habitat, and the open space are legally shielded from future conversion. It's a conservation easement with a paycheck and a tractor still attached.
The mechanism is called a working lands protection program, and it's surgical. Instead of removing agriculture from the landscape, it removes the threat of sprawl from the agriculture. The rancher in Polk County keeps his herd but can't sell to a developer in ten years. The vegetable farm near the Everglades keeps producing tomatoes but can't become a warehouse district. The ponds, fence lines, and wetlands embedded in these working properties stay intact because the land stays whole.
The second-order effect is massive. Florida's panther, black bear, and migratory birds don't need pristine wilderness. They need connected corridors of open land. Working ranches with intact wetlands and native pasture provide exactly that. By keeping 6,200 acres working instead of converting them, Florida didn't just save farms. It saved the migration routes that everything else depends on.
Land works. Habitat stays. Sprawl loses.

09/13/2026

The township met Tuesday to discuss their options for a planned 1,800 acre solar development.

08/22/2026

DDT nearly killed them. Platforms brought them back. $200 per nest. 20,000+ families. The osprey is America's quiet conservation triumph.
THE COLLAPSE:
→ DDT caused eggshell thinning (same mechanism as bald eagles and pelicans)
→ By 1970s: osprey disappeared from entire regions
→ Northeastern US: populations crashed 90%+
→ Listed as Endangered in several states
THE RECOVERY:
→ DDT ban in 1972: eggshell thickness returned to normal within years
→ Nest platforms: simple wooden structures on poles placed near water
→ Osprey adopted platforms immediately (prefer elevated, open nesting sites)
→ Programs expanded across every state with suitable habitat
→ Today: 20,000+ breeding pairs in the US and growing
THE PLATFORM:
→ Cost: $150–$300 for materials
→ Installation: one day with a pole, hardware, and volunteer crew
→ Lifespan: 10–20+ years with maintenance
→ Osprey return to the same platform year after year
→ Nest grows larger annually (some nests weigh 200–400 lbs)
THE OSPREY:
→ Found on every continent except Antarctica
→ Only raptor that dives feet-first into water for fish
→ Reversible outer toe for gripping slippery prey
→ Catch rate: 25–70% of dives successful
→ Live near ANY body of water with fish
AUGUST RIGHT NOW:
→ Juveniles learning to fish (clumsy, entertaining to watch)
→ Pre-migration feeding frenzy
→ Families visible on platforms at lakes across America
→ One of the easiest raptors to observe in the wild
A platform. A pole. $200.
And a species came back from the brink to every lake in America.
That's what happens when humans build instead of destroy.

08/16/2026

🌊 𝗢𝗸𝗮𝘆... 𝗶𝘁'𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗮 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲.

Which Great Lake is the best?

Before the Lake Superior fans start typing... hear us out. 😅

We love all five Great Lakes. They each have their own personality. Superior has dramatic cliffs and wild beauty. Huron serves up incredible sunrises and rocky shorelines. Erie and Ontario have their loyal fans, too.

But Lake Michigan?

Lake Michigan is the friend who somehow has everything.

Want towering sand dunes? It has the largest freshwater dune system in the world, where places like Sleeping Bear Dunes, Warren Dunes, and Hoffmaster State Park make you feel like you've wandered into another country instead of staying in Michigan. And those dunes aren't just beautiful—they're home to rare plants and wildlife found almost nowhere else, including Pitcher's thistle, dwarf lake iris, and the endangered piping plover.

Prefer charming beach towns?

Lake Michigan practically invented them.

South Haven. Holland. Grand Haven. Ludington. Manistee. Traverse City. Petoskey. St. Joseph.

Each one has its own personality, but they all share the same recipe: walkable downtowns, great restaurants, lighthouses, beaches, ice cream shops, and that unmistakable feeling that you're on vacation—even if you only drove two hours.

Then there's the adventure factor.

You can race across the Silver Lake Sand Dunes in an ORV, hop aboard the historic S.S. Badger and cruise across the lake to Wisconsin, camp with the waves just outside your tent, or spend the afternoon hunting for Petoskey stones before ending the day around a campfire. There's no "right" way to experience Lake Michigan... and that's exactly why people keep coming back.

And let's not overlook one of Lake Michigan's greatest superpowers...

Fruit.

Thanks to the lake's moderating effect on the climate, Michigan's western shoreline has become one of the country's premier fruit-growing regions. Cherries, peaches, apples, blueberries, vineyards—you can literally plan an entire road trip around orchards, farm markets, wineries, and festivals without ever straying far from the water. It's no coincidence that some of Michigan's most beloved c***r mills, wineries, and U-pick farms call this stretch of the state home.

Then, just when you think the day can't get any better...

The sun starts to set.

People gather on piers, sink their feet into the warm sand, or pull up a beach chair—not because anyone told them to, but because they've learned that a Lake Michigan sunset is something you don't rush. The sky turns shades of orange, pink, and purple, and if you're patient enough to stay after the sun slips below the horizon, the afterglow often puts on an even better show.

So yes...

We're a little biased.

But if a lake can give you beaches, dunes, wineries, orchards, road trips, charming towns, camping, ferries, and sunsets that make everyone stop talking for a minute...

It deserves a pretty strong case for the crown. 😎🌊

08/16/2026

That white fuzz isn't mold. It's a fungus eating poison.
For decades, Maine farmers spread sludge on their fields because the state told them it was safe. The sludge — treated municipal waste — was licensed, regulated, and marketed as free fertilizer. What nobody mentioned was that the wastewater treatment plants were processing effluent from paper mills, tanneries, and textile factories that used PFAS, the "forever chemicals" that don't break down in soil, water, or human blood. The farmers didn't know. The state didn't test for it. The chemicals just accumulated, year after year, in the hay, the milk, the beef, the groundwater. By 2025, over 100 Maine farms and 500 residential properties tested positive. Five farms closed. Three scaled back. The rest were watching their livelihoods dissolve into the dirt.
Then Maine did something no other state had tried.
The Department of Environmental Protection funded a project using wood-rot fungi mycelium to biologically break down PFAS chemicals. The mechanism is enzymatic degradation — specific species of white-rot fungi, including Phanerochaete chrysosporium and Trametes versicolor, produce extracellular enzymes called laccases and peroxidases that attack the carbon-fluorine bonds in PFAS molecules. Those bonds are among the strongest in organic chemistry, which is why PFAS are called "forever chemicals." The fungi don't care. They evolved to break down lignin in rotting wood, and their enzymes are indiscriminate enough to shred fluorinated compounds that industrial chemistry couldn't touch.
Here's why this is mechanically brilliant. Traditional PFAS remediation involves excavation, incineration, or deep-well injection — all expensive, energy-intensive, and destructive to soil structure. Mycoremediation works in place. The mycelium is mixed into contaminated soil as a spore-infused substrate — usually sawdust, straw, or wood chips — and left to colonize. Over 12 to 18 months, the fungal network spreads through the soil profile, secreting enzymes that degrade PFAS into shorter-chain compounds, then into harmless fluoride ions and carbon dioxide. The process doesn't sterilize the soil. It rewilds it.
The second-order effect is scalable and democratic. Wood-rot fungi are not exotic lab creations. They grow on dead trees in every forest in Maine. The spores can be cultivated in simple incubators, mixed with local agricultural waste, and applied by farmers themselves. A dairy farm in Fairfield that lost its organic certification due to PFAS contamination is now running a pilot mycoremediation plot, measuring degradation rates and documenting soil microbiome recovery. If the data holds, Maine will have a remediation tool that costs a fraction of industrial alternatives and can be deployed by the people who need it most.
Forever chemicals broken. Soil renewed. Fungi fed.

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Houghton Lake, MI
48629

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