Blue Lake, Michigan

One of the entries in the 2016 Fremont Harvest Festival Hay Art Competition 

I drove with two of my sisters this past week to Blue Lake, a little north of Muskegon, Michigan, to visit a cousin-by-marriage who I hardly knew. Our mutual relation, his wife, had died ten years ago, and because I have lived away from the Midwest for almost my entire adult life, I had never known her as an adult; my memories were from our childhood years, spending summers at a cottage in Lakeside, Ohio.

Those summers at Lakeside had obviously made an impression on her, for the house I visited nearly fifty years later was also at a lakeside. She and her husband had built a cottage next to Blue Lake soon after they were married, and it served as a summer home for them, both school teachers, and their four children during the children's growing-up years. As time went on, they expanded upward on the ground-level cottage, adding a main floor and bedroom/bath and balcony on a second level. It reminded me a lot of the house we had for two decades in New Hampshire. Our house looked out on a mountain valley; theirs looks out on a lake. Three of their four children live, with their own children, within driving distance and use this house as a summer and weekend retreat. One lives far way, in Chile, and I feel her longing to be a part of this family life even as she enjoys the enrichment and challenge of living in another culture.

We had two late afternoon tours of the lake via pontoon boat--unbelievably peaceful, though I have a feeling that would not have been the case three weeks ago. We also were driven all around the small farming communities of Holton and Brunswick, and the larger city of Fremont. Farming has been an integral part of the area for generations and it continues to be so, but with changes. In Fremont we saw the destination for much of the produce we had driven past in the fields: Gerber Baby Foods, now owned by Nestlé, but still a huge concern in the city.

Several of the farms in the area are owned and operated by Amish people, who have been moving into the area in large numbers in recent years, according to my host, the head of the local historic association. We made a scouting expedition one day, and then the next day went back to make purchases at the Amish Whispering Pines Country Store, a fantastic natural and bulk foods emporium, where we paid by out-of-state check (no credit cards accepted, no ID required).