Aug. 12-18 — Paint Grand Traverse: GRAND TRAVERSE, SURROUNDING COUNTIES.

Classic car owners gather with their enviable rides for Cars and Coffee at Hagerty Insurance Agency in Traverse City. The weekly social event has been held every summer since 2016 and brings together agency employees and other collector car enthusiasts.

BEYOND THE LIGHTHOUSE, OVER THE MOUNTAINS by Tony Steeno

TRAVERSE CITY — Rich Brauer isn’t one of those people who is counting down the days until he can retire.

Northern Michigan’s hot summer days bode well for cooling off with gourmet summer treats concocted from various chocolatiers and ice cream makers alike.

Glen Arbor is one of the most popular tourist destinations in northern Michigan, as the town sits between Lake Michigan and Glen Lake, near Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore attractions and the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail. Not surprisingly, the 850-person Leelanau County community swells during the summer months.

NAME: Eric Nittolo. Job: Executive chef, food and beverage director at The Restaurant at LochenHeath. The Williamsburg restaurant at LochenHeath Golf Club is open to the public and focuses on locally sourced farm-to-table ingredients. It’s especially popular for its Sunday Brunch.

Renew body, mind and spirit this summer by uniting your yoga practice to nature. Outdoor classes offer opportunity to partake of Mother Earth’s sensory feast to nurture serenity, fitness and joy.

Mark Engelsman took a pair of paddlers on this season’s first Beaver Island Water Trail trip, which was filled with bird and fish watching, wilderness experiences and even a trip through Lake Michigan fog.

Cathy Sehnert has always had a taste for the artsy and a deep love of shopping. The two combined have made her a perfect fit for the Leelanau shopping scene.

Camouflaged in their surroundings of pine saplings and maple groves, a forest of bed-and-breakfast getaways enjoy long roots in the Grand Traverse region.

Bellaire Bed and Breakfast’s Jim Walker is no ordinary innkeeper and his gardens are no ordinary gardens. They reflect his mastery of growing arts and his ability to enhance the environment by planting among the flora statuary, water features, seating and other artsy touches.

Second is the best contends a schoolyard rhyme — and surely it’s true when it comes to the summer season.

June 26-30, 2019. Freedom Festival. EAST JORDAN.

Summer in Michigan — anywhere, really — is, for many, the best time of year. For us Northerners, anything beats a long, sustained winter, the likes of which thankfully just passed. We not only look forward to the warm weather, we crave it; but not like craving a Hershey bar. More like a shark craves fresh blood or the Tigers crave a decent bullpen. This irrational yearning for not freezing anymore means that after the first 75-degree day, we firmly shelve common sense between the wool scarves and snowshoes and do things that defy logic, science and most genetic traits of an evolved human being.

Ladies wore their finest wide-brim, derby and fascinator hats for the Hats Off to Women Luncheon hosted by The Zonta Club of Traverse City at Northwestern Michigan University’s Hagery Center. The annual May event celebrates the leadership of women in the city and features awards, a hat contest and door prizes.

Situated on the southeast end of turquoise Crystal Lake, Beulah is in an ideal position to attract summer visitors. Normally populated with about 300 residents, the Benzie County village draws hundreds of guests for summer events just a stone’s throw away from the lake’s sandy shores.

TRAVERSE CITY — Retail vacancy rates in downtown Traverse City have hovered around 1 to 2 percent for the last several years, forcing those who want to open shop to find alternative locations on side streets or elsewhere off Front Street.

BEFORE THE SNOW FLIES by John Wemlinger. Major David Keller was well on his way to becoming a general when a roadside bomb in Afghanistan took his legs.

TRAVERSE CITY — The wind and waves always pose an unpredictable difficulty, but it’s not enough to keep Ashlea Walter from Grand Traverse Bay’s open water.

NAME: Randy Minish. POSITION: Chef-Owner at Terrain, a Bellaire restaurant and bar serving “honest yet ambitious” contemporary American food with a focus toward local ingredients and flavors

Sewn into the Grand Traverse and Northwest Michigan landscape is a patchwork of historic inns that stitch the past to the present.

Shopping is part of the job for real estate agents Angela DiLorenzo and Tamara Vomastek.

There are among us masters in capturing the synergy of water and earth. Their hand-built watercraft are works of art and labors of love reflecting true passion for nature.

Summer — could any other word hold such promise?

Limnologists study inland aquatic ecosystems, using terms like “spring turnover” to describe the warming of a lake. When surface temperatures match the rest of the lake, strong spring winds mix oxygen and nutrients, beginning the process of photosynthesis by aquatic plants once again. But in the land version of the spring turnover, receding snows reveal winter’s leftovers, both living and from beyond the grave — and it’s anything but serene. While a vital role in the circle of life, a pretty picture, it ain’t.

May 10-11, 2019; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Interlochen; an adaptation of the classic Victor Hugo tale with songs from the Disney animated feature. Curtain times are 7:30 p.m. May 10 and 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. May 11 at Corson Auditorium. tickets interlochen.org.

Competitors donned their lucky green for the Leapin’ Leprechaun 5K foot race in downtown Traverse City’s Warehouse District. The annual St. Paddy’s Day event features a post-race party with medals for top finishers and prizes for the best Irish costume. This year’s event supported Munson Healthcare’s new Family Birth and Children’s Center.

CARDINAL COAT AND OTHER STORIES by Katharine Crawford Robey

A drive down M-115 leads to the small village of Mesick, which sits near the Manistee River just north of the vast Manistee National Forest.

Springtime fills our hibernating souls with a burst of energy, and it’s the perfect time for distilleries, coffee houses and tea shops to offer an array of libations with fruit, herbal and floral notes to melt away the winter blues.

SUTTONS BAY — Demarie Jones’ mornings start hours before her day job at Disability Network — two alpacas, four rabbits, 13 Angora goats and eight sheep keep her busy.

Name: Loghan Call. Job: Regenerative foods chef and founder of Planted Cuisine, creating events centered around showcasing hyper-local, plant-based foods. I work in partnership with Table Health TC and local businesses on events, education and pop-up food experiences.

Humans love flowers — so much so that it’s a billion dollar industry.

Alex Zelinski likes to think he started the patterned sock fad.

Strolling through the Old Growth Forest at Hartwick Pines State Park it’s not a stretch to think it required the might of Paul Bunyan to log northern Michigan woodlands. The park’s 45 acres of 350- to 400-year-old pines reach 150 feet skyward, offering a living view of the state as it was before the great lumbering era.

Spring is a time of renewal, when we shake off the slumber of winter and wait for the natural world to catch up.

When in doubt, make a tart.

To date, I have personally saved 9,782 chickadees and nuthatches, 421 woodpeckers, 54 squirrels, two lonely opossums, and an entire herd of deer from total annihilation. This thought proudly occurred to me one recent frigid morning as I filled the bird feeder — again — on our deck. A strange thought indeed given that a month earlier, I enjoyed shooting a few mallards during duck season. I know, it’s complicated.

Winterfest

Competitors bundled up for the Farmland 5K Run and Free For All Bike Race, a “winter weather” event featuring a European-style, turf-grass cross country race with knee-high barriers, followed by a six-lap, 12-mile bike race on fat, cyclocross and mountain bikes. The annual event is organized by the Traverse City Track Club the first Saturday in December.

AIDEN’S TREE, by Karen Rieser

Dashing through the snow often creates a yearning for warm libations to help get the chill out.

NAME: Vanessa Grasset. Position: Owner/executive chef, Crepes and Co., Traverse City

Boyne City is a popular vacation spot — especially once the snow starts flying

Karen Hilt knows a thing or two about shopping for the “unique.”

Soup. It’s for lunch. Maybe for dinner. It warms on a cold day. It provides comfort and even — some believe — healing (think chicken).

A sure way to survive the long north country winter is to embrace it. Taste it, admire and explore it. Make “ice is nice” your mantra and before you know it spring will come calling.

It snowed the day I moved to northern Michigan with my late husband.

With an abundance of good cheer spreading itself around during the Christmas season, it’s easy to overlook — or deal with — the “hectic-ness.” Modern-day celebrations of the birth of Christ involve gathering as friends and families, planning parties and buying presents, fully accepting that some form of chaos will accompany the few weeks leading up to the big day.