Last days the lake, early October 2020

Dwight Peck's personal website

Summer 2020

A photographic record of whatever leapt out at us

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

Last days the lake, early October 2020

Our annual summer pilgrimage to the Wisconsin Northwoods

It's the last day of September, and the trees are seriously getting down to business now.

Mussent Point. No one's using the dock anymore -- swimming, sunbathing, dozing off, conversing quietly with friends and family: come back next summer!

We've stayed on through September this year, partially because the Midwest had been theretofore dodging the spread of the Trump Virus. But the Midwesterners, including of course the Wisconsinites (except in the university towns), had largely been refusing to mask up and distance, as an article of their 'personal freedom', because some authoritative voice had told them that the virus was all a hoax anyway.

So as soon as the Trump Plague finally reached the rural bits round the country, the positives and even the deaths skyrocketed, and indeed, Wisconsin suddenly but not surprisingly became the nation's number one covid 'hotspot'. So it's time for us to vacate the territory. In a few days, we'll be on the road.

Having lately graduated from insects to shrews and little mice, Choupette is an indefatigable huntress.

Indefatigable!

Still life with pedalboard

Choupette on the qui vive

Now that's bad! Choupette and Melvin had been carefully and repeatedly instructed never to cross the cattleguard off the Mussent Point property. She's going to have to be grounded. For a while.

Ducks in a row

A colorful tableau

A rainy afternoon, and a work team has just been in to dismantle the neighbor's dock for the winter.

A red tree

It's not as much fun sitting out on the lawn with a good book anymore.

Preparing to go out and sit on the lawn with a good book, for a while.

The dead leaves view from Mussent Point

A proper carpet of needles

There are people here who could tell you which trees are turning which colors, and which are not turning colors at all, but they're not immediately available to ask about it.

Having mentioned that we stayed on in Wisconsin for a bit because of the covid, in fact we've been wanting for a long time to see more of what the place looks like after our normal early September departure. And now we know -- it's nice.

But it's cold. Kristin's cottage is not winterized and will have to be drained out and shut up pretty soon.

Squint hard enough, and it could look like an exploding star.

That's a piliated woodpecker.

Melvin exploring the shoreline again.

And Choupette looking for insects, or for shrews and mice. [That cylinder is from a yard game called Barrel Golf; nobody seems to play at it here anymore, but the cylinders remain.]

Choupie got her front paws onto the flower box and hauled herself up and over. Fairly incredible.

Summer's over, for sure -- but at this point, winter hadn't come in yet. (As I write this, we've been told that, in mid-November, ice is forming on the lake.)

The sun's out! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

Let's party.

Hold the party.

Another overnight storm, and more inflatable toys washed up at the northern end of the lake

Off we go, dressed for the season.

People are pulling their docks in before the ice gets at them.

Choupette, with her inimitable 'happy face'

Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
. . .
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

This dock, too, will soon be in storage.

And the hydrobikes will go to wherever brother Eric stashes them for their own good.

Scenes of desolation. Happily, it's only temporary.

Goodbye to Baby Leigh

Calm waters in the South Shore Drive bay

No turtles today in the canal's mid-lake, but . . .

. . . there's a cute little patriotic memento stuck along the canal for no discernible reason.

A last trip through the canal for the year

And then, in the middle of the mid-lake, a disaster. The propeller is completely fouled with weeds, and the bike will not move at all in any direction. We'll be out here for the winter!

But luckily, the Good Samaritan is with us, and we're soon right again.

Thank you, Cousin Rob. This will not be forgotten.

End of the summer

The boathouse at the Point o' Pines

And goodbye to Cousin Rob, who's headed home at the end of our last day on the lake.

Melvin is ready to hit the road first thing tomorrow, 5 October 2020.