Late summer scenes from the lake

Dwight Peck's personal website

Summer 2021

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.

Late summer scenes from the lake

viz., 4-10 September 2021 in the Wisconsin Northwoods

The loon family is still doing well, we're pleased to report, or at least this lone adult is, or rather . . .

. . . this adult and one of the chicks.

We've been promised that, before we end our seasonal sojourn here, we'll see a proliferation of fall colors on the trees -- there's an early one.

But it's not. It's just a dead tree.

That's the hidden creek that, according to Google Maps, runs back 190m to a small lake in a swamp -- we've long yearned to explore it, but just coming this near to take this photo we've fouled the propeller with malicious underwater weeds and only escaped with our life thanks to a provident Swiss army knife.

Choupette's found a new favorite snoozerie.

September is the seriously cloudy season, evidently . . .

. . . with some interesting spectacles.

The eagle's surveilling, and it's locked-and-loaded for raptor action . . .

Thank goodness we're not dead fish.

This is the northern end of Pink Island (don't ask where that name comes from) at the southern end of the lake, connected to the Tigertail with that sort of sandbar-thing.

Around the southern end of Pink Island, there is a similar shallow sandy reef extending farther out into the lake . . .

. . . attracting 'propeller scars' from waterki boats that've wandered in too close.

Pink Island is one of the areas of the new Forest Reserve that are closed off for conservation reasons . . .

. . . and no wonder; we're tried to poke about in there, and it's a real mess. We'll let the wildlife have it.

Back to the bike; we'll carry on.

Choupette trots out to meet us at the dock -- but she sneers at invitations to climb onto the hydrobike.

More neat clouds

7 September, we're rounding the point leading into Tomahawk Bay, bound for possibly our last venture through the canal for the year.

That vast profusion of primeval green ferns is beginning to look really sick.

Back through the mid-lake

At the entrance to the second part of the canal, our colleague has espied an old friend on the log.

Presuming he's our friend from the other side of the mid-lake, it would be interesting to know how he got over to this side, and why?

Evidently he recognizes us by now, as harmless turtle-admirers, and is not splooshing into the drink.

Through the old culvert

Its history speaks for itself.

It's apparently about 120 years old, imagine that. Even older than we are.

Ferns discovering their seasonal limitations

Cousin Rob's bike was seriously tentacled this time, escaping undamaged only after a quarter hour of exasperating labors.

To the spillway . . .

. . . for an assessment of the water flow, to wit, none; it seems someone has removed one of the boards and dropped the level.

Back again . . .

. . . for another vigorous wrestling match with the tentacled beast beneath the black waters. Cousin Rob has succeeded in getting the worst of it dragged out of the central right of way.

Taking an important call

Sad. Whatever isn't now turning brown and dying off has already been dead for a long time.

Horrible. What a fate.

Propellers fouled by the weeds again. We're fast-pedaling backwards, forward again, back again, forward, sometimes that shakes them loose.

Westward across Tomahawk Bay in the late afternoon . . .

. . . with still more intriguing clouds on the horizon

What atmospheric asymmetries could have come up with this one?

Round the point and back out into the main lake, where . . .

. . . the wind from the north is setting up for a bouncy ride home.

Three pedals forward, two pedals-worth backward

A loon and chick seen in passing

8 September 2021, a pontoon boat in extremis. After a brutal overnight thunderstorm, it's come half-unmoored.

The lifetime president of the lake association pedals to the rescue -- most summer residents on the lake are also residents elsewhere as well, and by the time they come along to enjoy their Aqua Patio watercraft on weekends, it could be in the next county.

As we await a successful conclusion to this rescue mission, we're thinking back over the years to how many loose pontoon boats we've seen Cousin Rob resecuring in the nick of time. Six, probably.

That ought to hold it.

So we continue today's scenic pedaling with a vicarious sense of accomplishment. Another Aqua Patio saved from the savage elements.

Baby Leigh (the one that reminds us of a pirate ship)

The wind is up and the lake is choppy -- no worries for unsinkable hydrobikes, but these two portly fisherman are out there in a boat that doesn't appear to have any sides on it.

They do seem to have a generous amount of confidence in the thing.

They've probably done this before.

A glance into the Mussent Point boathouse

An early morning visitor. Shoo. It's probably come to eat all the flowers.

It's gracefully disappearing back whence it came -- no one was able to discover where it got through the deer-fence or how it got back out again. It just went on its way, and spared the flowers.

Like these

10 September, a quiet day with an improving book -- under Melvin's petulant glare.

We don't even know what we're supposed to have done wrong.

Choupette is adopting the dock, though not yet the water.

On our daily return up the lake, when we'r coming up the west side anywhere in the neighborhood of 5 p.m., we stand up on the hydrobike and gesticulate frantically, and clownishly, in greetings to Dave and Gale. And last summer, on 44 occasions out of 45 attempts, Dave emerged with his earphones on and gesticulated back at us. We call it the 'Dave Wave'. (The results for 2021 aren't in yet.)

This, by Kristin's cottage, is Reading Room no. 1.

And that's Reading Room no 2. The choice depends on the position of the sun.