Dwight Peck's personal website

Summer 2022

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 on the lake, with a look-in at Birds in Art

And a brief visit from old friends, Dan and Katie, from Switzerland days

It's late September now, and before long the ice floes will be stacking up on the lake. Even the cats, sitting by an open window, are beginning to wonder whether they really want to go outside and dash about amongst the foliage.

The lake's nearly deserted now, mostly just a few bundled-up fishermen in open boats, getting an early start at 7:30 a.m., and . . .

. . . a loon.

We've just time for a few more solitary pedaling cruises round the shores, photographing a few of our favorite cottages in their owners' absence.

Newly built, very nice. People from California, we're told.

This is a fine, small hook-like promontory on the southern shore of the main lake, whose owner . . .

. . . told us recently that for years this spit of land had protected his property from windy storms from the north, but that nowadays the huge wake-boats' waves are curling right round and re-propagating onto his dock and shoreline.

That's the copper house, or copper-roofed house anyway, which flashes in the sunlight.

A general sense of finality to the season's festivities

That's the spit of land that leads across our 'Bar' to the so-called 'Beaver Island' (aka Ryden's).

Keep Out! Or, 'Keep Off' rather. It's less than two meters wide.

That's our 'Crossing of the Bar' bar, uncrossable now as the water level's dropped from the summer's evaporation.

And 'Beaver Island' itself, populated by a picnic table and a smashed up old dock

That's the best-groomed front lawn on the lake. Everyone wonders if it's all entirely natural.

On the left, a 'conversation pit' with a party of six older gentlemen who've been hanging out on the lake for the past week.

A newish 'Barletta' pontoon boat at the Point o' Pines (here's a photo of the other Barletta).

With an abandoned hydrobike awaiting transport to safety from the winter's devastation

A peek into the boathouse. Can't see a thing.

The 'annex' cottage at the Point o' Pines and . . .

. . . the much-envied diving raft, also awaiting the seasonal dispositions.

Another of the Point o' Pines family establishments, and slight farther north . . .

. . . Gail and Dave's house, past which we parade at the end of nearly every afternoon's hydrobiking to get our exuberant 'Dave Wave' (44 last year, 42 this year). But today . . .

. . . Dave himself comes down to deliver his wave directly and say goodbye till next summer.

Rounding the penultimate corner on the northward way home . . .

. . . we'll miss the old skeletal freak. Its symbolism will always resonate with us.

From the penultimate corner to the ultimate one before entering the bay with Mussent Point at the far end of it.

Kristin's cottage on Mussent Point

Choupette, entirely motionless for quarter-hours on end, awaiting a mouse, mole, or little chippie

The pontoon boat awaiting its final spin on the lake, before its mothballing

The shoreline across from Mussent Point

A visitor to the Point, trying to appear inconspicuous (or already wounded by one of the cats)

A few of Kristin's siblings proceeding with the seasonal lockdown -- first the red catamaran-buoy here, and next . . .

. . . over by the main dock . . .

. . . the raft.

George and Eric, supervised by Eric's dog, Agate, a well-behaved dog because of the bulky electronic collar round its neck

One of the mysterious ritual cairns has survived so far. We'll see next year how the winter ice pack has graced it.

Melvin is to be congratulated and given another biscuit for the care he's learnt to take, so as not to sit directly on the keyboards.

Dan and Katie's visit

Dan and Katie, friends formerly in Switzerland, now of Maine and Florida (Sanibel, unfortunately; Hurricane Ian was presenting itself right at this time), have motored up from a wedding in Minneapolis to experience our lovely lake in the wrong season.

The colors are only beginning to come out on the trees, but the down winterwear is out in force for the humans.

The warm beauties of the lake in summer have transmogrified themselves into some equally beautiful harsh realities.

But still appreciated by all.

Especially passing the Tigertail

Now, however, we're discussing how much of the lake has still to be experienced before none of us is left to tell the tale.

A very cold lake (we've never even seen it with a two-foot ice sheet across it; Cousin Rob describes it to us, but that's not the same.)

Still in an appreciative, exploratory mood, Dan and Katie would like to visit our Canal . . . by automobile this time. That's looking from the canal culvert east towards the neighboring lake.

And that's looking the other way, into our mid-lake, or 'Mirror Lake', and the other half of the canal on the far side.

This is a little beauty spot on the mid-lake, with a comfy bench supplied by the Northwoods Land Trust, presently in custody of much of the lake's surroundings.

Birds in Art

Dan and Katie, as it turns out, are fanciers of birds, and of birds in art, so here we are at the Birds in Art exhbition at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin. Since 1976 the Museum has been sponsoring this worldwide competition, welcoming 'the very best contemporary artistic interpretations of birds and related subject matter', and mounting selected entrants in this annual exhibition.

This is the 47th iteration, featuring this year 118 artists and running from 10 September to 27 November 2022, after which 60 of the exhibits will go on a national tour. Since joining Kristin in Wisconsin in the summers, we've been accompanying family members for early September's opening gala soiree each year from 2012 to 2019 (after which it was interrupted by the covid), which is clearly a major social event in Wausau's cultural life, accompanied by the town's arts and crafts weekend downtown.

The original house is a wonder and is put to good use by the annual Birds in Art and other smaller exhibitions, and it's been expanded by a glass tower-like structure (on the left behind Dan in the photo above). (Cousin Rob grew up in this house, by the way.)

Following each year's opening showing and dinner, many of the participating artists come along at the weekend for pontoon boat rides round our lake up north. This view is taken from the ground floor of the tower block; we've now been through the main exhibit and are on our way up to the Rooftop Sculpture Garden.

With free coffee. Though it's properly freezing up here.

This is one of our favorite exhibits in this year's crop. Each year, at the opening event (and by post since 2020), Birds in Art fans are able to purchase, as a fundraiser for the museum, original postcards created by the participating artists. We've got an uncountable number of them plastered all round a corner of our living room.

We're not authorized to properly reproduce works from the exhibit, but in order to give a flavor of the event, we've snagged some quick snapshots of a few of our favorites this year, with no attributions. Physical catalogues of all of the annual exhibitions, going back to 1996, are available for sale on the museum's website, and especially for the less current ones they're at very reasonable prices.

Our photos from some of the previous opening events since 2012, and of the Wausau arts festival, are available on this site; for example, here.

The Hodag

As Dan has an old friend evidently from Rhinelander, for whom he would like to get an evocative photograph, Kristin has led us to the Rhinelander mascot, the Hodag, on the drive back north.

Here comes the Rhinelander Hodag photo op.

Convivial photo by Katie.

Creating a lifelong memory!

Back to the lake

One knows that the summer is truly over when the pontoon boat's gone off to drydock.

Packing up for the long trek in prospect. The cats know when they see the suitcases come out.

Goodbye to the Green Beach

Choupette fits in there very nicely, and will be much less trouble during the drive.

Goodbye to the hydrobike fleet

Melvin is still making sure that he can't be left behind. But then, his old habits kick in again. Sometimes, in motels, he hides up in the box springs. Just two months ago, when he realized we were all packed up to go to Lake Superior, he hid in the swamp for two hours.

So now he's gone into hiding once again.
But we've learnt to attach his leash in good time, and that makes all the difference.

Choupette, of course, is extremely ready to get the show on the road.

Goodbye, Kristin's cottage at Mussent Point. 30 September 2022.

Next page: The road home -- right through Huntington, West Virginia


Feedback and suggestions are welcome if positive, resented if negative, . All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 16 October 2022.


The USA

Wisconsin Northwoods,
June-Sep 2023


Wisconsin Northwoods,
June-Oct 2022


Wisconsin Northwoods,
June-Oct 2021


Wisconsin Northwoods,
June-Oct 2020


Wisconsin Northwoods,
June-Sept 2019


Virginia and Wisconsin, July-Sept 2018


Wisconsin on the lake, July-Sept 2017


Wisconsin on the lake, July-Sept 2016


Wisconsin on the lake, July-Sept 2015


Wisconsin & road trip, July-Sept 2014


Wisconsin & Virginia, July-Sept 2013


Wisconsin on the lake, July-Sept 2012


Wisconsin 'Northwoods', June-Aug. 2011


Wisconsin on the lake, July-August 2010


Wisconsin,
August 2009


Boston and Maine, 2007


Marlowe's wedding, 2006


Olympic National Park, 2004