Summer recess: Settling back into life on the lake

Dwight Peck's personal website

Summer 2024

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.

Summer recess: Settling back into life on the lake

2-12 June 2024

The harbor at Mussent Point

Our hydrobike fleet, such as it is

Our favorite bike, as old as it is (like about 30 years), still reliable, virtually unsinkable, comfy to ride on (after a week or so to toughen up for the seat). But . . .

. . . bike #2 has had some problems over the past two years, recently pronounced irreparable, and has now been mothballed. (We've been told that two new ones have been ordered.) [They've just arrived, 'assembly required', and green pontoons!]

First time back on the pedalboard (for those who dare). We're bound for Adjidaumo, the main island.

Adjidaumo, just where it was last year, and even before that

With its long-time eagles' nest, the size of an upsidedown VW Beetle

This has been the Eagle HQ since I've been coming here, almost 30 years now, but two years ago a new eagles' nest manifested itself near the southern end of the lake, high up on the far side of the Tigertail. Rumors feature sightings at both nests, but it's not clear to all of us whether the family has moved on and this one's been abandoned, or we presently have two eagle families on the lake to threaten all our cats.

-- Wait, I'm coming, I'm coming.

Ah Jeez. That's some pro pedalboarding, that is.

The manicured lawns of Mussent Point, and . . .

. . . our summertime reading room (in good weather)

The cottage adjacent to Kristin's, assigned to one of her brothers, but he's bought another off-site in the deep woods and is seldom in residence here.

In our Shenandoah absence, Kristin's had all new weatherproof paneling installed all round the cottage, and . . .

. . . it sure looks a lot better now. Very good, in fact. Rejuvenated, as it were.

Choupette and Pugsley have raised the alarm, and we've dashed in in time to find six squirrels either dancing on the screens or trying to break in.

Why would they be doing that? What do they want? Could there be some sort of evolutionary instinct in squirrels devoted to window screens?

The cats have had enough -- outta here!

Wednesday displayed the better part of valor and missed the whole once-in-a-lifetime grey squirrel event. (If squirrels don't understand screens, it might have been Wednesday that they were after. Her window's down.)

Chilly early June weather and a cat with the Do-Not-Disturb sign out.

-- You want me to jam the luggage up here? Oh, wait!

Choupette rediscovers her favorite scratching/climbing pole. Or was it the other one?

Amazingly enough, she leaps up and grabs the top with both forearms and then hauls herself up by main strength. (Envy alert: I have trouble in the morning just getting up the stairs without jumaring up the railing.)

Sarlat, southern France

A hydrobike expedition to the far southern end of the lake, and a horrible torrential rainstorm drives us under the trees for survival, just 400 metres out from base.

We've been sitting here for five minutes, wondering why oh why the Good Lord has turned against us. What have we done? Well, wait . . .

Okay, five minutes is up, thank you Lord, now we're hellbent for Adjidaumo.
Oh wait . . . Figure of speech, yeah?

Some pilgrimage this turned out to be. Just yards from the highway bridge at the southern end of the lake, with a clear sky before us, we were awakened from our boring pedaling by vicious claps of thunder, and an entirely black sky, back behind us at the north end of the lake. Who needs lightning while sitting on a metal bicycle frame in the middle of a lake in the Northwoods?

Half an hour of mad pedaling our vintage hydrobike 3km back north, good news, the storm has moved on towards Eagle River (good luck to them!), and we're coming in for a landing at Mussent Point.

The next day, 6 June, it's back. The kind of downpour that would drive you to the ground and leave you for dead.

Our situation in the Northwoods is certainly preferable to the wildfires in California, or the record breaking heat & soon waterless Southwest, the deservedly dried out over-heated Texas, the submarine regions and unpayable flood insurance in Florida (where 'climate crisis' cannot be mentioned in any Florida document or legislation), and serious heatstroke waves in New England. What a surprise! In the mid-1990s, as we recall, we warned y'all.

Here we are now, after 30 years of IPCCC real Science & its constant warnings. The climate crisis, like gun sanity, rapacious pharmaceuticals & health care, predatory capitalists buying up & stripping off vulnerable companies, uneducated but ultragreedy billionaires buying whatever they want to because to them it's chump change, slimy congressional and judicial opportunists and more DC lobbyists (perhaps) than the population of some left-behind countries. Sad to say, it's probably too late for remediation.

Sorry for that rant -- we used to work for a global environmental treaty organization, so we're biased, is that right word? (We don't know, ask the American Petroleum Institute wiggywags.)

We're in the little bay just north of Mussent Point, 6 June 2024, and here we find a profusion of fish nesting circles. Busy, busy, busy. Perhaps a good year for the local fishermen (or -people), not so good for the fish parents, trying to count heads and always coming up short.

We don't even know whether they've already disgorged or are still working on it; better clear out of here and leave them in peace.

Back to the Canal

Across the Tomahawk Bay part of our lake, the canal was constructed in the very early 20th century to float trees across from the larger lake next door to the sawmill over here.

It turned out to everyone's surprise that this lake level is higher than the other one, so any current is a one-way proposition, i.e. the other way.

It cuts through a magnificantly squalid swampy desolation.

But there's a lot of detritus along the bottom, so in good times, though canoes and kayaks can paddle through, it's a lot harder to get the propellers of hydrobikes through all the tangles.

The canal extends a bit over 700m (2,350 ft) from lake to lake, and the first tranche extends 180m to the 150m middle lake, aka Mirror Lake (this photo was taken a few years ago).

All about the lake, pretty much death and destruction, and an annually declining number of frogs sunning themselves on the fallen trees (last season, only one, spotted only twice) (but we saw six at one go down in the South Bay).

That's the entrance to the second tranche -- the little green arrow points to a place on the far side where skimobiles can go up and over the roadway, and . . .

. . . down on the other side of the culvert -- it never freezes over in there (but last winter nothing froze over at all).

There are a lot more subsurface obstructions in here now, too.

The second leg of the canal is about 400m (1,300 ft) long. For a long time, it's been much trickier for hydrobikes than the first leg. Up to the mid-1990s, we could come through here in a small boat with an outboard and winch it over the spillway at the far end. But those days are over.

Those fallen trees are guaranteed propeller snaggers; they appeared two summers ago, and since then we've always meant to come back with a saw to dispose of them properly, actually checking from time to time in hopes that someone else had anticipated us and cleared a way through. That hasn't happened, though, and with Cousin Rob sorely missed now, it may never happen.

Getting the bike turned round in the muck is a ten minute proposition, but at least we've always been able to get it done. Until now?

Back to the culvert, saddened.

The mid-lake. In few weeks, much of this side of the lake will be covered with lily pads.

Into the other part of the canal

The propeller is behaving in a sullen and unhelpful manner at the moment, so . . .

. . . once out of the canal, we'll pull up, hop off, and clear the tangly weeds off it.

Across Tomahawk Bay, about to enter the main lake, there's this little peninsula with a sort of shrine on it, with a bench for viewing the little angelic statue (and the two fake crocodiles ranged round it).

Another little spit of land, separating Cousin Rob's little bay from the main lake, just past . . .

. . . the angelic shrine, leading into Tomahawk Bay, and the canal entrance about 600m across the way.

Mabamba Swamp ('Uganda's most important birding site . . . home to over 300 bird species')

Midday nap time

Down under the bridge into the South Bay, with . . .

. . . all its usual casualties

Pedaling in a casual manner back north, that's a small cabin on 'Raymond's Island' (Crescent Island on the map below) that's . . .

. . . perched at the head of a long reef, above water here and extending another 100m at hydrobike propeller depth under the surface. Due care is advised.

One of life's little irritations. We're in the La Quinta in Wausau, 11 June 2024, preparing for . . .

. . . a medical appointment set for 7:15 a.m. (!!!)

At GI Associates, all very nice people, professional, friendly, efficient, over in jiff, back on the highway north by 10.

The Lake in the Wisconsin Northwoods

Mussent Point is at no. 12.

Next up: Back at the Wisconsin lake, cats are reviving their summer traditions