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.
A late-season turtle patrol, and the Minocqua Brewing Company
It's an exceptionally fine September day, and we should try to update our turtle sightings before we give up for the year. They've been declining methodically each year, and this summer was no exception. But we'll try our best anyway.
The cats are wrestling with the dilemma of agreeing on what they'd like to do today.
Choupette's been in an awkward mood lately, and will likely just sit there sulking for a while.
Her problem is that she's being fitted out with this harness to go outdoors, and it chafes, for one thing, and worse, it slows her down. She has recently been upping her small mammal game, edging up into the squirrel population (perhaps because she may have reduced the available stock of slower chipmunks), and squirrel casualties are routine atrocities not to be borne.
We're off to check out the South Bay as our best chance for a rewarding basking turtle outcome -- we caught one (photographically) in the canal mid-lake in June, but two more in the South Bay more recently. And the South Bay is easier to get to.
This is the last of the dying-off alder crop on the southern side of Raymond's or Crescent Island on our way south.
That's the Tigertail Point just past that almost horizontal grey tree, with Pink Island just beyond and the southern shore in the background.
Passing Chase Island and . . .
. . . under the highway bridge into South Bay.
And what do we see? A nice little turtle enjoying a sunny bask. We'll approach quietly lest we disturb him or her.
He doesn't seem to have noticed us yet.
Wrong, there he goes. Ploop!
There's another, if we're not mistaken.
But note the craning head, he's noticed us.
But this one either doesn't care or he's trying the old 'freeze, they won't see you' trick. Last summer, amongst a number of similarly fallen branches spread round a bit farther along this shore, we ran into several doing their happy basking and two or three more swimming in open water to reach other branches (possibly trying to flee from us).
Nobody's taking advantage of this fine basking platform today, where earlier this summer we found two in one go.
Backing out of South Bay, one's eye is caught by . . .
. . . one last sighting for the afternoon. So three in one day -- in these fallen times, that counts as a good catch.
Leaving South Bay for the last time this summer (we're soon to hit the Interstates).
This, by the way, is what a properly turtled lake ought to look like (The Nature Conservancy's Nags Head Woods Preserve, North Carolina Outer Banks, March 2022) |
This one is getting to be our third favorite skeletal tree wreck.
The sandbar between Pink and Tigertail, facing into so-called 'Indian Bay'
Last view of the Tigertail, with some new vegetation drooped down into the water.
A good place for a picnic. But note the undercut shoreline -- not all due to wake-surfers, by any means, but they're certainly not helping.
Passing Point o' Pines, with a few eagles on patrol over the North Bay, but . . .
. . . coming this way.
Two adults, maybe bound for their nest on Adjidaumo there
A last look at an estimable cottage, part of the Point o' Pines clan ensemble, that's always fascinated us.
It just rambles on, addition by addition, both along the shoreline and round the back.
Probably having begun from a vintage core building back there. We've almost never seen anyone in residence here.
A bit farther one, this is Gale's wonderful garden.
We got a thorough visit all round it a few years ago, but one can't locate that on the website at the moment.
A quick visit to downtown Minocqua and, especially, to the Minocqua Brewing Company
Minocqua is a northern Wisconsin summer/winter resort town of about 4,500 permanent residents, centered on an island amid a number of sizable lakes on all sides. In fact, it's known as . . .
. . . 'The Island City'. That apparent moat round the downtown just represents some quite big lakes.
Some of our acquaintances who've been acquainted with Minocqua for all of their lives detest the place, but we (long accustomed to Swiss ski resorts) rather like it.
And we're also a confirmed sucker for fake-Tudor 'half-timbered' façades.
And we have a soft spot, sometimes, for buildings that have been frequently repurposed over the past eight decades or so.
And where new uses have been found for its train stations after the 19th/20th century rail service has been discontinued in, let's say, 1956.
One could think of this as part of the National IQ Test.
Politically speaking, Minocqua and its surroundings would not do well on that.
This old building, the Belle-Isle at the head of the island, which now hosts a number of small businesses, is said to have once had quite a glorious past. Minocqua (named for an Ojibwe word) was founded in 1889 to serve the then-flourishing lumbering operations, and it soon became an important regional hub, thus in about 1900 the Belle-Isle hotel was built. It featured a large ballroom with a rotating circular parquet dance floor on springs, with hotel rooms upstairs. In later years, there was a bar and grill on the ground floor that Kristin and her friends were fond of.
This fine, solid building was built by the Free Masons in 1929, then adapted as a school, a library, and then as a church before it was converted into a restaurant and brewery in the early 2000s. It was purchased by the very progressive Kirk Bangstad and his wife in 2016, but both before and after that deal it was a very popular multilevel inside-outside bar and restaurant, especially for its on-site beers (my favorite was always 'Roadkill'). It also offered staff jobs for local young people (including Kristin's daughter).
The enterprise suffered from the Covid endemic, and Trump's flailing plans to slow down its spread led Mr Bankstad to begin brewing a collection of 'progressive beers' which became popular over a wider area (presently nearly nationally), with some of the profits being devoted to progressive causes.
Having alienated many of the very conservative population, the city fathers and the County Board, and as a 'hedge against Covid', at some point he sold this building and became established in the much more congenial university town of Madison (MBC - the Madison Taproom). He's now back in Minocqua with a new establishment, and is everlastingly engaged in legal battles with the city that keeps seeking clever new ways to drive him out again. (See just below.)
Next to the former Minocqua Brewing Company building, here begins Torpy Park, with new communal pavilions built in recent years to make a pleasant summer gathering place.
Whilst the old restaurant, having been purchased by new ownership, with a new name obviously, has since become vacant again.
The city beach on Minocqua Lake, with tennis courts, playgrounds, sand volleyball, picnicking, etc., and in winter an ice rink.
That thing makes a good platform for band concerts and other public functions.
Torpy Park (the namesake Torpy, town chairman 1916-1921, is just referred to in the town history as 'Dr Torpy')
Here's the Brewing Company redivivus in Minocqua, proudly self-described as 'the least popular place in town'.
Make Minocqua Great Again (i.e., don't read the Lakeland Times), and . . .
. . . here's to some of the civic and county officials who are making progressive entrepreneurs' lives so difficult.
(It is fair to say, perhaps, that Mr Bankstad's full-on stick-in-the-eye approach must be found pretty infuriating by his right-wing opponents, but his cause is just and his products are very good indeed (though not cheap).)
'Hey Wisconsin, got a problem with your Johnson? Let's straighten this out: Vote Mandela for U.S. Senate.'
Ron Johnson (sometimes referred to as the dumbest US Senator currently in office) very narrowly defeated Mandela Barnes, the former Wisconsin Lt. Governor, in the 2022 Senate election, 50.4%-49.4%.
Tony Evers is the present Governor of Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin is Wisconsin's other Senator.
A poke in the eye for the local 'elites'. Visit the Brewery's website for background, purposes and causes, variety of products and where they're available, etc.
The new Kamala espresso stout
Here's a quick shot of Minocqua's one-way main drag, Oneida Street (Hwy 51), on the island.
A more thorough photographic ramble round downtown Minocqua from 2019 can be found here.
A rainy run of luck to see us off over our packing-up days
Melvin looking lonely.
(He may not remember this, every year, but they'll both be indoor cats for the next eight months.)
Not another puddle
Melvin does love a puddle, but the oily scum can't good for him.
So they trot off to investigate brother George's car.
Suitcase open -- Choupette knows exactly what that means.
-- Do not dare to leave me here. With this ridiculous harness on!
The long road through Michigan's Upper Peninsula, the start of a five day motorized ramble through the eastern USA.
The Lake in the Wisconsin Northwoods
Mussent Point is at no. 12.
Next up: Back to Virginia -- Some foresty walks & Staunton's Queen City fête
Dwight Peck's personal website
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. All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 30 September 2024. 
