August lakeside potpourri

Dwight Peck's personal website

Summer 2025

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.

August lakeside potpourri

Clinton's birthday, 9 August 2025

The Hunan restaurant in Woodruff, Wisconsin

It's time to cut the cakes (we have homemade choices).

All eyes on the birthday boy

Little George wanted to help with the cake cutting; so sad.

Bring out the styrofoam boxes please.

The cottage

The 'study', seen from the 'bedroom', in the cottage by the lake

The living room, the antediluvian core of the cottage, with incremental additions to it over the decades. (The TV, with the drive-in movie size screen, is Emily's birthday present to her mum.)

Another little pilgrimage to Cousin Rob's memorial bench at Tigertail, 10 August 2025

This is about the only safe mooring place we've found so far, given the undercut shoreline nearly all the way round here.

The path is vestigial, useful in the old days along the shore, but presently a dead end.

The bench has its own solitary but regal presence.

During cold nights, violent storms, under two feet of snow, all alone, it remains.

It's easy to find this to be the perfect memorial to our universally mutual friend: simple, modest, just the right tone on the label: 'In Memory of Rob Hagge: Keeper of Lake Katherine'. And for many many years he was that, and booked in as 'Lifetime President of the Lake Katherine Association'.

[It's also true that the lake was here some years before he was, like the end of the last Ice Age. But never mind.]

If Cousin Rob were here on the bench now, this would be his view. (That's the highway over on the far side, but it's well disguised.)

As part of our pilgrimage, we thought we'd walk up to the road that comes part way out onto the Tigertail.

At the inauguration of the new bench, which apparently occurred before we arrived here perhaps, many people attended with their cars; we'd like to see how they managed that (since we'd heard that parking had been banned up there a few years ago).

Actually we just want to stretch our aging legs a bit. So, up the hill, and . . .

. . . then down to the former carpark.

Ha, we thought so. Any scofflaws at the scene were probably relying on the fact that there are few or no policemen round here.

Anyway, nobody was driving down to the bench festivities.

Back down . . .

. . . to the bench, and then . . .

. . . along the shaky old path to our ride.

-- Thanks for waiting!

The first time we came here, early this summer, the hydrobike got tangled up amongst all the detritus, both visible and submerged. The result was very wet, but fun.

On the trampoline

Kristin (known as 'Gan-Gan' these days) and our precocious two-year old super-athlete (and super-linguist, in fact)

Young George (aka 'Little Buddy') is always ready for, in fact always insisting on, anything fun.

'Dosey doe your partner'

[The slang term comes from the French 'dos-à-dos', i.e. 'back-to-back'. Alternatively, 'Do-Si-Do'.]

And all fall down!!

TV time for the felines

Melvin loves TV shows, especially about animals. Choupette cares not a fig.

-- Melvin, no!! Get down, Melvin!!

Taya losing control of the superkid, who's . . .

. . . ready for anything. Like perhaps . . .

. . . another driving lesson with Uncle Eric.

Regular lawn care is something that cannot be ignored, at a well-maintained property, and before long . . .

. . . Little Buddy may be able to handle this on his own.

Choupette's waiting for the air conditioning to come on. So are we all. Except Melvin, who's asleep.

A solo loon

A solo loon at rest. If we come closer, he'll dive (or she'll dive).

Didn't dive. What a loon-worthy opportunity for our little iPhone camera.

Just quietly paddling away.

A few more shoreline casualties

The ravages of time, with . . .

. . . a more modern supplement

Another sordid tree-death, this one wreathed in the vegetation of its neighbors

Clearly, it never had a chance.

The trees along the shore often lean out over the water (we're told) to get more direct sunlight than their rivals can. This doesn't always work out as foreseen.

All this is along the Sandy Beach shoreline, and that truncated bit of wreckage on the right . . .

. . . must have had a hard life.

And that one, too.

Dinner at Marty's

Marty's Place North is just 20km north of Mussent Point up the highway, and it's been recommended by Cathy and Oscar.

Busy night, but . . . we've got a reservation. (Restaurant reservations appear not be common round here.)

The little sign says 'Many have eaten here . . . [scrawled beneath] few have died'.

Cathy and Oscar, with what little is boxably left over from our huge dinners.

The Pottawatomie Kettle Trail again

With Oscar and Cathy, along the initial 'moraine' (if that's what it is), the 'Canal Trail'. 17 August 2025

All right, enough debating about the ancient Greek philosophers and ataraxia. We need to catch up with the ladies.

Now we've turned up onto the 'Kettle View Trail', and that's the first of the kettles.

They're lined up down both sides of the path.

Like here on the left.

And here on the right.

Coming to the end of the row of them

What causes a 'kettle', by the way?

'As a glacier recedes, sediment is washed out from the glacier and deposited in a flat area below, forming an outwash plain. Depressions, known as kettles, often pockmark these outwash plains and other areas with glacial deposits.

'Kettles form when a block of stagnant ice (a serac) detaches from the glacier. Eventually, it becomes wholly or partially buried in sediment and slowly melts, leaving behind a pit. In many cases, water begins fills [sic] the depression and forms a pond or lake — a kettle. Kettles can be feet or miles long, but they are usually shallow.' (National Park Service)

[These aren't shallow -- that one's probably 20m down.]

Back down to rejoin the Canal Trail

Looking for wildlife? Mushrooms? More kettles?

Probably mushrooms. Kristin very partial to the 'Chicken-of-the-Woods' mushrooms that she's hacked off the trees here in the past.

The imminent end to another marvelous hike

-- Mind your step!!

There's probably no bottom there.

The road is just above there, and . . .

. . . we've left the cars just down by the canal culvert.

-- I give the orders round here! (Or, 'Look, there's a funny cat'.)

The Lake in the Wisconsin Northwoods

Mussent Point is at no. 12.
The text overlays are updating a few names to our current understanding.

Coming soon: Lake-related snapshots (with cats)(and eagles' nests)