Pre-autumnal wrapups on the lake

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.

Pre-autumnal wrapups on the lake

mid September 2025

When there's news of an aggressive little dog (like Agate) on the property, Choupette knows where to go.

Suggestions of a medieval fairy dancing ring in the woods
(not that medieval fairies always danced round septic fields)

Our Sandy Beach Bay morainish

Pedaling along the northeastern shore of 'Sandy Beach Bay' (map below), we're pausing to renew our acquaintance with the moraine-ish wooded barrier between the lake and the rising ground up behind it. 11 September 2025.

-- Please wait here, we'll be back shortly.

This strikes us as a fascinating natural phenomenon, an 80 meter (260 ft) straight line mound, rising a meter or so above the normal water level, nearly 3m across at the base & 2m or so across the top.

And on the landward side, a swampy line alongside separating the morainy thing from . . .

. . . the rising ground on the far side.

The trees, said to have horribly intertwined root complexes underneath, are evidently 'red pines' (pinus resinosa), which it's said can live as long as 500 years though we won't be here to see that.

-- Be patient, we'll be back in five.

Cousin Rob, who over a lifetime knew as much about this lake as anyone, once told us that this arrangement was formed as 'an artifact of the ice buildup on the lake receding in the springtime', but likely, in his absence, we'll never find out how that would actually work.

Here, towards the north end of the formation, we're coming up to the rising headland, . . .

. . . like that, on the far side of which is the no-wake passage into Tomahawk Bay, overlooked by Rob and Elke's house and with its own morainish red pine promontory.

-- Okay, okay, we're coming.

That offshore reedbed is, summerwise, everlasting. As we climbed aboard our trusty bike, we disturbed an adult eagle high in a tree overhead, who flapped off down along the shoreline round the bay.

One thing you can say about the iPhone cameras, though at their best they can be useful, you're never ever going to get a photo of an eagle vacating the territory before you have the slightest chance at it.

Nevertheless, we've had our eye on the flappy escapee and we'll bustle round the shoreline till we come to the tree we believe he's retired to. To resume his predatory lookouts.

There he (or she) is, searching for something (preferable already dead) to bring back for the little ones out on the island.

(Seconds later, he blasted off again and we missed it entirely. We got a photo of a black flapping spot near the far side of the lake.)

Is that a weather front swooping in on us?

After a rainy early summer, by now we've dropped our water level very inconveniently.

Perhaps we should just think of pulling these things up and back as 'good exercise'. Climate Change Hoax indeed.

We've just been to dinner with Kim at the newly named 'Gaslight' (for some reason; it used to be the 'Bitters and Bull', not too much better) in the town of Lake Tomahawk, and here's the sunset, and . . .

. . . here's a very cute civic kindness for the younger clientele.

Finally, some turtles

There have been fewer and fewer sun-basking turtles to be seen here every year, but earlier we snuck up on two on a semi-submerged branch . . . but none at all since. Now we've just run into an acquaintance Phil on his jetski and he's pointed us to a good number of them back at the far end of South Bay. So, under the highway bridge, and . . .

. . . back to the far end of the bay, pedaling slowly and quietly from here on.

Not bad -- we count seven here, and a tiny additional one at the far right.

Unfortunately, most the tiny heads have popped up, and they're plooping into the soup. We'll drift out a ways and see if they start climbing up again, which they often do.

A few have come back up -- don't ploop into the soup again, please!

Necks and heads are up again, they've got us. We'll leave them to their sun basking (autumn's coming soon).

Back in the 'study', that's a view of Civita di Bagnoregio, in Viterbo province of Lazio (Nov 2016).

Some lake time with friend Kim

Cruising round the main lake, 15 September 2025, with . . .

. . . Kim Schmutzler, who's spent a lot of time on the lake over the years and comes up with her kayak whenever she can, always welcome.

A passerby (photo by Kim)

And some of the home guard: George, Kristin, Liz, Joellen, and of course . . .

. . . Choupette.

Whom we're told had been a very bad cat on the boat (permanent panic)

Choupie aloft!

Our colleagues continue on their way, and we turn south towards the Tigertail.

Seen from our 'study', that's a local squirrel who spent 40 minutes perched on the top branch, most of the time just on hind legs grasping whatever passes for food in his world.

Today we're coursing all round Tomahawk Bay, and Kim is proposing to take her kayak through at least the first tranche of the canal to the mid-lake. 16 September 2025.

However, whereas 10 days ago we were inconvenienced by some random branches lying in the canal entrance, now . . .

. . . matters are already becoming somewhat more serious.

That's an incipient beaver dam if we've ever seen one. Well, we haven't, but what else could it be?

There was a beaver dam blocking the culvert between the mid-lake and the farther half of the canal, a few years ago, but after a while someone (presumably with permission) cleared it out.

Kim Triumphans

We're touring round the Tomahawk Bay shoreline, and focusing on . . .

. . . the Field of Deadheads, logs mostly submerged but still poking out. Where'd they come from? And when? Why are they still here? And what's really going on down there?

We've never heard any plausible sort of explanations, even from Cousin Rob, but Kim's working on a good possibility.

Apparently, at some point, years ago, the trust that then owned all this undeveloped land (recently donated to the Northwoods Land Trust to become the 'Yawkey Forest Reserve') permitted a commercial forestry firm to do selective culling in the forest above the lake. It was later discovered that the company had clear cut the area instead, and there was some ill feeling, including amongst the young people taking some matters into their own hands.

The supposition would be that some of these logs rolled on down the slopes and fetched up here. Sounds plausible.

The next question is whether these are free-floating with one end still unsubmerged, or if the lower end is somehow embedded below.

And Kim wants to find out.

The verdict seems to be that they're still unattached but just heavier at the other end. Good job.

Meanwhile, we have visitors.

We've been spotted. We won't bother them any further.

Back north up the lake, then Kim's turning south again, where she's been visiting.

Screensavers: That's the Château de Beynac, dept. of Dordogne, France (taken in 2008), part of the awful Hundred Years War years in southwestern France.

And that's the more modern resistance to some other awful wars, and presidents (British TV, 17 September).

Kristin's off to take Joellen for a boat ride round the lake (also 17 September).

-- Be back soon!

An hour or so later

Kristin's been flinging that boat around for a lot of years, and never makes a mistake with it.

And is also pretty adept with the pedalboard (especially on a mirror-lake sort of day)

Just across the lake from Mussent Point, Stephanie's come out to join up for some relaxing political discussions.

They both know much more about local politics than we do, so we'll slip away for an hour's pedal southward.

And come back later to see if anything's been decided.

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: Conquering George Island's summit