A birthday party, and a visit to the memorial bench

Dwight Peck's personal website

Summer 2026

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.

A birthday party, and a visit to the memorial bench

reasonably good fun in mid-June

A welcome calm day by the crescent side of Adjidaumo, the central island

Kristin bringing the vintage Grumman Fun Ship round to the main dock, where its eager passengers are awaiting it.

More trampolining lessons, with a willing pupil

'If at first you don't succeed . . .'

. . . promptly leap up again.

Three cats conspiring about something . . .

. . . oh no, one of them's caught a tiny shrew, and they appear to be arguing over it. We can't watch.

Whilst snuggled into the pontoon boat for a quiet place to read, Choupette has joined us, but . . .

. . . she's soon found something more worthy of investigation.

So she's off, inside the property fence until she spies a hole in it and scrambles through it.

Exploring the pedalo -- outside the property fence! We had to follow along on the other side of the fence as she poked all about the retired rowboat, and the gnarly piles of brush along the shore, with so sign of cooperation. We dashed back around and splashed through the water to entice her back, but she just laughed at us, and kept on moseying along outside the fence. So we dashed back up and tried to head her off before she got to the ancient wooden bridge, but before we could catch up, she'd found another hole in the fence and dashed off after something or other across the lawns.

This won't be forgotten!

Oh wow. Something's up for the clan.

Oh, of course. It's Kristin's birthday, and . . .

Note that little bottle of Yuengling lager, appearing here for the first time this year (it's a favorite of one of us here tonight). It's the 'oldest operating brewing company in the US', founded in Pennsylvania in 1829, and until recently available only in the eastern states. Now, through a deal with Molson Coors, it's expanding westward, bravo. The founder's name was D G Yuengling, a German immigrant.

. . . the gang's all here.

Mostly sharing family reminiscences, probably, and keeping the kids amused insofar as possible.

Eric knows how to get Emery's attention. Little George Michael is poking at his eye again.

It's almost time for the birthday cakes and the opening of the gifts.

Gather round now

Brother George has found and framed some early photos of the birthday girl.

Clean-up time

Outside the bedroom, on the lawn, a lovely scene, a mom deer and two fawns, heading back into the woods towards whatever hole in the fence they came in through.

There is a sad ending to this tale. Sorry.

Melvin comes along to see us off on our daily hydrobike adventure. We'd love to take her along on the bike, but he'd surely panic, scramble all about, and we'd both likely drown. He understands -- no hard feelings.

The crescent side of Adjidaumo by the eastern reef, 18 June 2026, with . . .

. . . a look at the annual proliferation of fish eggs nests . . .

. . . copious here, and in many other places round the lakeshore.

The eastern reef off Adjidaumo (which runs submerged over 140 meters, mind your propeller)

A visit to Cousin Rob's Memorial Bench

We're going south 2½ km to the Tigertail to pay our respects to Rob's bench.

We were fortunate last year, after having failed utterly to disentangle ourself from that collection of long-dead branches trying to back out, to have found this little low access point onto terra firma.

No need there to brutalize aging knees hoisting oneself a meter up over the undercut shoreline.

There's the fine bench, placed here in August of last year. Cousin Rob passed away in January 2024 and is still missed by everyone who knew him.

Especially by his regular hydrobiking partner

Pink Island, just across the little gap

The splendid view from the bench

The north-south highway's hidden behind the far-off trees at the left.

The noise sometimes carries. Especially from the motorcycles. And the RVs. And the huge cement trucks.
But anyway, we don't have to watch them go by.

A bit of a pilgrimage, actually, stopping in here regularly (in summer)

Back to the bike

Mind the step!

The venerable arboreal dinosaur (it's a hydrobike trap)

Oh bad. Jetski casualty? Pontoon boat? Just old age?

To home now

Two loons. Good. But no little'uns this year, it seems.

A little geese family departing from Mussent Point

Nothing's improved at the canal. We'd been hoping . . .

. . . that some admirable person would take it in hand to drag that stuff out of there.
We may have to consider trying that ourselves.

Passing by Dave's house on the way north, but no Dave Wave today.

A relic of the past: a remainder of the former shore station dock for the family's pontoon boat, which now lives alongside the boathouse. The property fence ends there next to it, and . . .

. . . as we pedal leisurely along, we find our little friend Choupette exploring all round outside of the fence, a serious breach of our trust. When she was younger, we could spend hours searching for her in the forests or perhaps squashed out on the highway, but she'd seemed to have got over all that.

Immediately, we parked the bike and scuttled round by the driveway to drag her back in, but she'd anticipated us and gone to ground. It's what she does best, in fact.

Whatever the day's waves on the lake may bring, in the early morning, it's nearly always blissfully calm.

Two little kids out for a ride . . .

. . . accompanied by mom, grandpa, and the dog.

Here's the bad news about that mommy deer a few days ago.

The consensus opinion is that she got hit by a car up on the highway, but was able to make it down to the water, and then presumably floated in here from the north. The two fawns were spotted on a nearby property, and family members who tried to follow up were told that at their age they can probably get along on their own. True or not true, they haven't been seen since.

The highway's just 200 meters up through the woods from here.

This is our favorite super-boulder on the lake, along the far southern end of it, across from Pink Island.

One tends to think of it as our own Jabba the Hutt.

Coming back across the South Shore Bay, we're admiring the second eagles' nest, built up here about 4 or 5 years ago in the highest tree along the Tigertail peninsula.

Only slightly smaller than the venerable nest on Adjidaumo on the main lake, which we think looks like an upsidedown VW bug from the 1960s.

Frequently, passing here, we can see scouts on the branches, and adults flying off searching for dead fish for the kiddies. Not today though.

That's Pink Island, off-limits onshore but a welcome family recreational spot on the sandy shallows on this side, facing . . .

. . . the tip of the Tigertail, and . . .

. . . Cousin Rob's bench.

The Lake in the Wisconsin Northwoods

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

Next up: We await further dispatches.