Late summer recollections of what might have been amusing

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.

Late summer recollections of what might have been amusing

There's a little reef protruding from the western side of the (newly named) 'Strait of Tigertail', basically directly across from the Tigertail Point. At least since I've been coming here, there have been, piled on top of the reef, various configurations, some almost shrine-like, and we've just learnt that they were made by our new friend on the lake, Gary the DJ. (No reasons were supplied.)

Back to our Putative Moraine

We were here just the other day, but this time we really want to show this Natural Wonder to our friend Oscar Marquis. 19 August 2026.

It's really a very charming scene, if you're susceptible to the wonders of Nature, though . . .

. . . not everyone is. We should always explain what's on offer in advance.

It's too late to try explaining afterward.

We can understand that, from a certain point of view, it really is just dried-up mud.

We're taking advantage, however, to push our investigations a little farther down the lakeshore . . .

. . . near to the offshore grass beds.

That's enough for today, our friend will be growing impatient, perhaps irritable.

.

So we'll be off then.

No harm done. We'll continue today's ride around the bay and back round the islands.

Melvin seems to be looking guilty about something, but he's not the hunter in the family. He just quietly pokes about a bit, then sits quietly enjoying the views. (We have to wonder what he was doing back there, then.)

The water level is dropping catastrophically. There's no real harm to that (except in the canal), but it's aesthetically depressing.

But there's still a fine view of the north end of the North Bay on a calm afternoon

A great lot of fine weather in this second-half of August, and we deserve it.

Melvin likes to be escorted into the boathouse and then go into hiding. We don't encourage that, but . . .

. . . if we roundly refuse and walk away, he'll wait by the door indefinitely, confident that someone will come back and let him in.

But eventually, if we promise him his dinner, for example, he'll come along at a good clip, no hard feelings.

This is another of Melvin's hiding places, for contemplating nature and what not. We're aware of this one now, but with Choupette, no one will ever find her out. If we stand in driveway and shout out her name over and over, at some point we'll notice that she's snuck up just behind us.

Oscar is coming out to join us for another bike ride, 21 August 2026.

His clan's cottage is there on the right, adjacent to Mussent Point. The families rotate the use of the place during the summer.

A little out of sorts at all the evidence of a lowered water level, we going to have another go at the Crossing of the Bar (propeller up!). This was entirely unsuccessful.

Dragging our yellow friend down out of all that sand and mud, every day, is becoming a real nuisance. Hauling it back up is even worse.

A walk along a Tigertail path

We're back again to revisit the apparent damage to Cousin Rob's memorial bench on the Tigertail, but . . .

. . . whilst doing that, we thought we'd take a quiet walk of the very old path up this side of the shoreline. 25 August 2026.

We did it once before, years ago -- it dead-ended where now some cottages are blocking its way, but there was an amateurish little bail-out path leading up to the carpark at the top of the hill.

We're so proud to have found the one place along this entire wake-warped shoreline where one can just hop off one's bike and step safely up onto solid earth.

The old path wanders right along to the north, amongst . . .

. . . big solid trees that may have been much smaller when the path was formed, or perhaps not even there yet at all.

All of the Northwoods lakesides were virtually barren in the 1890s, when the lumber barons were spending at least two decades putting the trees to good financial use. To them.

Some people toddling along here might wish they'd brought their cane along (but it doesn't fit onto the hydrobike).

That exposed beachy thing below is right round the corner from the dead end, so in the interests of efficiency and our original purpose for being here . . .

. . . we'll hobble back the way we've come.

This whole charming walk is only about 200 meters long, but worth it.

All's well hydrobikewise, happily.

-- Just give us five minutes longer, we'll be right back!

The sacred bench has definitely been interfered with and needs repair, but the cause is obscure. Definitely not rude vandalism, surely.

There is a consensus forming that it might have a victim of a lightning attack on the point, which . . .

. . . apparently caused those godawful scars on the trees.

Obviously, there must be a lot about lightning strikes that I don't know. That looks just weird! Feral!!

From the top of the tree straight into the ground

Rudimentary attempts to back the bench up (it's still chained down under that back corner)

Very suggestive debris strewn all about

One wouldn't have thought that that looks very much like lightning damage. But what do we know?!?

The Yawkee Forest Reserve sign -- the path leads over the little hill and down a ways to what used to be a public carpark, but is presently meant only for the homeowners along the shore, apparently.

-- We're back. Thanks again.

There is a tree directly across the lake, along the undeveloped part of the South Shore Bay shoreline, that got a righteous whack back in 2018. Here's a peek.

Well, the Lightning God works in mysterious ways. Now for some attention to Cousin Rob's memorial bench?!

Home repairs, at last

These young gentlemen are distinctly not thieves or burglars -- they are apparently super-efficient working chaps who'll be spending a few days here repairing things that Kristin has been trying to have properly looked to for some years.

Most importantly, obviously, is the fact that the little add-on bedroom, which has apparently been sinking and perhaps wobbling, urgently requires a lot of stabilization.

And I am heavily invested in this project.

Whilst they're working, we're tracking the water-level drops all round the lake.

Here's the crescent side of the main island, Adjidaumo, more or less directly below the original eagles' nest.

And that's what used to be a slightly submerged long reef that had to be carefully got over.

'The Changing of the Guard'

The aforesaid young gentlemen are fine workers and still at it, presently mixing up cement to build up a proper foundation to our sagging bedroom.

(We were once a member of the Hod Carriers Union ourself, way (way) back in the day, though we worked mainly with huge prestressed concrete t-beams (for Long Island University, we were told), for $1.25 an hour. But with our dad we mixed batches of this kind of cement to build a patio behind our house in New Jersey, and that ought to count as well.)

We're off for another bike ride . . . if we can just wrastle this thing down the strand. 27 August 2026.

Yikes, they're on the roof now -- they've been replacing leaky skylights, as well as parts of the roofs, and finishing off our wobbly bedroom.

That's the roof over the back porch as well. They're everywhere. Their boss has been showing up regularly for consultations on the works on order. To be honest, it's impressive (especially since much of what they're working on was apparently badly done to begin with).

A brief consultation about who gets which catbed tonight

Lockable doors, the last things to be added to the bedroom's undercarriage.

It turns out that, assignment-wise, that was superfluous.

Basically, they seem to be finishing up today, four days of long hours.

Something that probably ought not to be mentioned, in this horrific era of MAGA's ICE, is that, aside from their extremely helpful and friendly boss, all of these efficient workers here from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. for four days spoke only Spanish. . . but communicated well when appropriate. What a world we're living in these days!!

When we arrived in early June, the water level reached the vegetation round our little 'harbor'. Now we're dragging the bike off and back onto the beach. This has got to be another sign of the Big Oil Freaks' 'Climate Hoax' [Europeans' suffered especially horribly this summer from the Corporations' tortures.]

From the Lake Katherine Association's September newsletter.

The Lake in the Wisconsin Northwoods

Mussent Point is at no. 12.

The text overlays are updating a few names to our current understanding. We've noticed, though, that the Lake Katherine Association newsletter is mostly sticking to the original names, Beaver and Crescent Island and Manila and Indian Bay. [The former two are cute, but the latter two seem unwelcome these days, if 'Manila Bay' celebrated the Battle of Manila Bay (when Cmdr Dewey destroyed the Spanish fleet in 1898, about the time that our lake's canal was being dug out), and 'Indian Bay' sounds rather awkward these days, especially up here adjacent to the Ojibwe/Chippewa Lac de Flambeau Reservation.

The Northwoods Land Trust has produced a 7-min YouTube film, 'Land & Water: the heart and soul of the Northwoods', that features a number of beautiful aerial passes over Lake Katherine.

Next up: Turtle patrol, and the uncooperative water level