Musings

Our lake is shallow; I always heard the deepest place was 15 feet—sometimes 12. Off our beach a short ways is a rock bar perhaps five feet below the surface where fish sometimes congregate. This morning, fisher-guys were out there. Turned out they were from our neighbors’.

Very happy for the young guy in front—he caught a 3-lb, 22 inch walleye! The fellow in back showed him how to fillet it after they got the requisite proof-of-fishing-success photos on land. That is a big walleye for the young fellow to take downstate (on ice), and contribute to his family’s dinner.

Posted at 8:38 PM | Comments Off on Great fishing story

Today’s theme was rain. Not merely wet. Not sprinkles. Rain. And continued rain. Which is good for the natural world as things were a bit dry.

Unrelenting rain days like today when I was a kid we played war on the “sun” porch with five decks and perhaps four kids…that takes a while…as in: the game may never end. Or we did picture puzzles; we had maybe twenty to choose from and we never got through them all in a single summer. Thankfully, there weren’t enough rain days for that.

There were more geese on the sand beach, impossible to pick out in this murky photo, including as many as a dozen goslings.

Posted at 8:45 PM | Comments Off on Dreary and sunless

Before coffee, I got confused about…well, I thought it was the longest day of the year, so I stepped out before sunrise to look up. Of course, the phone compensated for the darkness and made it darned light. And I got the solstice wrong; it’s tomorrow.

BC here is Before Coffee

Posted at 9:43 PM | Comments Off on Confusion BC

We visited the Land of Tall Buildings, which is not far away, this morning. I was surprised by the lit-up windows, knowing that Mr. Sun was off to the left. I quickly figured out that Mr. Sun was reflecting off “my” building into the opposite structure. [Tadah.]

Posted at 9:48 PM | Comments Off on Physics, I say

I got up before the sun (thank you, flicker, busy at 5:45am), and found the ground fog posing elegantly in the field, pierced by lupins.

Mid-morning, this phalanx of Canada geese flew over, right over, so I got to watch their shadows pass by on the grass around me.

Mid-afternoon, I picked rhubarb, then processed it to make what the old cookbooks call rhubarb sauce. Simmer ½ inch (or so) chunks of rhubarb in a bit of water until they break up (ten-ish minutes). Let the mixture cool some, then stir in enough sugar (or honey) to cut the tartness to the desired level. The heat will melt the sugar. Cool all the way and enjoy, plain or over ice cream (for example).

Lakeview dining, with the best company. Isn’t that the most colorful rhubarb sauce you’ve ever seen?

Posted at 7:58 PM | 1 Comment »

This is a late post because the server was down when I began to write. Happily, it’s up Saturday morning.

Yesterday we saw a doe with a wee spotted fawn, no more than a very few days old. We spotted them walking down the mowed lane between trees in the orchard. She stopped to browse and for Little One to nurse. Soon, she moved on, and stepped into the tall grass, far taller than LO. LO preferred to stay in the mowed lane. Drama ensued. Eventually, she enticed LO into the tall grass with another feeding opportunity. Then, the doe moved on, and…repeat.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Parental maneuvering

One of the through story-lines of our time here is grass. It surrounds us and gets mowed, trimmed, and cut. Over and over. I try to focus on the lupins.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Plant success

This morning was dreary after night-rain, and I walked the beach in my rubber boots. I very much liked this contrasting dark-light sand at the shore, as well as the not-quite identical repeating pattern.

Our Sweet Neighbor joined us for dinner, and brought us flowers! I call them lilies-of-the-coffee-table. As you can see, the gloomy morning turned into a sunny rest-of-the-day.

Posted at 8:58 PM | Comments Off on If you don’t like the weather wait a few minutes

These fisher-folk trolling on the lake reminded me of many paintings, like a Winslow Homer piece, although I think he did sea settings, not a lake like this.

This apple was just so beautiful I had to include a shot of it. Friends kept it through the winter wrapped in newspaper in a crate with many other apples in a cool spot. Some made it, some didn’t. This one is spectacular, and as firm and luscious as it was when it was put into storage.

Posted at 7:55 PM | Comments Off on Evocative

We gazed at the bridge before crossing…unusual for us…usually we just stay on I-75 moving north without stopping.

We found the cottage in a sea of green, meaning mowing is at the top of the chores list when I, perhaps naively, assumed we’d get a few days of respite before it reached calf-height. Nope. Move-in was without drama, just the way we like it.

Ornithological omens at arrival: a spruce hen crossed the road in front of us as we drove out of the swamp just north of our property; when I went down to the lake, the first bird I saw was a loon.

Posted at 10:11 PM | 1 Comment »