Posts Tagged ‘beach’
Lake Living
One of the special charms of being up at the lake is the communing with family and friends. Staying in the same place with folks for days at a time expands the connection so much more than just an afternoon visit to one another’s homes for occasional events. As great as it is to have the lake home filled with people and activity, that is exactly what we are enjoying not having this week.
It has been just Cyndie, me & Delilah up here this week and we have been loving it. There are a few people from other families up at their places, but they have mostly been keeping to themselves as much as we have to ourselves.
Yesterday was quieter than the day before (when there was some passing lightning and thunder that triggered Delilah into barking fits) and even the dog seemed to settle nicely into the chill lake-life atmosphere we were cultivating.
I got in a mellow bike ride on quiet roads through wooded marshes that had me curious about the level of bear activity that may have been happening lately. Something about the scenery just looked like there should be a bear ambling by at any minute. Thoughts like this are probably triggered by the one time I did spot a bear loping along in a field up here, just to my right as I pedaled along the road. When it finally noticed me rolling along it just altered course to slant away from parallel to me so that disappearing into the nearby trees happened sooner than later.
It was somewhat comical how nonchalant we both were about the brief sighting.
After my cycling and a whopping sandwich lunch, Cyndie and I took Delilah for some water sports and we all enjoyed being alone on the beach. Delilah doesn’t choose to swim but happily tromps in up to her belly. We all did a fair amount of rock hunting and a little bit of water splashing.
It was a luxuriously slow day with some card playing on the deck, a little Tour de France watching, a grilled chicken dinner, and some streaming suspenseful tv drama after dark.
I could get used to this life if it weren’t for our other life waiting for us to return to Wintervale.
Of course, living most of our days at home serve well to keep our visits to the lake up north all the more enticing.
The reality is that we are just temporarily “lake living.” We head back home tomorrow morning where I will quickly change gears and dive into cutting grass. I’m pretty sure I will do so with visions of the scene in the photo above playing in my mind all the while.
.
.
Started Wet
The big workday of the weekend appeared to be a washout when we woke up yesterday but the winter’s accumulation of leaves on the beach was surprisingly manageable soon after the precipitation stopped. I spent the morning trying to reclaim our mini-labyrinth in the woods from the thick growth of ground covering wild plants.
That work actually started with a need to cut up a big limb that had fallen across several lanes of the pathway. Then my focus shifted to the ferns, trillium, ramps (a wild leek), and tree sprouts that needed to be removed. I made it about halfway before I needed to join the worker bees who showed up to tend to the beach.
By this morning, all that was left to do down at the lake was a little prescribed burn between the beach and boat docks. Having waited to start yesterday’s work until the rain was done, it was almost time for dinner when we finished raking out the sand.
Today is just the opposite in terms of weather as the morning has been dry thus far but there is a mass of precipitation heading our way. I keep getting warnings on my phone about lightning in the vicinity of Wintervale. That weather will reach Hayward a couple hours later.
We are going to wait for the rain to pass before heading out to finish pulling wild growth from the path of our forest labyrinth. The moisture will make the job easier in terms of the pulling plants but decidedly messier in terms of the footing.
There might be a card game with family relations materializing to fill the indoor portion of our day.
It feels a lot like a holiday weekend at the lake. Oh, did I forget to mention the fabulous meals we have been indulging in, both breakfasts and dinners? Yeah, that kind of family time at the lake.
Experience dictates, wet starts don’t automatically spoil the rest of a day’s activities..
.
Co-Favorite Place
For all of my adult life, Cyndie’s family vacation home on Round Lake near Hayward, Wisconsin has been my favorite place. As I wrote yesterday, my affections are now split between our paradise of Wintervale Ranch in Beldenville and Wildwood Lodge Club up north.
I now have co-favorite places.
It is wonderful to be up at the lake again.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
As always, the special feature of the lodge club is communing with the other families and we received an early dose of camaraderie when the next door Whitlock clan showed up just after Cyndie and I arrived. Much love ensued.
There is a lot to do around the property to make it look less neglected as the ravages of winter appear to have wreaked havoc on anything left out in the elements.
Case in point: The front steps to the Friswold “cabin” for which I was so proud to have repaired a single paver block last summer are now failing en masse as the foundation underneath appears to be giving out.
Entire rows are tipping forward. I suppose it’s unfair to blame one winter for this, but it sure seemed fine last year.
I can’t blame the extreme state of the smoke clouded doors of the living room fireplace on anything but neglect to tend to the task of cleaning them in a timely manner. When Marie asked me to build a fire, I figured it wouldn’t add much to the ambience if we couldn’t see the flames. It took a lot of ash-soaked newspaper to rub off the insanely thick baked-on accumulation of smoke on those glass doors.
At least I had the joy of trying to ignite unseasoned firewood that had been supplied for our fire-building pleasure. No wonder there was so much gunk on the glass of the doors.
Maybe, if I love this place as much as I do home, I need to more equally split my attention to maintenance chores. Is the building of a lake-place woodshed in my future?
I would sure appreciate the luxury of selecting dry wood for our fires. So would the chimney flue.
The more immediate concern will be cleaning the beach today. The lake ice pushed a new berm of sandy leaves about a foot high along the full length of our beach shoreline.
What a wonderful location for putting in a day’s work.
My co-favorite place, in fact.
.
.
Consummately Summerish
Here is a postcard from the lake. We are having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I probably should have gone to Vegas instead. My luck has been remarkably good with card games the last two days.
Maybe it is a result of being so relaxed from floating in the water and reading a book on the beach. Throw in the smell of wood smoke wafting in the air, grilled meals, corn-on-the-cob, Cyndie’s homemade peach pie, and we are enjoying a quintessential summer weekend at the lake.
.
.
Gulf Coast
Our day at the beach…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
No Snow
No snow here.
We hear that’s not the case back home.
Our return flight leaves tonight. We expect to be back to the Edina house late, where we will spend the night before facing our Monday responsibilities and then each driving home at separate times to witness the final weekend accumulation first hand.
I’ll remember this Gulf view while I’m plowing.
Truth be told, I’m actually looking forward to the task. You can take the fool away from the cold and snow, but you can’t change his love of returning to it.
.
.
Much Accomplished
The day started slowly, but gained momentum and became a productive and fruitful one at Wildwood Lodge Club. Cyndie’s family was well represented among the 6 current clans that hold membership in the association. Best of all, not only did the looming possibility of a rainout not happen, there was even some sunshine to bask in while we worked (and played).
The primary effort started with the beach and “boats.” There are canoes, kayaks of a variety of sizes, small sail boats, and standup paddle boards that tend to get parked on the beach. More time was probably spent washing the cobwebs off the chairs that line the beach.
The lake seems high enough again this year to have reduced our sandy strip to a minimum for all the things we put there. First impressions that the water would be uncomfortably cold were altered quickly and led to kids choosing to jump in, which soon led to requests to go tubing behind the speed boat.
Summer might as well be in full swing.
We pulled goals out of storage, which led to me needing to take on Cyndie’s nephews in a little 1-against-2 mini soccer match on my way to helping pull weeds under the playground set. I discovered loose screws that needed wrenching to get that apparatus up to code.
I helped brainstorm a location for a new grill station outside the lodge kitchen, and unloaded pavers when Cyndie’s brother arrived from town with a heavy load. While at the lodge, I stepped up to help dispatch the rejected weeds and rocky dirt that accumulated from a massive clean out of the landscaping by the front steps.
That involved loading them onto a cart and transporting them to a perfect low spot in the woods by the driveway. Extra leftover hostas were moved up to our “cabin,” where Cyndie’s mom has designs to make good use of them.
Our getaway to the lake was feeling an awful lot like a typical day at home tending to 20 acres, with a bonus of the added glorious lake view.
I think my body will be happy to get back to the day-job on Tuesday for some well-earned rest.
In the mean time, my mind is thoroughly enjoying the mental vacation and energizing pleasures of family and friends —people and place— that Wildwood is all about.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Perfect Day
I’m going to assume that you all guessed we are up at our lake place. We were able to secure coverage in caring for our home and animals for a few days, so we scampered up to our favorite getaway to spend the weekend with Cyndie’s parents and some of her brother’s family, in addition to the many other wonderful members and friends of our unique community up here.
We enjoyed an absolutely perfect summer day yesterday. Spent the majority of it on the beach of our lake, with friends and family, plenty of rambunctious kids frolicking on floating devices in the water, warm sunshine, gentle breezes, and an opportunity for a nap on a lounge chair during a lull in the activity.
The lake temperature was ideal for summer refreshment, without being too cold to get used to easily. I flirted with getting too much sun, choosing to forgo the sensible solution of applying sun screen, by limiting my time of exposure out in the water. I was able to enjoy the day without feeling greasy, but probably put myself at a bit of a risk. I could feel it on my skin last night, but it was short of actually being painful.
I put in a fair amount of effort to not perseverate over the work that was not getting done at home, but found myself unable to avoid fretting over the need to get home early today to mow the grass. I will be up against the challenge of somehow getting the job done in the short time left in the day after we arrive home, and despite a threat of likely showers and thunderstorms.
Time runs out when evening comes, because I have to return to work tomorrow.
It’s a problem that I am willing to accept, given the pleasure we enjoyed in being up at the lake for a couple of perfect days at the beach.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Relative Something 