Posts Tagged ‘lake place’
Nature’s Magnificence
It was a beautifully warm sunny afternoon that found Cyndie and me splashing in the lake to clean duck shit off the inflated floating platform in the swimming area. A thankless task because not long after we leave, the ducks return and make themselves at home again. A price we pay to co-exist with wildlife.
At the time, we had no idea stormy weather might be lurking nearby. As the dinner hour approached, pizza from Coop’s was chosen and I got elected to drive into town to pick up our order. Emerging from the trees onto the road to Hayward, a view of the open sky revealed a most spectacular display of roiling cumulonimbus clouds that were so engaging I struggled to pay appropriate attention to my driving.
While waiting at the bar to pick up our par-baked circle of deliciousness, the two tv screens overhead began to display ominous-looking warnings about a thunderstorm in Sawyer county. Based on what I had just seen in the sky, I wasn’t surprised in the least, but the folks around me who were oblivious to what it looked like outside were caught as unaware as I had been 10-minutes earlier.
It just didn’t feel like a storm-threatening kind of day.
With the pizza box safely stowed on the seat beside me, I checked the radar view on my phone before setting off and saw we were on the backside of this long line of storms that were percolating just to the southeast and moving away from us.
I called Cyndie and suggested she check out the view, knowing her deep appreciation for cloud formations. By the time she was able to see it and take pictures, the clouds had lost some of the initial splendor of the freshly blossoming thunderstorm that I was able to witness, but because we were granted a rear view of the event, it still looked impressive.
As the rotation of the earth moved the sunlight closer to our western horizon, the storm in the distance began to glow and bounce vivid color off the lake for a whole nother visual presentation.
Isn’t nature magnificent?!
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Edges Covered
With little in the way of fanfare, yesterday we raked up gravel over the last of the exposed asphalt edges of our new driveway. By that point in the exercise, I had lost much of my ability to care about the level of perfection we were achieving compared to when we first started. It’s going to be good enough for all intents and purposes.
The next phase of the driveway finishing project involves backfilling some of the steeper edges with dirt or composted manure but that detail is not as essential. It won’t worry me if we don’t get that all done prior to the arrival of the snow season.
We did make a point of celebrating the accomplishment a little later in the day with a leisurely game of CrossCrib out on our deck. A nod to the vacation-mode feeling of being up at the lake, it occurred to me we have the same game board at home and a deck that offers everything except a view of a lake. We can play at home just as well as up at Wildwood.
We tend to forget sometimes, what with all the landscape and animals vying for our time and attention. A card game in the middle of a beautiful afternoon can be a healthy diversion.
Since today is the Friday of a holiday weekend, we will be traveling north to the lake place again, leaving the dog behind to be cared for by our house and animal sitter, Grace.
This is a routine that has served us well this summer. Labor Day weekend is traditionally the last gasp of summer activities up at the lake. That doesn’t mean we will stop making the trek up there, though. A few trees were already showing signs of fall color on the drive home last weekend. That spectacle provides plenty of incentive to get back up to the lake after Labor Day.
First things first. We have a long weekend to enjoy some very promising-looking weather predicted for the northland.
It will be even nicer knowing the edges of the new asphalt driveway at home are now completely covered with a gravel shoulder.
Huzzah!
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Indoor Games
Walks with Delilah will be short and wet this morning. It’s a good thing we took full advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday because much of today will be spent indoors. The main mass of precipitation is moving away to the east but it has left behind a sloppy landscape and gray skies.
We enjoyed a long and leisurely paddle around the island and schoolhouse bay yesterday in a gentle breeze of mid-morning sunshine. After floating on top of all that water we just had to go for a swim in it back at our beach. On a brief and unsuccessful errand to town to find an AC to DC transformer, we made a stop for the spectacular flavors of premium ice cream from the famed local creamery, West’s Dairy.
It’s like a rule that we have to sample some of their delectable combinations whenever in close proximity –[read: anywhere in town]. I made a last-minute change of mind to Banana with threads of Salted Caramel that didn’t disappoint.
The afternoon included a rollicking game of CrossCrib on the deck with multiple lead changes throughout. By the time we finally sat down across from each other for dinner at the Tavern at White Stag Farm, we both shared the comment, “You got some sun today.”
The wet start of our day today is allowing me a chance to be distracted by television coverage of Premier League matches while trying to chronicle yesterday’s fun.
Spectator sports on television are a guilty pleasure and may be my version of indoor games for as long as Cyndie allows. I suspect she will be seeking a chance to reclaim her honor in the weekend’s CrossCrib competitions, to which I will be more than happy to oblige.
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Making Adjustments
After pretty much power lounging for a couple days, Sunday became the day to take care of a few projects around the place. The most laborious had to do with the launch feature from the big raft. Somehow the big airbag got a hole in it and then it started filling with water.
Last weekend Steve got it to shore and laid it in the sand to drain. Yesterday, I went down to retrieve the bag from the beach and bring it up to the house to wash and fold in preparation for taking it back to the Cities for repair. At about the point I was losing my patience with the task, Cyndie arrived to rescue me and helped to get us to the finish.
The main project of the afternoon was digging under the round pavers beneath the tall bench at the fire pit. We didn’t dig them in much originally and that left the bench too high off the ground.
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That should take care of that set up for a while. We’ve tweaked them multiple times to finally get them all where we want them. I’m ready to not think about the fire pit seating for a few years now, except maybe to sit out there.
From there, I moved to some finishing touches on the screen door we installed a couple weeks ago. I added a turnbuckle tensioner, put longer screws into the hinges, installed some foam tape to seal the back edge, and put on a couple of quieting bumpers that didn’t really do much in the way of quieting.
I’m almost completely satisfied with it for now. Time will tell if it holds up very long to repeated use.
This morning I am driving home on my own and Cyndie will stay up with her mom. After a run of four weekends in a row at the lake, I’ll be adjusting to home life for an extended run. That means more days for driveway shoulder duty. Woohoo!
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Mostly Cloudy
Some days are so low-key that the excitement of solving the Wordle puzzle is one of the noteworthy highlights. Actually, amazing life events sometimes play out unexpectedly in the midst of an otherwise bucolic ambiance of a quiet cloudy day at the lake. There are only three of us occupying the big log house this weekend. With the cool temperature and cloudy sky doing a lot to set the tone, we didn’t have any lofty ambitions about pursuing laudable accomplishments.
Midmorning we received a precious invitation to join with other Wildwood families for a gathering of the Whitlock family next door. They were doing a memorial spreading of ashes for their patriarch, Bill, a founding member of the Wildwood Lodge Club. Afterward, families represented gathered on the Whitlock deck to catch up and share memories.
It was the kind of visit that could have gone on forever except they had a dinner plan. We three returned to our place for dinner and a mix of tv dramas in front of a fire.
Some sunshine would have definitely painted the day with a greater urge to be out but the surprise opportunity to commune with people we dearly love was a bonus that truly blessed an otherwise understated day.
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Going Again
Guess where we are going today. It will be my fourth weekend in a row at the lake and I couldn’t be happier about that good fortune. I feel a little sorry for Pequenita though because she seems really starved for contact with me and I keep disappearing on her for days at a time.
The horses don’t seem to mind. Yesterday while I was on the lawn tractor and Cyndie was using the trimmer in the labyrinth, we spotted all four horses out “horsing around” in the hay field. What first caught my eye was Mix making aggressive moves toward the chestnuts but instead of running away, all four just rearranged positions while staying in close proximity with each other.
Then one of them laid down, rolling back and forth a couple of times before hopping right back up. Suddenly they all took off in a run back toward the paddocks. It looked like they were having fun on an otherwise uneventful day.
I came inside for lunch and scanned a few news headlines. That had me thinking how nice it is that horses don’t pay attention to headlines about search warrants or the reaction commentaries from extremists on both sides. Maybe the new national pastime has become unnecessarily overreacting to news releases with inflammatory trigger words and accusations about the nefarious motives of the “other side.”
There is a wonderful distraction awaiting our arrival up north in a few hours. It is called Round Lake. I plan to immerse myself in the rejuvenating water of the lake to do some back-floating and cloud watching. No headlines will be viewed during this news-free time. It’ll be my version of horsing around.
It will also be a nice break from raking gravel and rocks into a supportive shoulder for our new asphalt driveway. We made some good progress the last few days and I’ve set a goal of trying to finish 50 yards per day whenever we work on it. I’m guessing we’ve completed about half of the 600 combined yards of asphalt edges for both sides of the driveway.
That would be just six days if we achieve 50 yards each time we work on it.
If we keep going away for long weekends at the lake, it might be October by the time we get all the asphalt shoulder covered. Somewhere in the next 6 weeks we will have a fiber optic cable buried along the length of the driveway, as well.
Sure hope they don’t decide to show up on a Friday when we are planning to depart for the lake place.
I don’t like the struggle of choosing between two highly desired options.
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Three Biketeers
Day two of Paul’s, Randy’s, and my biking-instead-of-golfing adventures up at the lake place was a grinding success. Did I say grinding? I meant grand success. Honestly, the conditions were better than average, practically superb for the combination of riding we had in mind. My only issue was that my legs felt odd at the beginning of the day and as the afternoon progressed the muscles kept threatening to cramp up.
I’m guessing I taxed myself a bit too much on our opening day gauntlet of rocks and roots navigating the Makwa trail. Instead of allowing for a day of recovery, we three biketeers set out midmorning for some smooth riding on the road bikes. Once again, I demonstrated my penchant for having my sense of direction reversed.
My intended route would have basically formed a rectangle on the map but I missed one turn while rolling along and chatting with the guys. Remaining oblivious at the time, I was surprised to reach a “T” with McClaine Road again, which we had turned from miles before. Our route had circled back.
Knowing I’d missed a turn we reversed direction and backtracked. I was mistakingly looking for the Chief River Road I wanted on our right. When we came upon it –and of course, it was farther away than I thought it should be– I discovered my sense of our position on the planet was backward again and it was a left turn, not a right.
The rest of the road ride was without confusion and we enjoyed a triumphant return to Wildwood where we found the sign was showing a new skew of its own.
We switched to our off-road bikes again for the afternoon and I finally got my first exposure to the CAMBA trail loops by the hospital, appropriately named, “Hospital Trail.”
It lived up to the reputation I had heard for a couple of years that Hospital Trail would be much more to my liking. Sharing a variety of the fun features of the more aggressive Makwa trail near us, the Hospital trail in Hayward offers a few loops that meander through a nice section of pine forest. There are a fair number of hairpin turns but it has far fewer sharp changes in elevation or complicated rock obstacles and almost no tree root hazards.
It probably shouldn’t have been as taxing on my aging leg muscles as it was but for the rest of the day I found myself tetering perilously close to having my quads and calves seize up at one wrong move.
Pickle juice, I was told. No, I erred by asking for a scoop of two different flavors of ice cream from West’s Dairy. The serving size in the cup could have fed a family of five. I ate it anyway. Raspberry Delight with Mint Chip.
It’s what a biketeer would do!
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Any Day
Lately, I have noticed I am experiencing a pang of underlying guilt over not being fully aware of what day of the week it is. It is commonly expressed that the absence of a work schedule in one’s life will bring about this phenomenon of losing track of the days. It’s truly a luxury to not know. I feel rich beyond my means when I find myself basking in the gentle breezes through the trees at the lake on a Sunday evening when the majority of weekend vacationers have returned to their homes.
There were days throughout my years of gainful employment when I suffered under the pressure of showing up day after day for the grind of my multiple different day jobs. At the same time, I found myself rather well-suited to such a routine of scheduled days. I mostly looked forward to seeing people and tending to whatever business situations required attention.
I wasn’t very fond of being told the toilet wasn’t working in one of the restrooms, but most other issues were useful fodder for doing what I had been hired to do. It’s a bit of a shame that some issues continue to show up in my overnight dreams. Saturday night it felt like I worked hard all night long through multiple dreams. I was trying to train a new employee while simultaneously attempting to cope with other side issues and periodically straining to figure out why I was back at work again after having been gone for so many months.
I found myself semi-lucidly questioning the dream whenever I surfaced toward consciousness through the night and then regretting when a return to deep slumber brought the same dream back to right where it had left off.
During my working years, I had moments of envy for the people I knew who no longer noticed what day of the week it was, but I don’t recall ever begrudging them that luxury. Now that I have achieved that same privilege, I feel bad about celebrating it when so many others still have to log their time.
Facing the undeniable shared challenges of showing up on the first day of the work week. People compare stories of what each other’s weekend entailed and commiserate over the concept of a week ahead. Then, the survival strategy of lauding the midweek milestone of “hump day.” Finally, the thrill of reaching the last day of the week with its lure of soon-to-be-reached days away from the job.
This morning is simply another “any day” of the week for me. Cyndie will be staying up at the lake longer this week and I am driving home today with her mom. I’ll be on my own for a few days at Wintervale before heading right back up on the same day that Cyndie gets a ride home with a friend.
We’ll be like ships passing in the night on any old day of the week.
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Superb Escapades
Superlatives. Yesterday was as wonderful as the day before and served to amplify the pleasantries we enjoyed tenfold. The weather helped to accommodate anything and everything we found to do, including replacing an ailing screen door.
It looked simple enough until the door Mike and I picked up at the lumber yard in Hayward proved to be an inch taller than the one we were replacing. It appeared the old one had been cut down to fit so we borrowed a circular saw and did the same thing. After much searching, we found an old can of still viable stain and successfully completed the unplanned project.
We also received new insights about our trees from an arborist whose services were enlisted to analyze the health of trees around the group of properties that form the Wildwood Lodge Club, of which Cyndie’s family are long-time members. Near the end of winter last year there was a storm that brought down a lot of big branches and a few trees. The size of some of the limbs was enough to inspire seeking professional advice.
Between those events, the day allowed for paddle board and kayak excursions, we swam and sunbathed, and played a mini-tournament of games. Horseshoes, ladder golf, corn hole bag toss, darts, cards, and an encore round of “Fishbowl,” the triple-game of Taboo, Charades, and Password.
On a walk around the property, we twice enjoyed a close encounter with a doe with three very young fawns. They did not stray far after we came upon them the first time such that we found them again, a little further along in the woods where they were munching on ferns.
Cooking dinner on the fire was so good on Friday that we ended up doing it again yesterday.
Today will be a smidgeon less superlative as we adjust to the early departure of our friends, Barb and Mike as they head back for time with their grandkids this afternoon.
Superb, nonetheless.
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Nature’s Best
Stormy skies can be a scary thing for some people but rainclouds also provide the backdrop for one of nature’s best spectacles. The weather pattern yesterday was a little chaotic with many periodic episodes of rain rolling by amidst hours of otherwise sun-bathed summer scenes.
It was the perfect recipe for a rainbow and that is precisely what we got.
Another highlight of the day involved multiple viewings of videos captured when Joni Mitchell surprised the world by showing up at the Newport Folk Festival. What a triumph at 78 years of age, after her brain aneurysm in 2015.
Joni is another one of nature’s best.
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Relative Something 