A few more late-summer photos on the lake

Dwight Peck's personal website

Scenes from the old country, summer 2018

More annual lakeside fun in the Northwoods

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 few more late-summer photos on the lake

But first: a Melvin update -- that's his tail.

A sunny day with a stiff wind, 30 August 2018

We're looking for sun-basking turtles, but no luck today

Into the back cove of what's properly named 'South Bay' (but which we refer to as 'under the highway bridge')

Submarine natural architecture

Passing up the lake shore, that's the Ephemeral Bay, preparing to disappear at the end of summer.

A tiny island (when the water's high), that's properly named 'Beaver Island' though no one ever calls it that -- with a sand bar connecting it to the shore on the left and, to the right, the narrow passage between the northern and main parts of the lake and the southern bays

Boathouses along the northeastern shore

Two vigilant adult eagles planted in our tree overlooking the trampoline on the lawn -- get the cats into the house. There are two adults and apparently only one juvenile on the lake this year, nested as usual on the main island, Adjidaumo. 1 September 2018.

That's one of the adults flushed off his perch in the South Bay, 3km to the south, later the same day.

He's hoping that we'll go away.

But we won't, so he will.

But he's still circling overhead.

A scuba diver in the South Bay

'Chase Island', just outside the highway bridge along the southern shore

The boathouse at Mussent Point, with its vintage pontoon or 'float boat'

The specific, literal 'point' of Mussent Point

Another windy day on the main part of the lake, towards the central island, called Adjidaumo, 2 September.

Our friend Kim kayaking in the breeze

We're continuing through the narrows into 'Tomahawk Bay' and the canal

A skinny isthmus poking into the passage to the back bay

'Slow, No Wake'. Sorry, we were daydreaming.

Somebody's been having a proper feast.

We're nudging along the shore of what's called Tomahawk Bay on the map, where we find some of the several localized mussel-shell dumps left in little piles along the lake bottom.

Probably left by happy otters, we've been told, or by some similar little beast.

A lake shore apparently made entirely of tree roots

Back to the canal that leads over to the next lake

High tide in the old canal

With a few years of lake-level rise, the wetland is reclaiming its own.

We're bound for the 'Mid-lake', halfway along the canal -- sometimes called 'Mirror Lake' . . .

. . . for obvious reasons.

The wetlands reclaiming their own

A stand of the dreaded Purple Loosestrife invasive, luckily out of reach from a hydrobike (we'll pass the word along)

'Fence Ahead' (and, by the way, 'No Trespassing'). Fence Ahead is intended for the snowmobilers who cross the lake and speed down the canal once the ice is properly in. The culvert under the road evidently doesn't always freeze over, and exuberant snowmobilers take their chances up into the woods and down again on the other side of it.

Disgusting to a fastidious observer, but just healthy fish-egg nests we've been told

Back through the canal to the back bay, where a family is painstakingly trying to introduce a young person to waterskiing, with no luck at all so far.

Returning across 'Tomahawk Bay' late in the day

A little shrine on the point and narrows into Tomahawk Bay

Flag snapping proudly in the wind and, appropriately, a dockful of decoy birds to keep the live birds from befouling the premises.

Northward up the lake at the end of the day, Adjidaumo island prominent on the left

A nasty lightning strike from a few years ago, and an exploded tree

The huge shard blasted into the neighboring tree has been hanging there ever since.

Back to Mussent Point, with the float boat congregating the guests for a preprandial tour of the lake

Another day, 3 September, in so-called 'Indian Bay' on the map, which we call South Shore Bay, there are trees growing out of the glacial erratic boulders.

A fan of erratics

And more tree-root shorelines

The duck family patroling (the number of participants declines over the summer). Don't disturb them.

Sorry, we disturbed them.

Leisure City -- with a long row of sunbathing chaise longues. For group sunbathing.

More trees growing out of erratics

Another lightning-based tree-explosion, one which was not here when we passed by three days ago (the tree was here, of course, but at that time still in good nick)

An exploded tree

We're pausing along 'Pink Island' in the southern bay, with the highway bridge in the background

It's almost time to put the venerable hydrobike into storage for the winter.

The Lake in the Wisconsin Northwoods

Mussent Point is at no. 12.