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.
The vintage boathouse with the pontoon boat's shore station, at Mussent Point
The higgledy-piggledy tree looming over the boathouse
The OED suggests that that term originated in the 16th century from the 'disorganized behavior of pigs'.
Some of the higgledy-piggledy tree's contributions to the lake over the years (mostly now hoisted back into a shoreside pile), except for . . .
. . . this one. Immovable without mechanized professional assistance.
But round the front of Kristin's cottage, the arboreal wreckage has been piled up fairly neatly, and has been providing an attractive spot for the small-boat fishing aficionados.
Alongside the boathouse, our little hydrobike 'harbor'. Some bikes are presently in use.
Our summer reading room
Only one car at the end of the driveway (ours). In another week, it will be choked with more (including trucks).
Choupette has been staring for the past 20 minutes at what is probably a little mammal's burrow, without even moving her head. (Nothing came of it, this time.)
Another sadly downed tree in the Sandy Beach Bay, as we . . .
. . . return to visit the old Sandy Beach itself, now mostly under water this year, and . . .
. . . off limits on the shore anyway.
In 2018 Cousin Rob's branch of the family, shareholders of the Yawkey Lumber Company that owned the land of the original sawmill here (ca. 1889 to ca. 1911), donated some 453 acres of the woods surrounding the 590-acre lake, including nearly 4 miles of now-protected shoreline. Most of the woods are open to the public, but certain areas under environmental threat, and four of the islands, are off limits. The Northwoods Land Trust describes this as 'one of the most valuable and sizable outright gifts of conservation land to a land trust in Wisconsin'.
Looking north up the lake (towards Mussent Point behind a few of the islands)
Not too many years ago, with a wider beach here, this was a favorite family picnic spot.
Coming out of Sandy Beach Bay, this is the tiny Baby Leigh island (reef, rather), which . . .
. . . always reminds of a skeletal pirate ship.
It's actually a property of the state and posted by the state ('No Camping') -- someone way back when forgot to pay the property tax on it, and it got repo'ed. It's sometimes or often the site of a loons' nest.
Another house on Mussent Point -- the wavy green thing was intended to deter any deer that got through the fence round the property and gobbled up the gardens, but apparently it didn't work.
Late afternoon on the eastern side of the lake . . .
. . . very impressive. Our western shoreline is probably just as impressive in the early morning, and someday we'll arrange to have a look at it.
Some kind of cat conspiracy in the planning stage
But Choupette falls back on a treacherous hunting mode.
A small shrine on Gary's point leading into Tomahawk Bay; there's a suitable bench flanked by small American flags, and plenty of time for reflection.
Below the little statue are two nearly full-size fake alligators, one approaching from each side.
Fish nests (nearly everywhere at this time)
This is the 19th century canal running through to the larger lake 700 meters to the northeast, originally dug out to float logs across for the sawmill. Early photos show an attractive two lengths of it and a very nice small mid-lake halfway through.
Over many years there's been no maintenance on it, and a lot of fallen and washed out detritus has made travelling through it difficult, especially in just the past two or three years. Canoes and kayaks have a good chance, but hydrobikes are much more difficult. Here, it looks like someone has been trying either to pile up some of the bad stuff or to block the whole thing off, but the entrance at this end appears to have been partially opened up at the surface level.
The sign is new, and just says 'I'd turn back if I were you', which apparently comes from the Wizard of Oz. But whether it's serious or just good fun escapes us so far.
An ancient tree next to the canal entrance
Tomahawk Bay seen from the canal entrance, about 400 meters across from this angle. There are only three cottages facing onto the bay, two of which are also facing across the point onto the main lake.
A small cove just past the point leading into Tomahawk Bay, like most of the other little coves on the lake based onto areas of swamp. But this one is a bit special, because . . .
. . . this one hides a creek leading about 200m (660 ft) back into the swamps to a small lake (both creek and lake visible on Google Maps) -- we'd been wondering about it for years, and forever planning to explore it and forever putting it off.
Cousin Rob recalled that many years ago there was a carriage track down from the headland on the right and up to the one on the left, with a small bridge over the creek, but all that's lost in the mists of time now. But in September 2023, Rob's last summer with us (he passed away in January 2024), Tracy Hames, the Executive Director of the Wisconsin Wetlands Association, drove up from Madison to help Rob get through to the little lake with a canoe. It made Rob's day!
Trampoline lessons, from a well-schooled teacher and a wildly enthusiastic student.
Passing along some good advice, no doubt . . .
. . . but it seems not to have worked very well this time.
The same enthusiastic student is also taking lawn tractor driving lessons, normally excitably happy but . . .
. . . this time, possibly over-tired or something.
A mysterious large pink thing is pulling up alongside Mussent Point, and disturbing our reading out on the lawn.
It's a pink barge -- what on earth are they doing?
Ah, well done. They've retrieved a lost piece of somebody's else shore station.
Those chaps are in the business of setting up residents' shore stations in the early summer, and removing them again in the fall. How they dropped a big piece of one onto the Mussent Point would be difficult to guess.
This is the farthest north cove on the lake, similarly built round a generous swamp, but it's a bit special.
First, because most of the houses along here are basically log-cabin mansions in the more than a million dollars range, and second, because it's the cove most overrun by troublesome submerged weeds.
Despite what this looks like here, though, this summer there's less of this submerged stuff and especially far less of the water-lily infestations that overrun some areas, including the lead-in to our hydrobike hideout.
Here's a view out of the cove, with some of those weed nuisances just visible under the surface.
And the view out of the cove on the North Bay of the main lake
The sky is threatening again, so we'll pedal back in.
Another day, and Choupette and Melvin have just been let out to play, so . . .
. . . why aren't they playing? Or at least hunting smaller wildlife. Pausing to nibble grass off the side of the garage is just a waste of vacation time.
That's more like it.
And Melvin, who (like Choupette) relishes rubbing round with his back on the pavement, is getting an audience, again.
These ladies are a work team helping on the reconstructions going on in the cottage just next to ours, which evidently got carelessly moldy at some point and requires serious assistance.
So Melvin, once again, has made some new friends.
Down by the highway bridge, 3km south of Mussent Point, we sometimes sit quietly on the bike and wait to photograph an Amazon truck passing overhead. But sometimes, we just have to make do with a UPS truck or, in this case, somebody towing his pontoon boat.
Another day, Mel and the Choup have just been let out to play, but their attention has instantly been drawn to something.
Oh, robins. But the robins are much smarter and faster than either cat, even Choupette, and in any case they'll be moving on in another week.
A single loon on the lake introduces a kind of sadness in onlookers, but . . .
. . . we later learned that the pair is still an item. Maybe mom's sleeping in today. [A month later and we still haven't heard definitively whether the chicks have made it through.]
That's the crescent east side of the main island, Adjidaumo, and we've come by to see whether the eagle's nest is still visible through the branches. It looks like it is.
This has been the original eagles' nest since I've been coming here (in the '90s), but a few years ago another pair created another nest down off the Tigertail in South Shore Bay, with their own little family. We'll stop down there for a good look soon.
Pedaling furiouslyz back north, for no good reason, at the end of a pleasant expedition.
The Lake in the Wisconsin Northwoods
Mussent Point is at no. 12.
The text overlays are updating a few names to our current understanding.
Next up: We await further dispatches.
Dwight Peck's personal website
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All rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 9 July 2026.
