Mud Lake in Winter

Mud Lake in Winter

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Snow


Snow, and the beginnings of ice on the lake, have made themselves known. It looks like the thin snow cover is going to last the season.  Chances of a melt off are slim.  Ice has been seen around the short of Mud Lake.  It is thin, and it changes by the day, but it is likely to stay.

The geese and two swans have been hanging out on the lake.  No big fly off yet by the geese.  The swans are only current visitors here as they must be on the river over winter to  be in open water.

There are no signs of the beaver.  Beave cut a tree down or two, but action in harvesting the load has been nil.The smelly stuff obtained to deter him from the trees close to the dock zone has remained unused.

Friday, October 20, 2017

Tamarack Towers


Now after its third year on the property, the in the open tamarack tree is growing like wild.  It is a genuine Department of Natural Resources seedling, and this year it just shot up.  Most of them are still down in the 1-2 foot range.  Daisy approves.


Thursday, October 12, 2017

Beaver Attack!


Having not seen the beaver in Mud Lake since he swam by me a couple years ago, we note he is still here.  A tree on the neighbors suddenly hit the deck over night.  The base bears the telltale gnawing marks of the beaver.  And I used his Ipana toothpaste as a kid and now he steals the trees.

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Itasca Leaves

We made the annual leaf viewing trip to Itasca State Park.  The park did not disappoint.  While some of those special trees that just delight with color seemed missing this year, the general view of of bright, yellow in its many shades.

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Monday, September 18, 2017

An Abundant Harvest


The garden has been productive this year.  The netting has kept our deer friends away with great success.  The tomato crop and the beans both have been super.  The peppers are giant.  And the potatoes have been wonderful.  Note the Kennebec in the photo.  Sue dug up just three plants and we thought we got five pounds.



Then there were the peppers…


Saturday, July 29, 2017

The Dry Summer

 

It has been awhile.  We have been busy with the now seemingly usual work of summer.  The trees have been holding up.  We lost a couple to some tree service people, basically cleaning up to remnants of last summer.  The leaners that failed to fall enough got themselves cleaned up and a few giant branches that stayed attached and growing had to come down.  Experts who climb trees to cut took care of these.

The first section of the dock go new wood.  The patio had a spot wood repair.  The garden is growing like mad.

I almost picked up a foot long turtle by its head today.  Thought it was a dead water lily leaf under water, but nooooo.  I was about to grab when something caused my mind to stop.  It turned a swam away and I headed out of the water to look from the dock.

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Almost Summer, Now Winter Returns

 

Saturday was a most beautiful 70 degrees, and we woke up to snow covering the grass.  The roads melted fast, but it is one nice winter scene outside now.  A lot of summer things are getting snow on them too.  Most of the solar lights are in place and sit with snow caps.  The patio furniture is white, mostly.  I suppose the lake will be empty of fishing boats today?

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Ice Out!

 

April 3 should be the official day to call the “ice out” for Mud Lake.  A tiny area remained on the south shore, but the majority of the lake was wet.  Today, on the  4th, the lake is fully clear with only tiny pieces remaining.  Sad, again another year without the spectacularly odd and ozzie noises of ice break up.

Friday, March 31, 2017

Spring Clean Up

 

Spring clean-up is underway.  As far as we can tell only one tiny square foot of ice remains unmelted.  It is right be the house and gets only morning sun.

The squirrels are up from Winter.  They have been checking the sunflower seeds.  Young Melvin seems to have shown up, but has been joined by Mr. and Mrs. Phil.  The birds are sketchy, but starting to explore the sunflowers.  For a few minutes one hoard of tiny sparrows searched the ground for some nosh.

The leaves have been blown off the septic tank and drain field area.  Chances seem remote of severely low temperatures.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

What Next?

 

The melt continued until the roof was mostly clear.  One valley area that gets the Sun late in the day did not get enough energy to fully melt.  Then we got some rain to help out.  Then it turned cold.  The big storm today missed us being far to the South.  Some minor snow activity can be expected over the next week.  At least, we got the blacktop driveway back after a couple months of white and ice.

As the place melted we did get one squirrel checking out the feeders.  He got a little to take home.  He was not one of the crew here during the summer.  The new guy he is called.  Some deer have been wondering around, too.  The Gang of Seven seems to find the melted area of interest.

Friday, February 17, 2017

Warm Spell hits 40s and up.

 

The weather is turning warm to the max this seek.  The ice coating is melting away and the roofs should soon be back to their human made colors.  It is a bit wet as all that melts.

Conveniently they have snow scheduled for one this inconvenient ice-snow is gone.  Ands showing a sense of change, the snow is not scheduled for Tuesday as most has been.

Note that I bought a sled on sale today.  Next row up was loaded with summer gardening supplies ready to go.  Of course, I use the sled for pulling the chain saw and its fuels and tools around during the summer.  Wore the bottom off the old one.

Monday, January 30, 2017

Ice

 

The back and forth of temperature and precipitation type has brought a solidness to the snow cover.  I hit one drift with a regular shovel and the shovel bounced back.  Hard as can be it was.  The freezing rain cover and the melting periods have left us coated.  Today light snow is coating it all in fluff.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Snow and Wind

 

While the snow totals have not been that great, the piling of it all looks like this has been dump city.  The snow seems deep and the roof had to be cleared.  Piles are along side the roads to town.  The wind picks up from time to time and watches, advisories, and alerts are issued.   Cold is the word.

Tonight is to be another –30F night or so.  West of us they had a blizzard without snow falling.  Just had the wind blowing old snow.

We have had to shovel the area out the front door so the dog has a place to go.  In and out quickly is the rule right now.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Storm-Light

 

A sunny day today with a temperature near zero.  The storm mostly missed us leaving about , maybe, 3.5 inches in a two part dump.  The old icy layer is still there.