Leaves Late, Feels like Winter

The DNR site shows that across Minnesota the leaves are late.  The cold chill in the air is more a late winter blast than the beginning.   We have had a couple of branches on oaks turn and move all the way to that partial drop that they do, leaving some purple-brown leaves till Spring.  But the general cast of the forest is lightly yellow-green.  Not much worth an oh or ah. 

Usually late September and into October had days of swimming left in it.  Not so far.  A couple last days to clean up is all we have seen.  Most days the lake is just too cold to hang out on.  Dark is clearly present too.  The cloudy day is the norm.  One day a few ago it was like a light bomb exploded it was so bright.  That emphasizes how rare those periods have been.  Of course, Canadian wildfire haze in the air has dimmed a lot of days this Summer. 

The garden is long done.  It had good grape tomatoes and beans, but the potatoes were a bit on the small size.  They all taste great, but there is just less potato in the cooler.  One wonders if the regular tiny rainfalls prevented a good enough dosing of the crop.

Frost and freeze are now expected the next two days.

Fall Settling In

Fall is in the air and settling upon the land.  Cold days are showing up some.  While near 90 yesterday, it still was chilly in the wind on the lake.  Swimmers were limited to me on the lake. and I was trying to stay in the really bright sunlight.

It was an amazing day, though.  The sunlight was so clear and super bright.  No light clouds, no heavy clouds, no Canadian wildfire haze.  These have stunted the brightness for a long time.  It seemed like a new burst of sunniness upon us in that it has been hazy for so long. 

The geese have begun to gather.  The numbers are tiny, but the fall ritual of honking has begun.  We watched about a dozen try to fly into the wind and making a had slow climb.

A flock or rafter of wild turkeys was spotted down the road the other day.  The rafter was thought to be about 24 of them.  They took their time crossing the road.  A pair running out of the grasses just as an earlier crossing pair made it across.  They are around but rare to us.  They seem to prefer the deeper woods it seems.

We have heard others talk about lakes being a bit weedier this year, and we find that true on Mud Lake.  Along with that, the water has never reached the bathtub temperature that it seems to always reach in earlier August.  It remained cooler than our normal.  I think like land grasses it got just the right cool to grow more.

The leaves have begun to turn for fall, but it is not a big rush.  Two area of oak have a branch turning full fall colors, while mostly green surrounds them.  The normal peak is about two weeks hence.  They have a long ways to go.

Our tamarack had a poor start this summer but has recovered.  It grew a very tall thin top piece that just did not make it through winter.  It looked on the way out, but recovered with a much bushier base area and a shorter top.

A pine grove starting by the lake seems to be doing well, too.  About two dozen 3-4 inch pines are starting in an area of about 10 by 30 feet.  We have given them a chip base to hold water and most of them survived last winter.

As the last post was in April, you can tell the summer was busy.

Ice Going and the Loons are Back

The Mud Lake ice is on the way gone.  Very late this year, of course.  The lake is approaching half water today.  The loons have been spotted for 2018, and if this year is like the past, they will make this the summer home.  The geese and some others have been nosing around for a week or two.

Ominous Storm of the Miloonium?

The Great Storm of 2018 hardly touched us here at the lake, but the radar image was ominous.  Is it a nuclear mushroom cloud or a bird’s head of a storm?  We went from the once considered 20 to 40 inches to a dust only.  The hammer hit elsewhere.

Fly Away Home

We tried out the Roku streaming and watched a delightful film: Fly Away Home.  It is the story of a family that uses  ultralight aircraft to teach a group of geese to migrate from Canada to North Carolina and back.  This is in the hope that migratory paths for endangered species can be reopened using the ultralights.  What a delightful film.  A wet land in the North Carolina is threatened with development and the chance that some group of birds will adopt it on migration is its only hope of withstanding the bulldozer.  Of course, it all works out.  Based on real events the viewer gets to see a lot of beautiful scenery along the travel path from Ontario to North Carolina.

The filming sites are [according to IMDb]:

Port Perry, Ontario, Canada

Sandbanks Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Auckland, New Zealand [earlier part of the story]

Niagara Falls Air Force Base, New York, USA

Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Main Street, St. Helena, Napa Valley, California, USA

North Carolina, USA

Our local geese, while a small group does stay here in winter, will be back soon.  The ice will be leaving with this warmth and they will honk-honk their way.

In times like these, Mr. Rogers

With Spring coming a some beautiful days taking us outside, we paused to watch PS cover the career of Mr. Rogers.  In these days where so many just seem pulled by the forces of disgust and evil,he stands near alone in his purity.  What a dude.  Be sure and put him on your snail mail after the 24th of the month.  USPS has a great stamp coming out of Mr. Rogers and the King.  It has its First Day on March 23, meaning your post office should have it on the 24th.

Beautiful Days in the Neighborhood

A beautiful day with light winds and temperatures in the forties.  The Sun is shining bright and the water is dripping, or falling in frozen chunks, from the roof.  A herd of 14 deer roamed by early, including some indicating the winter has been nice to them given their chubbiness.  The forecast is for some more of these days, bringing thoughts of green grass in the open areas by the weekend. 

Winter Comes Hard

Winter has settled upon the lake.  We have had some limited snow, but the ground is covered for the duration.  This week has a 6-11 inch storm promised, but one never seems to know if that will happen.  Temperatures have been the big issue, dropping to –34 with a number of –25 to –30 nights.  That has raised issues for the pump, septic system, and roof septic vent.  All are fine given the running of a lot of hot water to keep the whole thing going.

The squirrels seem to have holed upon for the duration.  Only Chip has been seen in the last two weeks and that was on a lone good day.  The deer are about but seem to be hiding too.  Even daisy has been seen wearing her sweater to keep warm doing her duty.  The thicker knit green tone one has been the favorite.  Walks have been limited given the wind chill warnings and advisories.

While it looks like good snowmobiling time, they have not been seen much.  The trials are just not ready yet.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.