Sweet Lake

 

Early Evening Calm on Sweet Lake.

No television or newspapers for me tonight, nor has there been much of that over the weekend.  I returned this evening from a short two days at Sweet Lake in northwestern Wisconsin.  While away I eased myself out of my routine so effectively I forgot to change my socks and smoke my cigar.  Not necessarily things I do together at the same time, but either one is a certain sign that I was preoccupied.

But preoccupied in good ways, I think.  I was there with my brother, an uncle, and two cousins.  An early autumn trip with them has become a bit of a tradition.  We didn’t stand around and look at each other as much as we have in the past, but we shared a good time nonetheless.

For my part, I think I could use more time in a remote quiet place without distractions.  The cabin is stocked with many artifacts from the past, including a small collection of books, that set a mood I enjoy.  I like to think about the cabin’s previous owner reading those books which were likely a large source of evening entertainment back in 1952, say.  I started reading The Clock Strikes Thirteen and it was difficult to focus on story.  My mind wandered instead to thoughts of what it might have been like sitting in a rustic cabin 50 years ago reading about life in New York City while on a small isolated Wisconsin lake.

For a moment my uncle found a radio station playing songs that recalled the Big Band era of years ago…but that station quickly got changed to some slick contemporary station out of Duluth or Superior.  Madonna didn’t really fit the scene so well for me.  But I read on and found a few other interesting books.   All very good.

And, of course, where would I be if I were not a bit hypocritical about my pining for rustic isolation?  We did indeed go out for a drink or two and a pizza.  Dinner in the cabin was quite nice, however…still, you have to get out and stimulate the local economy these days and staying in touch with the locals is a good idea too.  So out we went.

This is the perfect time of the year to be alone at the lake.  This morning we had a breakfast of quiche, rolls, apples, and toast on the picnic table with a comfortable early autumn chill and it could not have been nicer.  The entire day sort of teetered between summer warmth and autumn chills; it is that time of the year.

And here I am tempted to go all quasi-psuedo-philosophical on you and say that I couldn’t help but feel a little Septemberish myself, teetering between this and that and wondering which was the better way to go, but I’ll spare you the self-analysis at the moment and talk about Rick, the chipmunk, instead.

Now Rick…there’s an enterprising guy that is anything but a September dude.  He’s all action and determination and full of purpose.  Staying away from owls and coyotes are a top priority, but an even more urgent task is at hand and so he goes at it.  This is the time of the year when Rick gathers up some reserves for the winter.  I felt good about this, seeing Rick scamper about without complaint or delay.  So I put some peanuts out for him, which I hope won’t spoil his strong hard-work ethic.  (I don’t think so…chipmunks don’t seem to be very neurotic animals to me.)

Splintered Pine

I did get a couple short walks, but I don’t have much to show for them.  No photos of deer or wooly bears or bear scat to share this time.  I did find this awesome trunk of a very old pine splintered at the back of our lot.  It was a tall tree — at least 40 feet tall, I think — and it snapped while others remained standing.  That in itself is interesting.  But look at the trunk of this old tree.  It is absolutely shattered.  In fact I found an eight-foot splinter about 25 feet from the trunk caught up in some hazelnut bush.   I started carrying it back, but it was heavy and sticky with sap.  I leaned it against a tree to get another time and I regret now not saving it today.  The wood now is a rich butter-yellow color and soft and smooth.  When I see it again it will likely be turning grey in the weather.

Virginia Woolf made the point that a woman needed a room of her own if she were to have the opportunities to fully realize her potential.  (I’m paraphrasing interpretation here, but that’s more or less it.)  Depending on how you want to read Virginia Woolf’s thesis, you could see how she thinks a level of security and comfort is necessary for the full and free pursuit of one’s interests, but I think there is something more spiritual and affirming about her idea.  A room of one’s one is also a space, both literally and figuratively, where a person has a degree of poetic license…a place to sort things out, if you will.  These weekends away are kind of my room.   I think we all need these.

I’m still looking for that passion, however…that thing that tunes me up and gets me running…and sometimes I feel like it is right there, about ready to converge upon me.  Getting warmer, maybe…

And then, alas, I have tomorrow’s meetings creeping up on me and my noisy neighbor sorting glass in recycling bins behind me.  The noise!  Noise, noise, noise…yes, the noise.

 

Sweet Lake Outhouse

One more before we begin with sales again.  (Waiting on a client who is getting a check for me.  I need to leave here in 30 minutes.  Do I think there will be a check waiting for me?  Probably not.)

Sweet Lake Outhouse

That’s an awfully nice outhouse, isn’t it?  Built by my dad probably 30 years ago, maybe more, using old siding from his brother’s cabin on Sullivan Lake in central Minnesota.  That outhouse has withstood the tests of time and other things.  It serves as a storage shed, too, and as a great place to hang some old deer antlers. 

The thing has held up well.  I don’t recall any plans being drawn up.  The dimensions were pretty much eye-balled with a tape measure, lumber and siding cut to fit.  It has an old linoleum floor and plenty of hooks on walls for hanging things like old rope.  And this shovel.

I felt queasy — again — when I saw this shovel.  As a little boy my family vacationed with my aunts and uncles and cousins for a week on Big Sandy Lake.  The resort we used had a small sandy beach that was all but destroyed by castle and canal building.  One year I was all ready to go with my new shovel — this shovel — and I started digging away when the shovel hit a rock buried beneath the sand.  The shovel stopped, my hand didn’t.  My delicate young thumb sliced over the sharp end where the shovel’s blade and handle meet.  It bled quite a bit and I got very, very woozey.  I made a quick turn for my family’s cabin on wobbly legs.  

Pre-Recall Era Shovel. Probably Stamped Out in Detroit.

Got to the cabin and wrapped my thumb up tight in a wad of paper napkins and recovered.  Eventually an adult came in, looked at it, gave it an “Oh my”, and bound it up it up Band-Aids so tightly that I thought the thumb might fall off.  It didn’t fall off, of course, but for many years I could still see a fine light scar where that shovel cut my thumb.  Until this trip, I didn’t know that shovel survived.  I stopped using it ca July, 1971.

Yes…you might not really think of them this way, but outhouses can be filled with treasures.   And if they are very old and very, very lightly used for their primary intended purpose they can have a pleasant smell, too.  Ours smells like old motor oil and tarps.  Give it a thought for a moment.  Is there a better smell than old motor oil and tarps?  Maybe the autumn woods has it beat, but not many other things do.

But let me tell you what this outhouse has that most others do not:  A tremendous view!  I’m willing to bet it is even a good one in the winter, spring, or summer…but I got this in the fall.  Kinda makes you want to stay for a while, doesn’t it?

Can’t stay here now though.  Time to kick in the sales career and chase a phantom check.

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Sweet Lake Weekend, Pt. 2

 

This would be a great weekend to be back up at Sweet Lake.  So let’s go back. 

I have already shared news about the coyotes.  It’s time to move down the food chain to the grouse.  (They are more common along the north shore of Lake Superior where some people still have enough immigrant Scandinavian accent to pronounce grouse so it rhymes with “moose.” ) 

When I first drove the driveway and opened the door of my old Explorer, I spooked a large grouse that when flying through a tight maze of poplar saplings that have grown in the blown down that a storm cleared several years ago.  The bird had no problem moving through the thick branches. 

The next day, however, I was walking toward the lake on our lot when I scared up the grouse again.  This time the grouse was in an area of mature trees and a lot of clear flying.  Unfortunately, the grouse flew right into the side of the neighbor’s cabin.   I heard a loud whack and saw a stunned ball of feathers tumble down the bank toward the lake.  I’m not sure if the bird recovered.  I really didn’t want to go find out.

Perhaps the bird was fed up with things.

The lake was perfectly still.  Like glass.  Beautiful.  But I had spent all my time near the water and so I decided to go back into the woods.

We have a nice stretch of lake frontage, but most of the land is back off the water.  Unfortunately most of the trees back there got blown down about 12 years ago when large storms rolled in from as far away as Minnesota’s Arrowhead and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.  These were big storms.  Eventually all the blow down in the BWCA fueled fires several years ago; fires  like the Ham Lake Fire up along the Gunflint Trail in Minnesota.  We avoided fire and only lost a lot of trees which have been replaced by the poplar that Grouse like so much.

Fallen Giant White Pine Surrounded by Blowdown Saplings

I cut through a corner of our back lot onto Sweet Lake Road which seems to have been reconfigured at least twice over the years.  It doesn’t run down near the lake like it once did, for example…or maybe we were driving down private roads back in the days when we thought the road did go near the lake.  But it doesn’t look open any more.  Just a few old cabins at the end of the road.  A few nice walk. 

Even some wildlife.  I saw a few deer and all sorts of birds.  My lack of skill at photographing wildlife continues.  I took a picture of two deer crossing the road…and take a look.

Two Deer Crossing Sweet Lake Road

 The problem isn’t as much mine as it is my camera.  It does this “click-buzz-click” thing before it actually snaps a picture, just enough time for the deer to bound into the woods and miss the photo.  Still…a rather nice shot of the road, don’t you agree?

Just to the west of this spot two trails work into the woods.  One of them cuts the back edge of our off-lake property.  We acquired this land recently in addition to the lake land we have had for years.  The previous owner had placed a sign prohibiting four-wheelers from using the trail.  I’m sure the effort was a futile one.  Four-wheelers tend to go where they want to go.  Not all of them, but enough of them to make enemies with some people.   I put up the sign again because I hated seeing the effort to make such a nice sign go wasted.

"No Vehicles. No 4-Wheelers."

Down this trail are some nice groves of white and red pine maturing.  I am not good at aging trees, but I’ll take a stab at it.  I’ll say they are in the 50 year range.  Clusters of shrubs that look like alder and hazelnut along with large mats of blueberry and ferns grow here and there.  I do need to get my tree book out though and really identify these trees and plants.  I knew so much more about these things when I was a kid.  Spending too much time in the city can be harmful to your knowledge of the world.

What I might like best about these walks is the scent of the air, especially in the fall.  Sweet, woody, earthy and unmistakably fresh.  It is a tonic.  And near the pines the smell is even sweeter.  It is the perfect northwoods scent. 

 My tour moves back toward the lake and the cabins and homes that are there.  An ubiquitous feature you will discover if you spend any time poking around homes in the north country is the back yard tire pile.  I’m not sure what it is, but it does seem to be de rigueur that you have a pile of old tires on your property if you live in the rural north.  Our neighbors are no exception.  In fact they have a deluxe pile.  It includes old stuff like an old boat.  I don’t feel deprived or jealous, however.  When I feel the need, I simply go back and enjoy their pile. 

You Need One of These to be Legit.

(Here is a tip for you.  If you want to know what north country living is like, tune into the Red Green Show on PBS.  From what I can tell, they have it covered pretty well.  Unless you’re a drinker, which covers a lot of people…they live a more specialized lifestyle.  But all like to collect things and toss them in the backyard, some prefer lawn art, others prefer broken machinery…but I swear all have old tires in the mix somewhere.)

My time is up.  I gave myself only until noon to complete a post.  I do have more photos I want to share so come back later.  If necessary I will post with little comment.

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Was That a Wolf?

A Coyote, Not a Wolf

 

Nope.     

After doing a little research, I am confident that the animals we heard Saturday night at Sweet Lake were coyotes, not wolves.  And the animal that we saw on the hill behind Uncle Ed’s cabin also was a coyote and not a wolf.  I have photos of prints I found on a trail back in the woods and the animal we saw on the hill had reddish fur on his face.  The size of the prints and the coloring on the coyote on this hill both are consistent with a coyote.      

Some locals complain that there are too many wolves in the area now.  Not long ago no wolves roamed the area.  The comeback is fantastic…and I would argue necessary.  A lot of what wolves eat run through the woods.  Deer practically infest the woods today.  I might argue that more food means more wolves and I am not sure that is a bad thing.     

Coyote Tracks. Sweet Lake.

 

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Sweet Lake Weekend, Pt 1

          

My apologies for the delayed posts.  I have been goofing off.  Like you, I am a bit bored with tiresome sales stories and even more tiresome clients.  So let’s take a little adventure north and visit Sweet Lake.  This post will give you a brief lay-of-the-land kind of overview of the place.  I have more to say when we stroll, explore, and goof around more.  (What happens when you put a decades-old gas can on a bonfire, for example.)          

Sweet Lake is a small spring fed lake in northwest Wisconsin.  My family has had property on the lake for over 30 years.  Prior to that we stayed at resorts on Upper Eau Clair and Middle Eau Claire lakes on the same chain of lakes with Sweet Lake.  There have been many changes — some of the small cabins on our side of the lake have been lost and replaced by larger homes — but for the most part Sweet Lake is very much like it has always been.  Clean, quiet, and understated.  It is a brilliant little treasure in the north woods.          

Autumn is a wonderful time to visit the lake, perhaps the best time to visit the lake.  The air is crisp, dry, clean.  The air smells sweet and earthy.  And the forests are alive and beginning to turn.  If you don’t see wildlife, you hear it, although our list of spotted wildlife was fairly impressive:  Countless birds, deer, a black bear (hanging at a DNR big game registration station), and what appeared to be a coyote sniffing through drying ferns and blueberry bushes.  It might have been a wolf — they are in the area — in fact late at night a group of coyotes — or maybe wolves — made quite a racket calling and yelping in a pack not far in the woods behind us.          

What I like most about autumn at the lake, however, is the quiet beautiful change.  There isn’t anything about the fall season that a person can complain about.  Even the coming cold feels right (28 degrees at our last check before rolling out blankets and sleeping bags for the night).  Most people prefer summer at the lake, but a person can do everything they want to do in the summer during the fall and enjoy all the extra benefits the season brings.           

My uncle has a great old cabin on Sweet Lake.  I’ll guess it is about 70 years old and is loaded with character.  Unlike so many hideous “cabins” being built today, this one still has a lot of charm.  It is a real cabin.  I have better pictures of the cabin, unfortunately none of them was taken this last weekend.           

Uncle Ed's Cabin

 

The cabin was part of an old resort; it was the resort owner’s cabin.  Inside the cabin are many artificats from the old resort.  Stacks of old dishes, a row of stove top perculating cofeemakers, and a treasure of old books and pamphlets and things.           

My family has a large lot on the lake just a short walk down the road from my uncle’s cabin.  We are at the other end of the old resort on the last piece of undeveloped property.  It is a wide piece of lake frontage that runs very deep into the woods.           

We have a building plot ready, but for now a sturdy camper, an outhouse, and a fire ring work well on the property.  There’s a dock on the water and a couple small boats.  A large boat isn’t necessary.  The lake is only 88 acres large.          

Simple, Functional, and a Great View

 

In the Sweet Lake area we have access to an assortment of northern Wisconsin bars, which — for the uninitiated – can be a challenge.  Bars in Wisconsin are indeed friendly for the most part, but be prepared to drink beer and possibly some of the most horrible liquor ever concocted for unknown reasons.  It is just what they do.          

We also have a few restaurants (usually attached to or surrounded by a bar) to enjoy.  Generally these are quite good.  Can’t really say that about our recent visit, however; the regular staff must have been tied up in the basement.  Nevertheless these places are extremely comfortable and traditional.           

And we have options for groceries, batteries, bait and things.  We opt for Jim’s Bait and have for more than 30 years.  And it has been about as long since we purchased any bait.  Can’t say a heck of a lot about the fishing because the lake is more like a swimming pool than fishing hole, but people do catch fish.  In fact we have this somewhat gruesome reminder that fish do indeed lurk in the crystal clear waters of Sweet Lake.  We have our own Kurtz with his Heart of Darkness moments and a sense of the macabre on our row of cabins.           

Sweet Lake Monsters

 

 My brother, two cousins along with a friend of theirs, and Uncle Ed spent a short weekend at the lake to get things ready for the winter.  It left us with plenty of time to clear some brush, build a fire, and drink some beer.  Not a bad way to spend a spectacular late-September weekend.  The skies were absolutely brilliant and blue, with only wisps of clouds here and there.  Perfect weather for viewing the fall colors, which were nearly at peak on the county highway immediately south of the lake.    

We had plenty of opportunity for fun and I want to take you on a walking tour, but right now I feel like Jack Nicholson post-lobotomy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  But I do want  to take you on that tour and I believe I can load up a photo gallery.  Be excited!   

Until then…sleep well.