Start of Darkness

Residing in Northern Wisconsin there are 2 days you look forward too.

One is December 21st the winter solstice, the day we go from losing daylight hours to the increasing of daylight minute by minute day after day until you can feel the warmth of the sun and see the melting of snow and expectation builds that spring will arrive.

And the second day you look forward to is February 2nd when an erasable lethargic quadruped skulks out of its lair to determine how much longer winter will last.

I celebrate February 2nd, Groundhog Day by doing what a groundhog would do – I slog myself out of my warm domicile into the outdoors to try and foresee the future.

I step outside to be greeted by Jack Frost laughing at my optimism and as I look down I see my shadow and my shadow says to me “what are you doing here?” I try to explain but my shadow disappears into the white gray of the snow in my driveway as the sun conceals itself behind the clouds.

This helps determine the photos for this blog post – a study in black and white as I enjoy what is left of winter and anticipate the arrival of spring. 

Dog Days

I recently lost a cousin /friend/ encourager. She was a kind and caring sole who over the course of her life had 13 rescue dogs. She loved all animals and I remember her giving me hug after she witnessed me stop my car to let a squirrel cross the road.

I think she loved dogs so much because they are uncomplicated and nonjudgmental. A dog is thrilled to see you every time you come home even if you have only been gone 15 minutes. A dog is thrilled with excitement if you ask “want to go for a walk?” How many people will let you throw a ball for them to fetch and wait anxiously for you to throw it again. And when all the fun is had a dog is content with some kibble and to join you on the couch for a nap.

I think we should be more like dogs; enjoy this moment the past is gone, and the future is unknowable so go for a walk, hug a dog, become uncomplicated.

And when I come in contact with a dog I will think of and miss my cousin.

A New Year

Heading into a new year with resolutions of being a new you while dragging the old you kicking and screaming with you.

Off to the gym, and to the health food store or outside for a walk with the old and new you to figure out the best you.

(How many times can this guy use you in a sentence???)

Water can be a solid, a vapor and liquid and so can you – emblematically and emphatically.

Things come and go, time is on the clock and you can only be you.

I hope you have enjoyed my blog in 22

Come back and see what I have for 23

Tis the season

It was the days before Christmas and all through the land

 Santa Clause new things were getting out of hand

People’s minds were filled with seasonal clutter

Must be here, must buy this, layaway, layaway! They could be heard to mutter

The season is for glad tidings and good will to man

That should be the plan

A child questions the holiday’s annoyances with style

But knows that the making of cookies always brings a smile

From jimsgibberis.com have a HAPPY HOLIDAY SEASON!

Just go out and do it you don’t need a good reason.

In a World Where Seasons Collide

Fall in northern Wisconsin can be a mixed bag of palpable change, where animals and plants come to life before they go into a winter slumber.

A tale of one of these days came from out of a seemingly systematic day, not hot, not cold just an October day. The trees were still in full color and I wanted to hide from my everyday obligations and chores with the excuse that soon the leaves would be down and covered with snow so I must be out in them before they are gone.

With camera in hand I stared on a hike into the woods … and soon after I started it began to snow … and then snow harder. Snowflakes as big as the palm of my hand fell out of the sky and mixed with the color of the fall leaves, I had entered a dreamlike snow globe of amusement.

By the time I got back to my car it and the ground were covered in an inch of snow and by the end of the day most of the snow had melted.

Enter that world by taking a trip through my photos.

Thanksgiving and a fall tribute

Thanksgiving is here and if you look profoundly, you can find something to be grateful for.

I will commence this blog with photos of some of the 19 turkeys that wondered through my unraked yard a month ago as they gathered to enjoy a feast.

This time of year in northern Wisconsin the leaves have fallen off the trees and are hidden under a thin covering of snow so I give you a retrospective of a bike ride I took while fall was still in coloration.

Photos of Endless Change - Fall color part I of?

The warmth of summer lingered into October and November like a first date you didn’t want to end.

The trees could tell that the sun traveled suspended lower in the sky rising later, setting sooner and yet they appeared to be waiting like me to see if fall would ever come.

Time transforms and changes everything in its wake and one day you noticed leaves turning color here and there. With the passing days more leaves would transform in to falls rainbow of colors and before you knew it the trees were in an eruption of one of the best fall color shows in memory.

I hope my photos and blog posts can articulate the extravaganza of colors that Nature puts on in Northern Wisconsin for only a couple of weeks in the fall.

Enjoy

The not Frozen Tundra

October 2nd, 2022, the calendar said fall, but the air temperatures were still summer like, and a modicum of leaves had started to change color. I was invited to go with this nice couple to see The Green Bay Packers play the New England Patriots.

When you think of Lambeau Field you think of snow and cold and the wearing of long underwear, substantial coats and gloves. On this day I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and carrying a sweatshirt in case I might need it by the end of the game.

The game starts off with a fly over and the singing of the national anthem.

The game is only part of the spectacle of being at a Green Bay Packer game.

There is people watching and comradery with thousands of other Packer fans, food and drink, cheering and anguish and at half time there were parachutists trying to land on the 50-yard line.

Then back to the excitement of the football game and a win in overtime.

Adventures in the Keweenaw

The long sun filled hours of summer are coming to an end and rumors of the last days of Lake Superior being warm enough to swim are fading fast.

The windows of opportunity to swim in Lake Superior are short and sometimes nonexistent so when I heard tales that some of the lakes 30 quadrillion gallons of water being in the mid 60’s to low 70’s I had to find out for myself.

I tossed the camping gear in the back of my car and drove the 3+ hours to the East side of the Keweenaw Peninsula. I set up my tent and then set out for a snorkel and a swim a surprising 50 minutes until my bones and joints began to ache from the cold.

Becoming a human solar panel, I recharged and warmed up on the sand under the sun before I made myself a nice dinner that included cucumbers and tomatoes from garden.

As I ate a full moon began to rise up out of the lake where it had been sleeping all day. I started a campfire and watched as the moon and stars filled the sky.

The chortle of Sandhill cranes wakened me to the fact that now the sun was rising out of Lake Superior where it had been sleeping near me all night.

The sun was shy as it started its day surrounding itself in a vapor of fog.

I was not as shy as I forgo a still damp and chilly swimsuit but still wrapped myself in a beach towel I had been using as a pillow and headed out for a morning plunge.

I had not seen or heard another human since I had arrived at the campground so I figured my nakedness would go unnoticed.

I scanned the beach to make sure I still had the place to myself, dropped my towel and jumped in and swam out to meet the sun.

Hunger and cold reminded me that it was time to get out and come up with something for breakfast. I edged myself out of the water and up onto the sand shoreline and tried to shake myself off like a wet dog and that’s when I heard clapping.

I looked up to see a middle-aged couple standing on a grassy bank above the beach applauding and the woman informing me “that is very brave.”

I’m not sure if she meant swimming in the cold water or being naked or both?

I gave a shy wave as I grabbed for my towel and when I looked back up the couple was heading back into the trees.

The rest of my camping trip was less action-packed with just more swimming and snorkeling, reading and napping in the sun enjoying what was left of summer.

The Friendly Skies

I spent time traveling in the past through the present.

The past was a 1929 New Standard D-5 Biplane, and the present was two weeks ago.

I had gone past the grass airfield with a sign out front reading “Biplane Rides Today” a couple times this summer every time thinking – I should do that!

I woke up early to the sun rising through a cloudless cerulean sky and nonexistent winds and I thought this was the morning for a Biplane ride. I grabbed my cameras and drove the 30 minutes to the grass airfield.

With the exchange of some money, we were off down the grass runway and up over the town of Manitowish Waters.

Then we circled over the cranberry marshes.

Then it was off to enjoy the friendly skies and local topography and lakes of the area.

Then it was time to head back to the grass airfield.

And the thumbs up from my pilot after another successful landing.

Now what for the next adventure?

Patience?

My brother informed me that he was going to be out of town for the day so would I mind letting his dog out. I arrived waking the old timer from his nap and after a large yawn he got off his couch, had a good stretch and out the door we went for a pee and a walk.

After our walk we both enjoyed my brothers garden – the dog appreciated a good roll in the recently weeded dirt and I searched for cucumbers, tomatoes and zucchinis to “barrow” along with admiring all of the flowers.

The flowers also enticed bees and hummingbirds; I considered this to be a great time to get the ultimate hummingbird photo.

Hummingbirds can flap their wings 50 to 200 time per second – could I get my patience to last longer than that?

The dog was taking a nap in the shade as I set up a lawn chair and waited for the hummingbird’s cameras at the ready. They put on a show of flying acrobatics that had me trying not to frighten them as I tried to focus on their rapid voyage through the air.

I will have to try again these are not the award-winning photos I had hoped for, but it was fun to be a part of a hummingbird’s day and to practice my patience.

A tree falls in the water …

I am not sure exactly when it happened but the centennial of time white pine was reaching for the sky last fall.

The white pine had been there so long that it just blended in and was just a part of the background of nature.

On my first trip to snorkel here this summer I looked out from my put in point and I noticed something had changed in the framework that encircled the lake.

Time and winter storms had brought down the pine snapping it off at its base and now instead of pointing to the sun it reached out horizontally pointing across the lake.

Now the things that lived in the lake noticed the pine and made it their home.

Fish lived in its branches like birds had done just a year before and toads hung rings of their eggs off the dying needles, and you could even find an intrepid photographer.

On the right track

We could hear the sounds of the trains in our minds and imagine how little the views had changed since the first train passed this way in 1888.

My brother and I rolled down the southern half of an old railroad grade now the Bearskin Trail on our bikes through woodlands past springs, creeks and streams on a pleasing summer day.

Flowers bloomed that we know not their names, but they didn’t seem to mind.

A stop for a swim at South Blue Lake helped ease the pain and aches of an extensive bike ride that we would do again.

To see or not to see

Summer is at full tilt in northern Wisconsin, and I found myself on very short walk that if I stopped and lingered that I could see things that I would not have seen.

Find a spot to delay time and see what you did not know there was to see.

Old Boats

Went on a photo quest to the Minocqua Antiques Boat show to see if I could capture the mastery of style and craftsmanship of old wooden and fiberglass boats that had lovingly been restored and preserved to time remembered.

I determined to not photo the extensive whole of these works of time but instead to show the flair of their elements of shape and form that might be missed looking at the complete vessel you may even be able to find this intrepid photographer I one of the photos?

Woo wooo woooo let the owls out.

Spring a time of beginning and I got the opportunity to photo a family of Bared owls.

A baby owl looking out into this unknown world from a hollow of a tree as the mom keeps an eye on me and what I am doing I wonder what they think of me?

Also this time of year pan fish are nesting protecting their eggs so that they can hatch.

The bass’s eggs have hatched but it is still protective of its fry.

Spring has Sprung

The energy of spring has formed flowers to emerge all around.

The bees and bugs are busy and getting busy?

An eagle rests.

And then the rains of spring roll in and interrupt the reflections on the water.

Here from There

On May the 4th 2022 I took my new knee out for a walk.

Even though it had been a long cold winter I was surprised to see that Star Lake was still frozen over as I turned down the road to the Trampers trail.

Snow was still hiding in the shade on the trail and in patches along my hike.

The sun of spring still had not brought out the buds on the trees or caused the grass to green but gave hope as I positioned myself to enjoy its warmth.

Patience is what I was being told to practice with my knee replacement recovery and also the recapture of summer. By May 14 2022 I could detect that spring could be delayed but not stopped.

I could no longer hold out my want to test my new knee in the water. The air temperature was a record setting 88 and the water temperature was a not so inviting 58 degrees when I entered Bass Lake. As I was getting my fins on two loons popped up out of the water to welcome me back and then disappeared below the surface of the water.

I endured for forty minutes in the brisk water my hands and feet throbbing from the chill of the water while my shoulders began to burn from the heat of the sun.

Like the plats on land the plants in the water were starting to reach for the warmth of the sun and as I photo’d them a sun fish checked me out from above and I made it from here there here

Air dweller

I am in the middle of my recovery from knee replacement and I have not kept up on my blog posts. The ice is still on the lakes of northern Wisconsin but it is showing signs of withdrawing and hiding until it is recalled and reruns next winter. With my limited mobility I think of all the places I need to return to and places I need to checkout and photo.

My mind deliberates on the fish I come across on my snorkeling adventures and I wonder what they think of me and why I am there, or do they just think “look an air dweller what is it doing here?”

Pan fish and bass seem to be the most curious of the freshwater fish I come across they stop their routine and examine me and will look me strait in the eye.

Muskies the largest fish in the fresh water lakes of northern Wisconsin are loners and I will sometimes catch them out of the corner of my eye shadowing me and when I turn to photo them they tire of me and easily disappear into the surroundings.

Perch try to camouflage into their environment keeping their distance while keeping an eye I on me.

Crappies are a shy fish that when we encounter each other they are gone as soon as I see them.

One of the wariest fish is the trout and of all my years snorkeling I have only chanced on them one at a time as they dart past into the safety of the deep.

This past fall was the first time I was astonished to see a school of them pass right in front of me making me wonder if I am the fun house mirror of the things I see.

Summer Dreams

My thoughts drift over an ice and snow covered lake in the middle of March in northern Wisconsin.

Aspirations of a not so far-off time when a warming sun hangs in the sky longer and I can get back to this same lake and snorkel its unfrozen waters.

Where tree roots and fallen trees take on the appearances of mythical beasts waiting for me to snorkel by and photograph them.

I can spend my time exploring favorite spots to see how time and the seasons have changed them since I was there last year.

Or I can adventure off into bays I have not yet explored and photographed.

Until nature reminds me who is in charge and tells me when it’s time to go.