Tag Archives: Paw Paw Lake

Tracking the snow

A platoon may have marched this path, or just a few deer finding their way through the drifts and trees. Bluecircle neighbor Chris keeps corn and birdseed feeders that promote a regular pilgrimage by the wood goats. The half-buried trailer on the left shows nearly 3 weeks of lake-effect snowfall, making skis or snowshoes necessary unless you have fur. Or longer, younger legs than this author.

The sustained cold has made cross-country trails in these woods better than usual. Deer often follow them, compacting the snow but not reducing their utility – unless “nature calls” and the yellow snow melts to the ground (not pictured!).

However, visitor’s boot or sled tracks are not welcome additions to the trails. Please trudge through the deep snow if you’re able!

This hawk, or one like it, has been an occasional predator at our bird feeder. Swooping between the house and trees he leaves wingtip and skid marks in fresh snow.

Last week a red fox carried off one of the many black squirrels attracted by the feeder. Like finches, titmice and junkos they scatter when the hawk is nearby.

Orange pepper-treated bird food that birds enjoy but squirrels don’t has dramatically reduced seed consumption this year, making it cost-effective. And probably saving the life of a squirrel or two.

The final image in this post reflects the significant melting that began today, and the warmer, lengthening days ahead. There are already puddles on the lake ice, dirty drifts by the roadside and dry salty pavement on the roads

Fallen timbers

The solstice provides a little more daylight, more minutes to catch up on a post I meant to write in early Spring about the hybrid poplars. The plantings continue to evolve with some reaching more than 60 feet into the wind. Less successful specimens die off, rot at the ground and fall.

Wind-sheared tops are now becoming fairly common. This damage usually leaves more than half of the original tree intact, but growth is limited thereafter. It has become impractical to clean up debris between the planted rows so walnut and mulberry volunteers are joining in. The poplar shade is insufficient to prevent poison ivy, wild grape and black locust from adding greenery to the increasingly “naturalized” understory. Oak and pine seedlings added a few years ago are adding to the mix, but will have to survive the threat of falling poplars.

A recent storm was unusually severe and produced a domino-effect shearing of multiple poplars. In retrospect poplars in double rows of no more than 10 seedlings would have been preferable to the larger blocks I planted.

Under Winter’s blanket

Pines and firs blanketed by a February snow

The new year brought the season’s first real lake effect snows to Bluecircle. The ground has remained white since then, with the recent storm leaving a “too deep for boots” total. At least the transplanted pines of 2021 are well hidden from snack attacks by deer – like the one that left the tracks pictured below.

Sunny afternoons have been plentiful, albeit usually well below freezing. Electrical problems kept the Gator in the shop (again!) through the month so no ski tracks were packed. Fortunately the nearby Sarett Nature center’s trails have enabled plenty of exercise. A defective wiring harness apparently caused the Gator’s problems and it’s good to have it back in the barn. However, the current snowpack is too deep for even it to navigate.

This leaves plenty of time for trombone practice, beginning with a dozen exercises composed by E.F. Goldman in 1909. He described them as the “Daily Prayer” of every brass instrument player so I suppose this is just a little religion in the Bluecircle.

Fallen leaves, needles and temperatures at season’s end

img_1995Bright October afternoons of oak and maple leaves swirling in the wind are gone for another year.  The last red raspberries and tomatoes have frosted away so only b’sprouts, tiny broccoli and milkweed pods persist in the garden beds.
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A few yellowed needles drop from the Bluecircle pines but it will be many years before they make a layer of mulch under a mature canopy.  On a recent hike near Gun Lake fallen needles from the tall pines decorated the still-green maples.

But now the first gusts of lake-effect snow have brought shivers to the hilltop. Bronzed leaves that evaded the mulch pile blow randomly between the trees, finding company in the piles that grow by fences and shrubs. And the sun sets low in the almost-winter sky. img_0164

Pomona Point Neighbors

My neighbor shared this crisp late-summer view of the Bluecircle Farm from recent aerial photography of the Pomona Point area on Paw Paw Lake.  Pines, spruce, poplars and oak march like ragged battle lines across the grass.treefarm

As Pomona Point approaches its 150th anniversary Bluecircle Arts recently tried its hand at publishing and crafted a brief history of the Point and its neighborhoods.  This is now an e-book: “Pomona Point Neighbors at Paw Paw Lake”   http://www.blurb.com/ebooks/586338-pomona-point-neighbors-at-paw-paw-lake .  The book expanded a March, 2015 post on this blog about the history of the Bluecircle land to tell the resort history of the peninsula.

Snow on the roses

Snowy Bluebird Sophie the snow-loving dog was a lot happier with today’s April snow than the bluebirds in the woods. A stiff north wind and freezing temperatures for a second day brought 4-5 frosty inches to the Bluecircle. The Spring greens of lilac buds and the daffodil patch are already re-emerging in the noon sun but it’s too soon to put the snow shovel away in Watervliet.Greens in the snow

Shadowed snow invades inland

IMG_1833Downwind of Lake Michigan Winter brings many kinds of snow … tiny grains like white millet, wet flakes that hurry down, or light, dry rafts of giant flakes that swirl around the trees.   When the air is cold,  dry and gusty and the blue sky is cloudless the sun can burst from behind a lake-effect snow band bringing sudden blinding whiteness.  Just as quickly it can be enveloped by the snow cloud and dimmed – temporarily.   Yesterday a brilliant morning sun encountered the lake effect and painted gray shadows on the shaded side of falling flakes, making them silent grey invaders headed for the pristine drifts below.

When the cold checks out early

A rainy afternoon made the lake ice into a splash pond resembling mid-March instead of midwinter.  This month the cold was like a guest  you prepared the house and cooked for who then departed prematurely – days earlier than expected.   The snowshoes, long underwear and mittens are collecting dust but at least the refrigerator isn’t full of leftover food.  IMG_1807

Squirrels recovering buried treasure where there was a foot of snow last week look delighted while all cross-country ski tracks around the BlueCircle are either icy or washed away.   The greenhouse lettuce succumbed to persistent clouds and freezing temperatures so gardening season is finally over.

I prefer a snow-covered dog to a wet and muddy one and she would rather delve into snow piles then almost anything else so maybe the next puff of Winter will bring at least enough for that.  Meanwhile there’s time to catch up on indoor projects and plan for Spring.

A still Winter lake

IMG_1719 Even in an unseasonably warm year the dimmed December sun sits low above the horizon. The garden still yields carrots and surprisingly good leaf lettuce, this time the “volunteer” variety that reseeded itself when we tilled that part of the garden in August. The mower deck is off the garden tractor to be cleaned and greased; at least the grass knows this is a season of short days and rest. The year-end accounting of tree seedlings that survived and those that will need replaced is underway and encouraging. Most of next year’s planting will be in a recently cleared area replacing brambles, dead black locust and weeds.

An arborist’s nightmare

IMG_1671 In the tail-end of a hurricane wind the saw-wielding climber was roped high in one of the “old trees” of Smith’s Landing a.k.a. the Fairview Beach neighborhood. At first view the towering Maple looked sound, and despite the obvious skill (and courage) of the suspended man it seemed cruel that this tree had been selected for removal.IMG_1668 Of the dozens of Ash trees lost here in the last 3 years many still stand as leafless skeletons. Last year extensive removal of mature shade trees and old pines that had the misfortune to grow within “a threatening distance” of power lines further depleted our green space.
Sadly, this tall old Maple had now begun to split between its two main trunks and become unsafe.IMG_1673