Life On the Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

 
Thanks again, Goggle Images

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A neighbor down at the end of the cove, here at the lake, writes: "You'll be interested in knowing that I have a lovely male Kingfisher (no brown on chest) who spends a great deal of time at this end of the cove.   I'm thrilled to see he's diving, and catching, a great number of young frogs in the shallows.  He's quite amusing to watch--it's not a very graceful catch.  He dives and plunges into the water with a great deal of splashing, then flaps back up to his perch, usually successful from what I can see through the binoculars."  Thanks, Miriam.

I remember the Kingfisher quite well. He used to perch on our hemlock, down at the edge of the lake, but I haven't seen him for quite some time. But this very morning, I spotted him headed East. a flash of blue and black. And I think a bit of brown.

Brandy rose in yard

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On a personal note, Norma and I have been  married 50 years today. ("Seems like only yesterday," she sighs, with a groan.)

When our son was born, I gave her cut roses of this color, which I considered a "salmon" color. We lived in a rented house, you see, and didn't want to plant a rose bush there, when we would move shortly. And when we did move, I bought her, us, such a rose bush. It bloomed a year or two, shriveled, and died.

There have been several other brandy roses in our lifetime together, and all have lived a few years, or more, then succumbed to whatever it is that shrivels and kills roses.

The present one is an attractor to aphids, which I removed by hand in hopes they haven't reached the blossom yet. Usually they have, and the result is a blasted bloom. But this one, this year, this month, this week, is almost perfect. If you look hard you can see a few blemishes, so don't look hard.

Happy anniversary, Norma. And tomorrow, or soon, we shall return to our normal Life at the Lake blog.

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Windfall apples in the yard now mark these early autumn days, while in the garden raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries put out their second crop, perhaps even a better one than the initial one. And the St. John's Wort, long bloomed out, is putting out a few odd blossoms that are in their scarcity more individually beautiful than the profusion last May.

Spring's plant of trout are about eleven inches long now, but will become larger quite soon since, I am told, they put on most of their growth in October--news that seems odd and comes as a bit of a surprise, since I've always thought of autumn as a time of nature's shutting down. I stand biologically corrected. And next month will come the aquatic inversion, when the temperature layers of the lake will do what is called "turn over" and mix, with the cold bottom layer coming up on top and all of the stratifications becoming one again, the temperature at whatever depth about the same.

Rain will help do it. We've had no measurable rain in three months now, and the lake is badly shrunken. But, tell it to the trout, which have begun to hit regularly again, now that most of the fishermen are gone from the lake in their post-Labor Day exodus.

Last month's full moon is but a memory

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What a bountiful time of the year it is, the start of September. Windfall apples to be gathered on our morning walk on a country road, and our garden producing a few of its own, plus late second crops of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, plus the first bush beans last night, and the pole beans yet to come. Flowers abound, though a bit set back because of two month's lack of rain. And my first trout in quite a while.

This trout was scrawny and dark, but then the water is 70 degrees F., down a bit from the 75 of a week ago because of the cool-again nights. They in themselves are a delight and call for a blanket again.

The young frogs are a problem, however. Anything new and pervasive promises a habitat change. They are about five inches long now and are everywhere along the shoreline; when I step on to my dock, they veritably explode in all directions. But they are quickly back and resume their froggy stations in a couple inches of water. So it is, suddenly, easy to see them for what they are.  Bullfrogs, I gather, from what people have told me, and in my mind I multiply each one by six or eight to get an approximation of their adult size.

And what throats they no doubt will  have--the whole shore erupting in deep choruses of nightly frog talk. Being pretty deaf often is an asset, but when the blackbird children return in February (from wherever it is they will soon fly off to) my deafness shall cause me to miss them, and it will be sad when Norma tells me out sweet they are to hear abed.

Thanks for the visit,
Robert C. Arnold, Editor