Life On the Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

This is just about the worst year in memory for algae. Note the bright green stuff, which was tested and determined to be toxic for small animals

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We are having a long-lasting algae bloom, and being told that all nearby lowland lakes are experiencing them too is no consolation. The county tells us to keep small animals away from the water and not to let them drink from the lake.

Try telling this to a pair of Black Labs! Well, I did, and they heard me, but the look in four brown eyes informs me I am being mean. This wrenches my old heart, it does.

The only thing that will improve the condition of the lake is lots of cold rain. And time. In the meanwhile, we all suffer, especially the dogs that have to be repeatedly warned to stay away from the water. And people, too.

Nearly full moon, viewed through a veil of clouds

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What are the birds of autumn? Well, the Oregon juncos are back in force. Stellar jays regularly come round and chase every other bird away by sheer size and force of personality. Out on the lake a few mixed sex lesser scaups and many Northern shovelers--a mallard-looking duck that ploughs the center of the lake with its huge beak, scooping up algae and weed steadily.

Along the near shoreline are the pied-billed grebes, a small, diving duck that is an efficient fisher. I watch one with its catch, turning the little bright fish around and around before swallowing it head first, at last. All this repeated action is more than protocol; if the duck swallows the fish any other way, the fish's spiny rays will lodge in the duck's throat and kill it, probably by drowning.

The duck knows this at birth. And I see one of a pair of grebes catch a small perch (it looks like, with the naked eye) and swim swiftly along the surface away from the second grebe, which will chase and snatch the fish away, given less than half a chance.

Yet they fish nearly together; when one grebe dives, the second and sometimes a third all dive collectively, almost as though linked by wire that drags the others under with scarce pause. They emerge only slightly less attached and pop to the surface like corks. One, then two, and finally the third. All are fishless, I notice.

How many dives does it take to get a single sustaining fish? Many, in most instances.

Last year's apples; this year's were half again as big

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09-27-06. Harvested this day half the apple crop (Honeycrisp, a recent hybrid based on Golden Delicious stock). The box weighed about 35 lbs. and many were bright red. How big and heavy they are individually. A good crop, but how worried we were when the bees were slow to show up! A worry for  naught, it turned out.

The apples had clung to the stem only a day or two before. You see, we believe in the 90 degree twist test for ripeness. But the wasps were going after them in hungry numbers. We picked one hollowed-out apple only the day before and tried to salvage some of it. Ditto yesterday, the 27th. But we gave some of the others the twist test and, lo, they separated easily from the limb and dropped nicely into the hand. So we picked a large heavy box of them gleefully in a few minutes. All of them.

Now we await the other mathematical half of the crop, the smaller three-year-old tree of Fujitso. Its apples won't be ripe, though, until October.

Hey, that's only Saturday. Perhaps by mid-month.

"Last Rose of Summer?" Not quite, but getting there fast

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Signs of the Times: the Himalayan blackberries were especially sweet this year. I ordinarily shun them, but out on our morning walks my wife started gobbling them. Soon our two black Labs were selectively lifting the ripest and best oof the vines. Watching them, day after day, feeling left out by my own snobbishness, I indulged myself a bit. Hmm, pretty good.

Apples in the garden are big and red and fat, but not yet ripe according to 'the twist test." You know, you give the apple a 90 degree twist to the side, and if it is truly ripe it will come off in your hand. Not yet. But I remember from past years twisting one or two specially hard, then jerking them off, and they were a bit tart to the taste, but still quite sweet and edible. Not yet this year, but I am thinking in twisting terms.

The raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries are on their last legs, speaking fruitily. They will last a day or two in the refrigerator, but start to mold quickly and on the second day after picking you have to pick again, this time the ones with the blue-gray mold spots on them. The strawberries, though bearing throughout the season, were of a soft, mushy consistency and Norma swears she will tear them out this winter and plant a different species next year. I agree: I ate them, but didn't much like them and, truthfully, am looking forward to the big, red, solid ones from California soon to be found again in the stores.

Green beans in profusion, both pole and bush. How I remember as a kid hiring myself out to pick 'em and what killing work it was, and how it paid practically nothing. I've always admired the Mexicans who work so hard in the fields, and always seem so cheerful about it. I am among the Americans, alas, who can not perform hard manual labor, hour after hour, for pathetically low wages.

Why, after just a few minutes picking our own meager crops, I feel like an old man, bent and aching. And don't tell me that is just what I am.

Thanks for the visit,
Robert C. Arnold, Editor