Long Lake Yarns

It wouldn’t be half so horrible if they’d learned what we two-legged mammals teach our young’ns: “Finish the one you have before you take another.” They are eating the living part of the tree. And they are only eating birch trees. I get it that beaver think birch is especially tasty. The Girl Scout Mint [...]

Every living thing finds a way to make its house a home, but this group of hornets chose an eccentric building site. They constructed their home at the intersection of Sorenson Road and County Road 628. Literally. I’m pretty sure this is a bald-faced hornet nest. The nest is basically paper. The queen’s daughter-workers chew wood [...]

You have to look closely. It’s not a log. It’s not a a dog. It’s a white-tail deer, taking a swim late in October, when Long Lake was already very cold. An internet search (do deer swim) reveals what apparently everyone but me already knew, confirmed by many youtube videos. Yes, deer swim. They are [...]

Meet the lowly meadow vole. Microtus Pennsylvanicus. (And I have no idea what Pennsylvania has to do with it.) The meadow vole can birth up to fifteen litters a year. Litters average about seven pups. Female offspring are ready to birth their own litters in three weeks. (That “three” is not a typo.) A mother [...]

That’s me paddling with five, yes five, loons. We had no loon chicks hatch on the lake this summer. Early rumor was one hatched, but we think not. We know at least one pair was nesting on Belly Button Island when a major tornado-like blow blew through. Shortly after, the nest was abandoned. It is [...]