Long Lake Yarns

I watched all the Jacques Costeau episodes as a kid. Obviously I learned nothing from his crew’s underwater photography techniques. What I did was reach out of the kayak, stick the waterproof camera in the water, and snap photos while fish swam by. I snapped a lot of nothing, and then this little fish happened [...]

We spotted this shy Northern Water Snake as he was swimming near the kayak put-in. He startled me, for sure. We don’t see many snakes swimming in the lake. In fact, in four years on the lake, this is only the third one we’ve seen. He swam very fluidly. Clearly the little guy is comfortable in water. He was only [...]

Is this like knitting on eight needles?  Talk about lace weight. 
This spider has been working on the outside of one of the great room cottage windows since I arrived on Friday. The farthest out part of the web gracefully drapes 51 inches from the top to the bottom. Measured across at the bottom of the window this triangular [...]

In 2009, no Long Lake Loons nested successfully. At least one pair, and it seemed a few  unpaired adults, summered on the lake. But no chicks. Two couples got a bit of an early start this year on their nests. Male and female alternate sitting on the eggs.  By June 25th, this pair’s two chicks [...]

Growing up on the east side of Detroit, we called them June Bugs. Steve grew up in the same neighborhood and he called them Mayflies. According to Wikipedia, these guys have a boatload of aliases. Fishfly, Dayfly, Shadfly, Green Bay fly, Lake fly, Jinx fly. They are members of the order Ephemeropter.  Same Greek root as ephemeral.  Short-lived.
What [...]

The enemy is Canada Geese. Actually, they are not the enemy. Their mass quantity of slimy droppings are the enemy. Geese look so impressive, floating around on the lake. Then you hear them honk and you wish you hadn’t. Their gaggle of goslings look so cute bunched up and swimming between mom and dad. One, [...]

A Great Blue Heron, for sure.  One way to  tell a heron track is to check if  two of its three front toes are closer together. If you look closely, you will also see the imprint of its talons. We regularly see these ancient looking birds patiently fishing in the shallows. They move with deliberate [...]

Buffleheads.  The lake was chock full of Buffleheads this weekend.   When they land on the water, they stick their feet out in front of their bodies and skid to a stop.  They dabble around the shallows–but not usually right in front of the cottage.  They are shy skittery critters.  Five minutes before I snapped [...]

Hillman’s Long Lake is home to Common Loons. This will  be our fourth summer on the lake.  Each year we’ve watched a nesting pair on Belly Button Island.  Last year the nest was unsuccessful. Hopefully, come early July, we will once again enjoy the sight of a pair of loon babies riding on their parent’s [...]

The only place I make time to do an occasional jigsaw puzzle is at the lake.   This 550 piece loon puzzle made for a fun quiet day at the coffee table.  Until.

Sealed-in-plastic puzzles never have pieces missing, do they?  Once, when I was a child, we got a thousand-piecer with one duplicate piece and [...]