In Pursuit of Wonder

Larry began backing up the canoe. It was a little effort to get it turned around. I pushed on the right side with all my might. Larry backed it up as I was pushing off a clump of wood and vegetation. With our teamwork, we had the canoe turned around,…

After seeing the sandhills disappear, we passed the open area with the geese, and came to another island of trees. A snag hung out over the water, the end bent down into the water. Larry said, “A muskrat on your left.” I turned to look but wasn’t able to see…

May 12, 2016 Early this morning, Larry and I headed out on another canoeing adventure, around 6:50 am. We stopped the truck and unloaded the canoe by the bridge on highway 84 again. We were finally going to give McCarthy Lake another try. The morning was beautiful, a little cool…

Larry paused, sat back on his heals within several feet of the brushy tree line. There was a narrow window, at the base of the trees, in which we had a glimpse of the pond. A duck (probably blue –winged teal) floated right before us in that window. I moved…

“There’s a pair of teals right there.” Larry indicated a spot almost directly ahead. I marveled at the handsome pair. Another group circled and landed on the pond. “Northern shovelers.” The water fowl were noisy – everyone was talking at once. We just sat taking it all in; the brilliant,…

Larry and I wanted to canoe early in the morning to increase our chances of seeing aquatic mammals. I arrived at his place around 6:30 am; we loaded the canoe and were off. We didn’t take Hank (or Jake) this time, Larry told them, “sorry guys, you can’t come along,…

I finally got around to cleaning out my last dead hive last Monday. Mice had moved in so I was procrastinating getting it done. But letting it sit open in the cold and rain for a couple weeks killed the mice so at least I wasn’t dealing with live mice.…

We went around a bend in the channel. The bridge, normally our stopping point, was within sight. The beaver lodge, piled up sticks in a dome shape, stood near the bank between us and the bridge. “How deep is this water?” “Start out about breast height, then sink to your…

Canoeing along the wall of wild rice, we approached the spot where there had been an ice ridge when we walked down the channel in January. The Wisconsin bluffs were ahead of us, Goose Lake stretched out between, filled with waterfowl. The wild clamor of tundra swans became louder as…