Got Lemons? Make Lemonade

by

Pepper L. Bauer

The late-morning, winter sun peeked over the heavily forested hills and spotlighted areas of the picturesque valley, leaving cool, dappled shadows. I sat on a bench mimicking a statue, my hands outstretched, my fingers stiff. A few black-oil sunflower seeds rested in my palm.

Suddenly, a surprisingly loud flutter of wings sounded in my ear as a diminutive form buzzed my hat and landed on my fingertips, it's tiny toenails tickling my skin. I tried not to flinch. A distinctive click signaled that Don had captured our little friend on film. The red-breasted nuthatch cocked his head at the sound and fixed his wise, glittering, black eye on me, determined I was not a threat, and continued on with the serious job of picking out the perfect seed.

Don and I were sitting at a picnic table in a beautiful hollow located on the Anvil Lake cross-country ski trail in the Nicolet National Forest. The Nicolet is just outside Eagle River, in majestic Northern Wisconsin. A quaint log cabin warming hut sits at the edge of the clearing, smoke drifting lazily from the stone fireplace inside. Outside, an enormous stack of firewood nestles under a shelter that sits next to an outdoor privy. Red squirrels chatter loudly as they chase each other through the tree canopy, immersed in their seasonal mating rituals. The area is teeming with life as flashes of color and symphonies of birdsong betray the hundreds of birds that make that glade their winter home. The crisp Northwoods air smells of wood smoke and pine. To us, this is heaven.

We found this special place several years ago while skiing on the Anvil Lake trail. After negotiating a particularly tricky downhill run, we glided out of the deep woods and into this marvelous opening. Skiers were perched on the picnic tables, with chickadees and nuthatches adorning their hats and fingers like live ornaments. Others were in the cabin, sharing refreshments around a roaring fire. Someone offered us a handful of seeds, the birds came, and we were smitten. Now we try to make it back as often as possible.

Unfortunately, the last few years have not been conducive to skiing into the valley. Blame it on El Nino, global warming, or whatever, the snow has not been good enough to ski on for the last three years of our annual winter vacation. This year was the warmest ever, with some days actually hitting 60 degrees and little or no snow to speak of. It felt more like a spring vacation.

The week before we left on our trip a friend from Wisconsin called and said the snow was the best it had been all year. He said it was thirty-six inches deep in the woods. We were so excited. But, it doesn't take too many days in the fifties for the snow to disappear like sauerkraut at a German picnic.

On the Friday we started out for Wisconsin, the day dawned bright and clear in Peoria. By the time we drove through Rockford, the fog closed around us like swirling cotton. For the next 280 miles, we drove through a hypnotizing, twisting, wall of white. Not a good experience for someone who can get carsick driving from Bartonville to Peoria.

Don and I arrived in Minocqua in the late afternoon to a drippy, dreary mess. If we peered closely through the pea soup fog, we could see mounds of soggy snow still dotting the landscape. A little spark of hope stirred in my gut. Maybe all wasn't lost.

After a quick trip to the local grocery store and a bite to eat, we headed further north to find our cabin. We stayed at the same motel in Minocqua for twenty years, but last year it went bankrupt and closed in November. We found a place to stay at "Twin Waters" resort outside Sayner, WI., but had never been there. So, here we were, creeping down County Road C after dark, squinting through the fog and drizzle at every sign, and hoping that the turn off onto Big St. Germain Dr. was well marked. It was.

As we drove down the drive, the lights from other resorts and lodges loomed eerily from out of the fog giving the whole drive a ghostly, unearthly kind of feel. We could see so little, that even after finding the resort, checking in, and unloading our stuff, when we called our folks and they asked if we had a view of the lake, we had no idea.

There are six cabins at "Twin Waters" and each has Christmas lights adorning the roofs so that ice fishers and snowmobilers could spot the resort at night when out on the frozen Big St. Germain Lake. In the mist, the large old-fashioned bulbs looked like softly colored jewels floating in mid air. It was ethereal.

About two in the morning, I got out of bed and pulled back the drape on the big picture window. The fog was gone. The moon was reflecting beautifully off something shiny and large. Then, with a start, I realized it was Big St. Germain Lake, and by golly, we had a marvelous view. Smiling to myself, I went back to bed.

A clear sky, a faint pink blush in the East reflecting the sun's promise, greeted us on Saturday as we opened our eyes in our cozy efficiency cabin. The Weather Channel predicted a high of around sixty. Disappointed, we vowed to try to make the best of it and enjoy ourselves anyway. At least we were away from it all. After a relaxing breakfast in front of our spacious window while soaking up the great view, we headed off to "Klondike Days" in Eagle River.

"Klondike Days" is an annual winter festival that Don and I make it a tradition to hit every year. There are dog weight pulls, draft horse log pulls, lumberjack competitions, chainsaw carving, Wildlife Art Show and Sale, craft show and a Native American Cultural Exhibition which includes lots of dancing, costumes and flute music. They also have a huge encampment of re-enactors that put on a realistic rendezvous. There are sled dog rides and snowshoe demonstrations, snow sculpturing, and a snowshoe baseball game. The list goes on and on, but I think you can see where snow might be a major part of the organizer's plans.

As we arrived at the festival grounds, we could see very little snow and a whole lot of water and mud. The puddles of water were so large that when the wind blew, white caps formed. Volunteers raced around building little plywood bridges over the newly formed ponds and detouring people around the rushing streams racing through ditches and parking lots.

When we tried to walk through the Rendezvous area, the mud was so deep that some careless people had the shoes sucked right off their feet.

We had to laugh at the clever way festival volunteers got around the lack of snow. For example, the dog weight pull is supposed to take place on snow with the dogs pulling sleds filled with bags of dog food. Instead, the dogs pulled wagons on carpet. Not quite the same atmosphere, but it got the job done. Other events were changed in little ways to compensate for the weather; some just didn't happen.

Don and I had a good time anyway. We saw some interesting things, went out for a wonderful dinner at our favorite supper club, and after we arrived back at the resort, took the dogs for a long night time walk on the frozen lake in front of the resort. The stars were brilliant, more than we could ever see in our light polluted part of the world. We could see The Milky Way clearly, and that's something we haven't been able to do around Peoria since I was a child. It was inspirational and relaxing.

The days flew by. Despite the lack of snow, and the freak temperatures, we managed to fill each day to the brim, and when the last day came, it felt like we had just arrived. As vacations always are, it was way too short.

A few friends asked us why we even bothered going to Wisconsin and wasting the money if we knew the snow was gone. I guess we have to answer, "Why not?" We were away from home: no telephones, chores, telemarketers, and hectic schedules. Someone once said, "If you get lemons, make lemonade." And that we did. We experienced things that we would never have seen if the snow conditions had been normal.

Our cabin at "Twin Waters" (Named Tepee) was sandwiched between two bodies of water: Big St. Germain Lake to the south and Lost Creek to the north. We had a pier in the creek just a short distance from our door. When we first arrived, the creek was frozen over. As the week progressed, we watched it open up slowly, like a bud opening to reveal the lovely flower inside. We would walk down to the pier daily and with coffee cups in hand watch the magical transformation. Hunks of ice would float by and the dogs, fascinated, would bark and chase them along the bank. By the last day Lost Creek was almost totally open, a serene, gently moving little river, reflecting the glory of the ancient pines surrounding it.

The first day we were at "Twin Waters", the owner, Kelly Newton, walked us down the road and showed us where a Pileated woodpecker was already excavating a nest in a dead Birch tree. If you've never seen a Pileated woodpecker, you can't imagine how spectacular they are. Quite large, about crow size, and somewhat prehistoric looking, they capture the imagination with their flaming red crest, sweeping wing beats, and white underwings. I saw a Pileated only once, several years ago, and was excited about the prospect of seeing another.

It didn't take long for my wish to come true. The next morning, Mr. Pileated appeared on a tree right in front of our window, and while we ate breakfast, he went about his job of entertaining the tourists. He posed and preened the entire time we ate, like a floorshow in a nightclub. Before the week was over, not only did we see him several more times, but heard him drum for a mate, saw the two of them together on each side of a huge pine tree and got several pictures.

The Pileated's weren't the only unique birds entertaining us from our cabin window. By mid-week, a pair of Bald Eagles arrived and would float effortlessly over the frozen lake, landing by the ice angler's open holes looking for bait and entrails.

We would have seen none of these things had the snow been perfect and the weather seasonal. We even fed our birds on the Anvil Lake Trail. We just hiked down with a bag of sunflower seeds instead of skiing. It took a little longer, but where did we have to go? The birds were so excited that someone had come to feed them, they started dive-bombing our hats, and landing on our shoulders before we even got the seeds out of the bag.

But, the most amazing thing that happened all week was indeed something that we would never have seen in the dead of winter. We heard the lake sing.

One night while out walking the dogs, I heard a sound that reminded me a great deal of the bass on someone's boom box. I couldn't imagine what I was hearing way out here in the boonies. I listened harder. The sound got louder and started to remind me of someone bowing a bass fiddle, rhythmic and beautiful. Then I realized it was the lake. The warming during the day and the freezing at night was causing it to expand and shrink, making it sing.

Later that night, the lake was not only singing, but also dancing, as the temperatures dropped way below freezing. Ice cracked and snapped, miniature geysers spouted water, and the lake hummed as cracks and ridges formed and closed. It was awesome.

The concert was still in progress the next morning as we walked out on the lake to see some of the new ice formations from the excitement the night before. It really wasn't dangerous to be out on the lake, as the ice was still twenty inches thick or so. But, it did give us a thrill when the now familiar singing would start from across the lake, and like waves, come racing towards us, and we could feel the ice below our feet vibrate when the sound enveloped us. The experience was indescribable, and I'm sure I'm not doing it justice by putting it in print. You had to be there, and because we opted to make lemonade, we were.

The restaurants were glad to see customers, and the folks would usually strike up a conversation with us while we waited for our meal. The owner of a casual dining pub down the road named "Fibber's" said something that I thought summed our week up pretty well. We were the only diners in the place, so he came over and asked how our vacation was going. We mentioned that we had hoped to ski. He smiled and said, "Well, at least you got outta Dodge. It's good to just get away." Don answered, "We hiked, laid around, shopped, and ate great food, what's not to like." The owner grinned. "Ain't life grand."