Good morning all:

” Salad is not real food, but then, it’s pretty useful for attracting and killing real food, eh?” ~ from our north woods everyman we’ll call Claire

This week there was plenty of discussion about diets, dieting, and eating habits. Not sure exactly why, other than maybe Paul’s steadily dropping right into my own weight’s sweet spot.

I am up a bit earlier than normal. First it was the yodeling of out resident Loons. Second it was the fact that I came completely out of my sleep because of Marcia’s nasty habit of sleeping with a radio on and I realized I was listening to Cincinnati’s WLW 700 AM clear channel radio station from 650 miles away. All of a sudden it was like I was transported (teleported?) back home hearing about the Cincinnati Reds winning their 10th straight game. So, it was either listening to the start of the 5:00 am Great Outdoors show, or, since I am already in the “Great Outdoors”, just getting up and firing up Mr. Coffee. I chose the latter.

Bats – At exactly 9:15 pm, when sitting on our screened-in porch, the scratching sound of a few bats begins, ten minutes later they’re out and airborne. It takes about a ¼ inch crack for these little guys to gain entry, and a few found a spot to shelter between the metal roof and the underside over our deck. Apparently, the fact that we’ve installed a perfectly proper bat house out back doesn’t mean much to these little guys.

Yesterday I got busy. I sealed up every nook and cranny except for one. Over that opening I affixed some netting. The idea being that they’d crawl out and drop down the netting’s ‘chute’, then about this time in the morning would not be able to regain access and move to another resting spot. I’d seal that ‘back’ door. It’s a perfect plan—we’ll see if it works.

I wanted to take a photo and in preparation placed my camera on the tripod, all perfectly positioned to capture a photo of a little guy crawling out through the netting. At 9:15 we heard scratching and crawling – camera was in place. At 9:25 we spotted the first bats winging about – I was in place with finger on the shutter. At 9:40 I got stiff from sitting on a hard stool and “with my finger on the shutter” and so went back inside. As you can see, there is no picture.

Christmas in July – Half a century ago Marcia’s dad would occasionally preach at the tiny little Bellingham church in Kynoch. Kynoch is approximately ten miles from our cabin and consists of six or so homes plus a few farms in the larger area, a community hall, and Bellingham church – that’s it.

Marlene and Donn have adopted the little church as their summertime place for worship and last weekend invited us to their “Christmas in July” service. Since the weather in these parts can be wicked in late December (remember the “In the Deep Midwinter” song?) and some of the aging membership have difficulty attending. Then, a number of the membership is only in these parts during the summer, it was felt appropriate to hold a Christmas in July service.

They had it all, a decorated Christmas tree, a pageant complete with wise men, angels, and a manger, little gifts, and great foods during the social afterwards; all celebrated by the 38 of us who attended—the most ever!

One more item. See the youngsters in the photo of the week? They are all siblings or cousins. “Ok, so what Dirk”, you say. Well, here’s what. They all have the same grandparents who reside in these parts and their presence is what brings them to the north woods—traveling from their homes in; Switzerland, Spain, and the Netherlands. That’s right, to reconnect these kids travel yearly to this little piece of the world to be with their grandparents and with each other. As my cousin in Holland, George Schouten, writes; take pleasure in “family blood.” It truly was a Christmas in July!

Animal Planet – The red fox came through again. I was sitting on a chair in the yard when he came out of the woods. He came to within 15 feet carrying some little creature in his mouth. I wonder if he was offering me dinner.

The first hint that summer is going into the latter stages came this week. We spotted a group of about ten Loons gathering on the lake. They only do this as an early precursor to migrating since they are quite territorial and normally it’s just a single pair and young which are seen.

Make it a great week everyone.

David, glad that your surgery went well. We, Marlene, Dia, and I, really had a solid plan to think about you during our walk since that is when your surgery would be underway. I should confess that we got a bit distracted dodging some fast moving logging trucks and lost track of your situation. Sorry. Upon our return we were more than pleased hearing about the positive outcome.

Cheers,
Dirk