Amber, Co-Editor          Eddie, Copyboy/Greeter

July: Interesting smells, sights, critters, and an easy time of year for any dog lucky enough to be visiting the northwoods.

All of the cabins except Snowshoe are available for the 4th of July weekend. Plenty of cabins available for July and August. Phone or email for current information.

Wildflowers everywhere and wild strawberries are ready to eat. Fishing remains excellent for guests. Young deer fawns, bear cubs and woodchucks galore. Woodchuck youngsters are leaving the dens and dispersing now - several were around our dogyard.

One just dug a burrow entrance in front of Ron's office. Risky behavior. Painted and snapping turtles are laying their eggs in roadways and beaches - anywhere there's gravel and sand. Young frogs and toads crawling around all over the place. Here's an image of Amber last year conversing with a snapper laying her eggs by the dogyard. Several months later, some 80 babies crawled from the hole - on their way to the water.

And an excellent winter 08-09 was. Thanks to all of the interesting folks (and your great dogs) who enjoyed the cabins, skiing, snowshoeing, and trails this past season. We sincerely hope that you will come back for some canoeing and hiking this spring and summer. Some cabins are almost always open, even on short notice.

Some remnants of the winter happenings are below:

Greg and Traci Pence, from Lakeville, got close to an otter emerging from a hole in the ice on the Sand River near camp in late March:

On 4/6, Ron was marking a land boundary on a recent logging operation when an adult eagle flew 20 feet above his head and grabbed a branch on a dead spruce. By seeming to fall backward and using its weight, the eagle was able to break the small branch and carry it away toward Steve's peninsula of old pines. This is nest building and rehab time for the big birds, and we suspect that someone will soon spot a new eagle nest on our end of Sand Lake.

Among the visitors enjoying some snowshoeing the first weekend in March were Randy, Willie, Isabel and Meg Hoyt-Niemic.

Snow sculptures
Competent snow sculptors were busily carving in Whiteside Park during the Ely Winter Festival in early February. Bill Defenbaugh of Ely did the work shown in the two left panels. Ludwig is his golden friend.

Music at Snowshoe
Guests Ralph and Mary Brindle of Edina filled the forest around Sand Lake with great music from their alpenhorns (alphorns) on a winter weekend.

Real fox news.
The resident fox is still running around our yard and by the other cabins scarfing up scraps and just gawking at us silently from time to time. He/she appears to have a more difficult time getting through the snow with the short legs. This pictured one is identical to our local "yard fox," before it recently ate a 20 pound (approximately its own weight) bag of dog food left unintentionally in the driveway by Ron. It then tore the sack to shreds and most likely went off for a very long nap, probably appearing like this:

Timber wolf & otter happenings.
Some guests have been viewing river otters at work and play over on the Sand River (where there are holes in the ice) and also around places where folks have been ice-fishing - where they can fetch an easy meal. Erin says this one's name would be Otto the Otter.
 

Ron's twice a day journey to the mailbox up on Highway 1 is usually uneventful except for an occasional moose sighting. However, on Groundhog Day he was reading a newspaper in the Toyota cab when two wolves strolled down the road  almost right up to his truck.

The evening after Christmas, a three or four-wolf choir put on quite the howling concert out by the marsh near the road. When Ron checked out the tracks later, it appeared that the local pack was on the trail of a buck who forgot to migrate from the high country in time (usually by early December). All parties were finding the deep snow difficult to jump through. Conclusion unknown...

Moose.
Lots of moose have been seen eating salt on the highway this season. While Ron was pushing snow on December 12th, a moose walked right in front of the pickup at the base of the driveway. No camera handy, of course. Had there been, the photo would have looked like this:

Lodging as a gift.
If you're thinking of giving a 2009 weekend northwoods getaway to an individual or couple - for a holiday, birthday or anniversary present you can share with the recipient, gift certificates can be easily arranged and quickly sent. Call 218.365.2126 for info. Talk to Willie, Amber or Ron.

Country of endless snow.

Ron, who keeps a precipitation station for the Minnesota Climatology Office, measured a total of 163.8 inches of snowfall here at Sand Lake during the winter of 2007-2008 (November - April). As is often the case, This was one of the higher snowfall sums recorded in the state. For more daily info on relative snowfall, check out:

Early-season ice skating.
After shoveling snow from the ice, skating was fun on Thanksgiving weekend for granddaughters Emma and Erin. Here's Erin and me (Amber) taking a break on the ice.

Fish news.
Some walleyes and a large northern pike taken from Sand Lake recently by Wendell Westberg of Minneapolis.

Fishing has been fair this winter, but was even better last fall. During September, on a day following extremely violent lightning storms with 2+ inches of rain, walleyes were on a feeding binge on the shorelines. Minnows took these from shallow water for John Nelson of Minneapolis.

October 5th was a day of excitement for Perry Noll of the Twin Cities. This northern pike, 38 inches, was caught and released in Sand Lake

The wild rice crop on Sand Lake was good and some folks were out in early September obtaining some rice samples for educational project displays - visiting group of naturalists from Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center in Finland, MN. L-R: Josh, Jessamy, Kelly, Alexis, and John in front.

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