A Walk in the Northwoods

On Saturday we were at our cabin in the Northwoods of Wisconsin and took a walk with our dog. We visited the small lake adjacent to ours – Stone Lake. The water was not yet frozen over. We could tell this because it looked like someone tried to ice fish and found it too slushy to feel secure on the ice. We didn’t venture out further than the edge.

On our walk, we noticed that the leaves had nearly all fallen from the trees.  They littered the ground in colors of yellow, orange, red, and brown that virtually all had been a vibrant green.

The tall pines, so symbolic of the Northwoods, line the road like sentries guarding the forest to each side from any would-be hardwood sapling wishing to be bigger than a mere shrub.

Most of the roads we walked on, including our own, were gravel. Passerbys, that numbered only a few, all waved or nodded hello. We smiled or nodded back – that’s what you do in the Northwoods.

Our dog enjoyed sniffing some new spots filled that filled her snout with new odors.  But, when told, she moved right along – only to find a new spot to sniff a few feet further down the road.  Interestingly enough, she didn’t even bother with the deer tracks we came across.

On the way back, I spied a paper wasp nest hanging from a tree near the edge of our road. These intrigue me, so I just had to stop and get a few photos. Thankfully, the wasps were long gone.

Surprisingly, we did see a moth flitting around the fallen forest debris. It seemed too cold for a sighting of that kind.  Odd. It was cold. We had walked from our lakeshore to the next, staying out of the woods because it was bow hunting season.  We needed to warm up. We headed back to the cabin. Home again.