How many big moose?

First - THANKS to the guests - Paula, Cully, and Mark - who have made this FANTASTIC composite blog photo possible! August has been an incredible month for large moose sightings in our area (I haven't got a photo of the young bull yet!) After looking at these three big boys side by side - I think we have three of them around. All three are on different lakes/portages. What do you think?

Things are a bit quieter this week as we prepare for the holiday weekend. It's been windy and hot, but not as hot as further south and the lake breeze does cool things down a bit. It's still being a great summer!

FISH!

A nice mess of crappies for supper from the crappie pond!

Rockwood's Bunkhouse

We had some perfect painting weather this past week, so Mike and Chen got out Dad's old
paint sprayer and a five gallon bucket of stain and went to work on our bunkhouse. It looks GREAT - now it's as nice outside as it is inside!

So... today... they're taking a half day off and hauling a canoe over to the crappie pond on the other side of the lake. We've heard that the crappies are biting well - we're hoping for a fish dinner tonight!

Later: Rumor was right! Fish for supper!

Moose!...and crawdads

One of our canoeing guests (thanks, Mark) met up with this gorgeous bull moose on his canoe trip this past week. They don't get much bigger than this one! He seems to be enjoying relaxing in the lake, doesn't he?

In the meantime, back at the lodge, we had an interesting experience... washed an aluminum canoe, put it back on the rack... and a bit later, heard an odd "scritching" noise coming from the nose. Our lightweight aluminum canoes have a metal plate in the nose with just enough side cuts for water to flow in and out, and the noise was definitely coming from behind the plate. Hummmmm. Mike took the pressure hose and sprayed into the cut... pretty soon a good-sized crawdad swam out! It took most of the day, but eventually we removed an even dozen crawdads from the nose of that canoe - somebody had a leaky bait bag for sure!

It's been busy, hot, and gorgeous up here this week - great weather and great guests!

August fun at Rockwood

Well, it's being a really good month for canoeing at Rockwood. Here's the parking area in front of the lodge this morning - my car's there and Mike's truck is on the edge of the road, but there are nine canoe groups parked here - along with the four in the bunkhouse parking lot and the five or six up in the upper lot! The weather has been good, too, a little windy a couple days, but otherwise great for being out in the BWCA.

One of our cabin guests is enjoying bringing his coffee down to the outfitting building porch every morning and watching the organized confusion as the groups set off on their adventures. Today there were nine canoes - three groups - that left the beach before 8 a.m. - fun to watch and visit with people from all over the upper midwest! The cabins are full too, and most of them have been taking day trips into the BWCA, enjoying the nice weather. Mike and I are busy, but loving every minute of it.