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Late August dawn with the golden sunrise reflecting off the birch leaves.  I think the light is being reflected off the still water and then onto the undersides of the leaves.  This gull will hang out on the raft until our first guests head to the beach.

Time to show-case several large, fancy flowers.  The three daylilies are a gift from a friend in Alabama.  He has over 5,000 varieties in his daylily collection and has started to hybridize and sell many of his best creations. His web site is www.jjdaylilies.com if you are interested.  The pink clematis is “The President”.

The calm lake plus a telephoto lens condensed a couple gardens, the Adirondack chairs, and the far shoreline into a very appealing situation.  This overlook is on a bit of a point and provides commanding view down the lake in both directions.  The small light-green evergreens are tamarack which will turn a bright golden-yellow this fall.

Even though it has been a bit cool for early August, we have had some beautiful mornings.  This shot was taken a couple days ago.

Yesterday’s post implied that our guests enjoy watching the fish.  This photo from George Pfoertner shows a school of sunfish through this incredibly clear water.

This guy was sitting in a spruce just south of the beach.  He didn’t appreciate the crow dive bombing him every time he tried to take off, so he was content is wait it out in the tree.  Nice to have the eagles around, but they are definitely hard on the loon chicks.

Last week, Michaela, camera in hand, patiently waited at the feeder.  She was rewarded with this shot of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird.  It seems there are always 2 or 3, or more, at the feeders, perhaps indicative of our lack of flowers normally blooming at this time of year.

Michaela caught this guy scampering among the rocks by the campfire.  He undoubtedly was snacking on some spilled kettle corn from our first campfire of the season!

After blowing hard all day on Saturday, our lake is half open.  The ice being pushed around was still solid and the photo below shows where the ice pack hit our shore.  If you look carefully you can see the ice broke the cement boat ramp in half.

My ice-out prediction was off a bit.  With the wind being forecast tomorrow I am sure we will be ice-free by tomorrow night.  Today a gentle breeze pushed the ice away from our shore, but tonight the wind direction switched.  The power in that slow moving mass of ice is amazing.  Check out what the ice did to our boat ramp, a 4-6 inch cement slab.  The first photos in this album were taken this morning.  The last 4 were taken about 7:30 pm.  The last week of warm temps have been encouraging.  The grass is starting to turn green and other indicators show that our spring is starting to catch up!