Monday at Lake Shetek

Waking to the sun glittering across the lake with the stillness of the surrounding wilderness was a bliss you never, ever know in the city. We've got quiet mornings, yes, and I adore them in their way. But it is nothing compared with the sound of nature alone. The gentle croak of a chorus of tree frogs and the occasional cricket was trance inducing (All hail Hypno Toad!) and one of the better ways one can be greeted in the morning.

We fixed our coffee and John started the fire for our morning meal. There's something more gratifying about having to get a fire started before a meal, even one store bought and tucked in a cooler. You just have to wait for it. It smelled wonderful of smokey wood, sizzling sausages with little golden eggs bubbling over butter. We put the toast directly on the grill and man, it's the way toast was meant to be enjoyed! Perfectly toasted with a hint of smoke! After cleaning up our dishes in the nearby water fountain, we took a leisurely two-hour hike. The wondrous sights and sounds and not a single human to be seen the entire walk! We saw a turtle napping happily in the walkway, a mama and baby deer in the prairie path who met our eyes, then both bounded away into the prairie thicket--and I mean they BOUNDED! We could see them leaping and leaping away! We came upon a marshland that was dotted full with heron, egrets, ducks, geese and two birds of prey circled above that were unique to our eyes, but I think (according to our Birds of Prey of MN book) may have been prairie falcons. Check out the photo and see if you can identify it! There were a bunch of blue birds, blue jays, yellow finches, grasshoppers and tree frogs hopping along the path. We came across two "fish rearing ponds" that were full of ducks, a couple of cute swimming turtles, more frogs, chipmunks skittering under the grasses and a huge pelican that soared overhead. We came across two abandoned wasp-paper combs that are always cool to spy uninhabited, and the water lilies had the most interesting kind of erect, pink flowers (heh heh, 'erect'...)

After a short rest and peanut butter sammies & bananas, we went down to rent a canoe. It's quite a hike in itself just getting down to the canoes, so we weren't short on the exercise. We set out in our canoe (both wearing secured life jackets, Mum :) and right away saw a great blue heron perched on the walkway to Loon Island, proud and regal! He was chillin' with some little birds that I've never seen before but snapped plenty of photos for later identification. We had the most lovely time paddling around the lake, avoiding the one motor boat that was plowing around. We saw two more turtles sunning on logs and got loads of neat photos from the lake perspective :) The water was mostly still and gleaming, a beautiful breeze kept us cool in the warm sun. We paddled around for about an hour and a half, then brought our canoe in for the day, proud of ourselves for doing it! I got a couple of gorgeous photos of a tiny butterfly, and we had a nice stroll back to the cabin for a short nap.

After returning our oars, we took another short hike before starting a fire for supper. Dinner was the same except with tilapia instead of walleye, and since there was too much bitter pith from the lemon that cooked into the walleye, I ended up cutting out each section of the lemon for the tilapia, and it created the most perfect lemon-butter sauce! It was cooked to perfection in it's little foil pouch. Since I neglected to pack things like plates and cups (doi!) we ate directly out of the foil (less dishes to do, anyway!) and enjoyed again roasted tomatoes, cob corn, and baked beans cooked right in the can. S'mores again for dessert, perfectly burned and crispy on the outside, smooshed deliciously with Hershey's chocolate squares in honey grahams....mmmmm. We loaded up the fire pit with the rest of the wood to enjoy our last evening in such a perfectly serene place. The only sounds were the fire, the frogs croaking, the acorns falling and the leaves on the trees singing in the wind.

As we sat, I kept waiting for the right light when the deer would come. And they came! Six deer, a mama and 5 younglings, came to graze around the deserted campsite. I tried to get photos, but the dark was falling too rapidly in the heavy wood, and I only got blurry furry shapes. They bounded away after I scared them by swatting at the annoying gnats in my face, and I was sad to have made them leave. We spotted two giant, white shapes floating on the lake, that at first I thought were small boats. But there they were: two enormous pelicans. We could see them well enough, but the camera, without a tripod, could only get a couple of decent photos. We had run down to the small dock that was located right at a tip in the lake from which you could view both sides very well, and we watched them as they fished for dinner with their giant beaks. Such amazing creatures, pelicans. After enjoying the sunset, we headed back in to read before turning in.