Peak Color?

Last week started off wet-ly, ended wet-ly, and had a juicy middle. The lake level may have fallen for the month, but it would have been a more dramatic change if not for last week's rain.

We ended the week with just under an inch. There was about a half an inch of rain to start the week. For the month of September, Lucerne's lake level fell an inch.

On Tuesday, we journeyed a few miles south of Wabeno to see if some local baseballers could extend their season into the playoffs as a divisional winner. They closed the roof to keep the rain out, turned on electric lights for seeing, and passed out towels for twirling.

After they lost, the assembled stayed, red uniformed security men took the field, and another game was broadcast live on the ginormatron. The cheer from the crowd was louder than at any time during the game as the fans watched their rival for the Central Division title also lose, backing the local team into the post season as divisional champs.

Early in the week, there was a lot of green mixed with the red, orange, and gold.

The non-green colors tipped past 50% after midweek.

At the end of the week, the southern part of the lake area was checked for peakness.

There was still some green, but there were also several trees in a leafless, post-peak state.

On the north end of Lucerne, we still had some green in a few trees.

Some of the trees were showing signs of post peak.

And a few were in full November.

Many of the maples were spectacularly peak.

There were also eagles.

A huge crop of milkweed pods continue to dominate roadsides around the area.

With all the rain last week, lawn puddles are becoming a thing again.

The lateness of the season combined with all the wet is pushing up a bumper crop of mushrooms.

A few around the lake have not given up on at least one more ski run before ice-in.

Alas, we were not among them. Despite reports to the contrary, getting the boat out at the landing was easy.

Peak color is hard to pin down to a single day. First, you have to ignore the color (or lack thereof) of the outliers (dead trees, pines, flag poles). Then you look for over half of the trees to be in full color as opposed to the ones that are either July green or December leafless. Ultimately, it's about as subjective as you can get. That being noted, we'd say peak color arrived on Sunday, October 1st. In other news, the northwoods remains frost free, the nets are still up on the tennis courts in Crandon, and Pumpkin Carving is scheduled at the bar on Saturday, October 28th.

-Nemo regrets not skiing more.

Peak Color?

September 25th through October 1st, 2023