Pymatuning State Park in winter

There are plenty of cars parked in the lot near the boat stalls but the owners aren't sailing. Brrr. There are many similar tents. I wonder what entrepreneur rents ice fishing tents. This is the first I've seen them.

The docks look desolate.

More fishermen.

There are two tiny dots in the upper center of the photo. Those folks are headed into our bay to fish. I didn't walk over to take a photo there.

Don't know why there weren't any tubers or sledders. The temperature was 12° when I took the photo. Yes, the face of the dam provides a wild ride. There is more below the photo.

I was surprised how this photo turned out. I love it. It is to the right of the previous photo.

All are embigginable.

This is November?

Shirley and I went walking today. This is a field up at the nature preserve near Linesville. You can't see it in this photo but there is a deer carcass in the field. We could see some birds on the carcass including a huge brown one but we couldn't see them well.

This is a closer view. Sorry I couldn't get a better photo. A lady with a huge telescope appeared and said it was an immature bald eagle and a couple of crows. Shirley had never seen an eagle before. We walked the nature path and found a bunch of people with telescopes watching when we got back. An adult eagle was on the carcass so the first lady let Shirley look thru her scope. There were more than a dozen other eagles, mostly young ones, in trees in the neighborhood. It was very exciting for Shirley. I enjoy seeing the eagles but see them often enough to not get excited.

Then we walked my neighborhood woods. This is the north entrance to our bay.

This is a pond north of our bay.

This is the view from what used to be a party cliff up the lake.

It certainly was a gorgeous day in the neighborhood, especially for mid November.

Neighborhood snow photos

The marina doesn't look very hospitable today.

This is where everyone sleds. It is VERY steep. The face of the dam - on the right, has a fierce BUMP on the way down. I seem to remember that there is a second bump farther down but many don't make it that far.

The evergreens are special this year.

I love the snowy branches.

Our bay.

This looks like a Christmas card photo.

Across the pond toward my house and barn.

For all the inconvenience, worries about heat and ice, iffy driving, tough walking and other problems typical of this weather, our world has been absolutely gorgeous so far this winter.

A day to match my mood

These are color photographs, in case you were wondering.

Frustrating

This has been a dry year here. Watching the weathermap has been a source of frustration. The rain goes around us. North of us. South of us. East of us. The rain peters out before coming in from the west. For those on holiday this is good news. For those of us with wells, not so good news. My well is not happy as we have been close to drought conditions for many years. We were worse off a couple of years ago but will slide back there if we don't get rain this fall.

This is the pond between my property and the "tracks". There is little water in it. The logs and branches in the foreground should be in water rather than on dry grassy ground. The pond fills from the farm and other land above us. We are at the bottom of a long hill that runs parallel to the lake.
The lake is actually a little higher than usual. The old cement dock is normally almost completely out of the water in September. Part of the top is still submerged. The lake level reveals the large amount of rain that has fallen to the north of us - often as close as 5 miles.

Pymatuning

The leaves are starting to turn. Where did August go? We have had a most unusual Labor Day weekend for a change. Almost always there is one nice day, one chilly grey day and one miserable day in random order. We have had two gorgeous days so far.

It seems like everyone is out in the boat one last time. I can't see the lake proper because there is a long island between us and the lake. I took a short walk up the "tracks" to get the photos. I should have made the photos embiggenable so you could see the boats. Oh well.

A spring walk

I went for a walk this evening. As regular followers of this blog know, I live on Pymatuning Reservoir on the Pennsylvania/Ohio border. A railroad used to run between my house and the bay. It has been gone for many years. The "tracks" are a great place to walk except when the various obnoxious motorized vehicles race up and down disregarding others, especially the fishermen.

There are few signs of spring in my neighborhood trees.

Down in the park, however, I found some trees with red buds. The view is from underneath the road over the tracks.

The next series of photos shows some of the many places which will be occupied by fishermen Saturday and Sunday mornings. They all look out on our bay. There are two islands between the bay and the lake proper.

In this photo, the small island and the breastworks of the dam are in the distance.

This is our "beach".

Looking back toward the tracks.

The greenery running diagonally from the bottom right should be my daffodil fence. The flowers are blooming sporadically and many have been flattened by snow, wind or frost.

You can't really see it but the ladder is still resting against the oil tank. I wonder if I can put it away. Might we still have a heavy wet snow which blocks the satellite TV signal?

I worry about Hildy

Ours are about the same size but they don't come to say Hello like Hildy did.

Pymatuning blue gill

My neighbors' trophy fish.
BTW this is not a fish tank. It is my neighbors' front window as seen from their deck.

Spring will come

This morning when the neighbor leveled all the dirt and gravel plowed up with snow during this wonderful winter, he exposed a large patch of ice that had been preserving itself under the mound.

The silver maple is convinced that spring is arriving soon.

Spring 2009, maybe

These popped up today all over the yard. They were not visible yesterday. Amazing what a couple of 50° nights will do. One more and we could have peepers.

Even the daylilies are getting optimistic.

The daffodils in front of the house are fighting their way thru the debris.

I wish people would follow the Park's instructions! The orange stakes in the distance mark the place I keep encouraging to eventually make a huge ditch across the "tracks".

The spatterdock is up, some even thru the punky ice. I'm waiting to see the turtles tho.

The remaining ice and the water are littered with dead fish. Again this year there are many large fish rotting. Did they get trapped in the ice and die? Is there something polluting the water? Or is the lake cleaner now and the fish are growing larger? A puzzlement.