Carlin Lake, beautiful and clear, is a medium-sized lake in Vilas County, Wisconsin. This blog's purpose is to enhance communication among lake residents and other neighbors and friends of the lake.
The blog is sponsored by William Draves and maintained by Carmen Farwell. Please click at the end of any post to comment, or contact Carmen at johncarmf@gmail.com.
We hope you come back and click in here often!
It's a pleasure to welcome Amy and Jeff Gustafson to home-ownership on Carlin Lake! They closed this past weekend on the log home formerly owned by Nikki Taylor, and report that they are thrilled to be "official" residents.
As most of us know, Amy and family have been frequent visitors to Carlin Lake, to her parents Ricks and Carol Brewer. And, yes, the Gustafsons' new home is next door to Carol's also-log home.
Carlin folks have observed how nice it is to welcome more young people to the lake, and what fun for Carol to have family right next door.
Your lake neighbors are happy for you all. May you have long and joyful years at Carlin Lake, Jeff and Amy and Allie!!
Nikki Taylor has been our Carlin friend and neighbor since she built her lovely full-log home in 2000. Now, she has reluctantly sold that home, and is moving on to other places and projects.
Many of us enjoyed the delicious and generous servings of "Nikki's Cookies," often provided for us at our annual New Year's Eve party. I particularly remember gingerbread reindeer with a white chocolate backing, and mint sandwich cookies with a chocolate shell. And, John and I were tickled years ago on a trip to Key West to find Nikki's key lime cookies on the shelf in a specialty gift shop.
Now Nikki and her sister Kathy are starting a new business, named Sarah Reed's Cookies and Snacks. Sarah Reed was the sisters' ancestor who arrived in North America in 1629, bringing the original cookie recipe with her.
Nikki tells me how much she has loved her time on the lake, and knows that we will keep enjoying and caring for this special place. In return, we wish Nikki all the best and are grateful that she has been a part of our community.
Barbie LaPean shares the following sad news, of the death this week of her younger sister Corrine.
Corrine Berna Zywicki passed away on Sunday, October 18th, from complications due to covid-19. She had been in the hospital about six weeks, the last three weeks on a ventilator. Fortunately her husband Dennis and her two children Nathan and Amanda were able to see her and say goodbye. She passed peacefully and knew her family was there. She would have turned 68 on November 15th.
I guess one of the most fun times we had was when they lived on Crescent Lake in Rhinelander. The guys had gone night fishing, so us girls, including my sister Annette, built a campfire with the kids. We sat around drinking beer and talking about our childhoods. The kids loved the stories. They had a radio at the lake, so we called in a request to this nationwide station, asking the DJ to play "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress." About twenty minutes later, he says, "This is for the 3 Sissy’s having a campfire on Crescent Lake." Every time I hear that song I think of my sisters, and see Corrine’s beautiful smile!
Many of us in the book club also remember Corrine from our outing years ago to Ten Chimneys. That afternoon, Barbie said, "I'd like to stop into this Walgreen's because my sister Corrine works there." Barbie remembers Ann saying, "Well, if you are going in, we all are!" I recall that Corrine was behind the cash register, and was very happy to get this surprise visit from her sister. I do not recall if she was also happy to see the rest of us!!
We are very sorry about your sister's passing, Barbie! Please know that we are sending our very best wishes to you and to Danny!
Yes, haven't we had the most beautiful fall weather? It is fading by this weekend, after a week of chilly drizzle, but will be lovely for all leaf-peeping visitors still in the area.
Plus, we have enjoyed a full moon visible across the lake most evenings---the first of two full moons for the month of October.
And, if you are at the lake, you know we had at leat 4 inches of rain the previous week. This will certainly let Carlin go into ice-cover with high water levels. (John still has to take our pier out, so hope the water level will stay below the top of his waders!)
Also under the heading of "interesting weather," I will mention Friday's first snowfall. I didn't see any collecting on the ground, but there was no question that we had several bouts of snow in the air.
Adding to those topics is this unique weather experience, shared by Bill Draves from a recent canoe outing. He tells that this white rainbow is extremely rare, so rare in fact that the warden at the national park is sharing it with other environmental officials.
Bill says this natural phenomenon can be called a white rainbow, a ghostbow, or a fogbow. You can google to learn more. Thanks, Bill----very cool!!
If you are here at the lake, you know that fall colors seem to have magically appeared in just a couple of days. I don't have any scientific guess why the fall leaves seem to have changed so quickly this fall. But all views are beautiful, the kind of days that make people pronounce that autumn is their favorite season.
This sunny photo is compliments of Char, taken from her boat.
Here, the next afternoon, as rain clouds began to gather. This is the Draves/Weber bay.
Heading toward the Carlin Club point. You will recognize the tree on the left of that point.
Stocker's hillside. The other photos are not edited, but I seem to have over-brightened this one, given how gray the afternoon was-----but it is still impressive to see that long hillside of trees.
You know you can click on any of these to enlarge.
If you have additional fall photos that you want me to post, just send to my email please.
Bob and Judy were thrilled to receive the results of their August circuit of Carlin Lake. Using the new equipment from the Discovery Center, they were really hoping that our bat population may be bouncing back after some discouraging years.
And that is exactly what they learned---things are getting better!
In the last five years or so, since 2015, bats in Vilas County, plus in all of Wisconsin, had been dying off because of white nose syndrome.
In the Carlin study conducted in July 2013, a one-hour survey encountered 245 bats in a single circuit.
However, in the survey in 2015, we mourned the enormous decrease---finding only a total of 12 bats, with 8 by the Brewer property, and another 4 in the McCall/Watras bay.
Those numbers were so discouraging!
But now, in the map above, what a pleasure to see these results from the Ruch's survey for July 2020!
(Isn't it great to have some good news from 2020?)