Steven Helmer Publications

I shared the woodchuck photo from lunch yesterday but didn't get around to sharing the photos I took yesterday morning while on my walk by Beaver Dam Lake. Here they are:

We didn't attend any of the other Beaver Dam Lake Days activities this weekend, mostly because of a lack of funds, but my wife and I kept her promise to the girls and took them to see the Saturday night fireworks. Last year, we discovered we could see the fireworks from one of the downtown parking lots. This has some perks because it means we don't have to fight for a spot to sit and deal with bugs. That's where we ended up again last night as a result and we were able to see just fine. And, overall, I thought they were very entertaining (better than they have been some other years). My biggest complaint about them, however, is they were supposed to start at 10:10 p.m. and, instead, they were started a little before 10. We ended up missing part of them as a result of this and, considering the fireworks display is only about 20 minutes in length, I'm sure there were plenty of other people who did miss them. This isn't the first time that has happened, so I guess ...

It was kind of dark and overcast this morning (which is why the photos look a little dark) but, since it wasn't raining at the moment, I decided to take a walk by the lake. I probably shouldn't have been as surprised as I was but, thanks to the rain we've been having, the shoreline moved a bit and I only had a narrow trail I could walk on and had to be careful not to step into water. Despite this, I did manage to get a few photos. That "island" is where the shoreline normally is.

I got my walking app back up and running on my phone so I decided to stop by the lake this morning and take a stroll with my camera. It was a bit of a challenge getting photos. There was a lot to see but the birds seemed to be a bit skittish and uncooperative, meaning I had to take a couple of the photos as they were swimming in the middle of the lake barely in range of my camera lens. Here are some of the photos I was able to get:

I didn't see much on my walk today. But, I did manage to get up the big hill in the park and snap a photo of the still-frozen Beaver Dam Lake.

It was clear and calm out this morning so, when the sun got high enough for me to get a halfway decent shot, I decided to grab a photograph of Beaver Dam Lake before getting in my car and heading into the office.

I was on my morning walk by the lake and saw something that was a little concerning. There was a thick layer (it almost looked like a sheet of ice) of a bluish slime covering the water of the tributary connected to Beaver Dam Lake. I'm not sure what it was exactly. I'm guessing it was some sort of algae. But, it had a nasty smell and there were dead fish floating in it.