Keep in touch with your White Birch Village Family
Winter Getaways
Come join us this year for a winter wonderland experience. You can snowshoe, cross-country ski, snowmobile, or just enjoy the Northwoods all dressed in white. John and Sue will have a snowshoe trail blazed around White Birch Lake for your enjoyments and snowshoes will be available at the lodge for you to use. Maps are available for all the nearby snowshoe, cross-country ski trails and snowmobile trails. The suites are available January 3rd—February 24th. Below are the special packages we are offering this winter. All rates are based on 2 people. We hope you can come visit us this winter.
Ice Fishing with John Package
John will take you out on the ice and drill the holes for you and help you to get all set for catching some fish. Limited tackle is available to use along with the bait.
3 Day—January 20-23 $585
Lodging, Bait and limited tackle
Chili lunch served on the ice
Friday night Fish Fry, with your catch
Dinner Saturday Night at Guides Inn
2 Day—January 21-23 $390
Lodging, Bait and limited tackle
Chili lunch served on the ice
Dinner Saturday Night at Guides Inn
Progressive Dinner Package
January 28-30 $360
Saturday Breakfast at White Birch Village
Saturday Dinner: Appetizer and drink at McGann’s Wine Bar, Dinner at Outdoorsman, Dessert at Guides Inn
Valentine’s Day Package
February 11-13 $360
Saturday Breakfast at White Birch Village
Saturday Dinner at Outdoorsman
First snowfall
Yesterday morning we awoke to the first snowfall of the season. It’s hard to tell how much came down as it was melting throughout the day. Even so, it’s so pretty with the first snowfall and everything is white. We have our snowshoes ready and hopefully we’ll blaze in a trail around White Birch Lake to use this winter. Keep your eye posted on the blog as later this week we will have our winter packages listed for January and February.
Looking out the front door of the lodge.
Beautiful Swans
Sorry it’s been so long since I had a post on the blog. John’s dad died on November 1st and we haven’t been in town much. On our way to Green Bay for the first visitation we saw these swans down the road on Little Star Lake. Had to stop and get a photo.
When we stopped the car they were all looking in our direction, but they didn't like our intrusion and started swimming away.
Hello there
John has his stealth camera out once again looking for sign of deer. Looks like he found it!
Hello there!
Windstorm!
This past week Mother Nature has done quite a clean up job! The winds began on Tuesday and it didn’t take long for the power to go out. By 9:30 AM it was gone. The winds continued to blow well into Wednesday night and it took a toll on the trees. John stopped counting at when he hit 75 trees down. The hardest hit area was near Timberwolfe. At first we were told our power wouldn’t be back on until Saturday as over 10,000 people were without power in the Northwoods! Thanks to the generator we didn’t lose any food, had water and heat, and one outlet and extension cord that we used. We also have a gas stove so we could still cook dinner by candlelight! The nights were very peaceful, got a lot of reading done and realized how well you can do without TV, computers and other electrical appliances. Thankfully, the power came back on Thursday night (earlier than anticipated) especially since we had people renting one of the suites for the weekend! The guys had the grounds just about picked up for the fall and now you would never know it. There are truck loads of debris to pick up. Here are some pictures from all the trees that came down.
So much for the new deck by the musky bell!
Uprooted at the ponds.
At least it fell towards the ponds instead of the Rec Building!
Tree down next to Oriole.
Common sight everywhere!
Shows the power of the wind!
Hardest hit area was up near our burn pile.
Big pine tree came down near Timberwolfe. Thankfully very little damage was done to the building.
Yes, that is snow in the picture!
One less tree at Timberwolfe's deck.
The chain saws have been busy!
Tree's crossing roads are everywhere up here right now. This picture is our road near the burn pile. As you drive down County K there are trees on the side of the road every few yards.
It's good the polish staff have already gone home, hard to get to their housing right now.
Caption Contest
Each year we hang a fun photo on the bulletin board and let people give a caption for it. We thought we would share this years photo and all the great captions guests gave.
It's never too late to add a caption. Do it via "leave a comment"
I knew I was in trouble when mom named me Jonah.-Phyllis Wlos
“Is he gone?” -Brenden Malmgren
“humph, first I misplace my glasses, now I can’t find my son.” -Mary Allen
“Don’t worry, it’s over. Bzzzzzzt. -Mitchell Zook
Mom, Mom—Where did you go? -Steve Quickert
Hey Mom! This Halloween costume is too big! -Gene Wengert
Can you hear me now? – Sandy Carlson
Mom, are we there yet? – Betsy Ogan
No one will find me in here.—Meghan Berther
“You scratch my back, I scratch yours.” – Kyle Freeman
“Marco!” “Polo!” – Lisa Kopp
Fish Infant Carrier—Mary Valsa
“Peek-a-boo Meet my new body-guard” – Tom Franklin
Geocache is put away for the season
John and I took advantage of the beautiful fall day today (before the chance of snow later this week hits) to collect the geocache boxes. The pink cache gave us a big challenge since it had been moved 45 feet from where I placed it this spring. nut our treasure hunting skills paid off and we finally found it. It was fun to read the comments in the log book in the purple cache box. Here’s some of them for you to read:
“What a memorable day!” Steve, Molly, Susie and Charlie Currey 6/28/10
“Crazy bug adventure!” Matt Wiedholz and Danielle O’Connell 7/5/10
“This was awesome but challenging.” Will and Spencer 7/20/10
“It was very hard.” Alex Moore 7/28/10
“It was awesome” Bridget and Maddy 8/15/10
“Team work brought success.” Walley, Kay, Ron and Laurie 8/22/10
“This trail was fun. I love it.” Corinne Giersch 9/4/10
Picking up the orange cache.
Following the compass.
Docks Come Out
The weather cooperated this year for taking the docks out. The sun was shining, the wind was relatively calm and the temperature was in the low 50’s. All of this made the day go smoothly and quickly. The only glitch came when Mike Errington tripped on a submerged log and took a dive in the cold water. I wasn’t quick enough with the camera, but we all heard him. He was a trooper and finished helping take docks out. With 9 guys to help it only took them 2 1/2 hours to take the 84 sections of dock out and the boat lift. It helped that John and Dave took all the bolts out the day before.
Taking out the Woodside/Hillcrest dock.
It's good wood floats!
The main dock is the last to come out.
Using a section of dock as a ramp to carry out the sections.
The piles are stacking up.
To get the boat station out they submerge a boat and run the pump to drain the water out of the boat and it lifts the station so they can float it over to the beach for storage.
Enjoying a chili lunch after being in the cold water.
Fall leaf pick up begins
Ohhh the sound of leaf blowers! They began this morning in earnest. With 45 acres to clean the blowers will be going 8 hours a day for the next 3 weeks.So much for the quiet beauty of the Northwoods. The “Billy Goat” (which is a leaf vacuum and mulcher) saves a lot of time, but it decided to go on strike yesterday by catching on fire. The guys are not too happy. The new parts can’t get here fast enough.
Hopefully the winds stays calm and doesn't undo all the work before they are picked up.
Will they be this happy in 3 weeks?
The vacation homes are all closed up for another season. Looking forward to another great year in 2011.
Great Musky Catch!
On October 6 & 7 one of our guests hired a fishing guide to fish both White Birch and Ballard lakes. Even with a beautiful fall day the fish stole the scene!
49 1/2 inch musky
44 inch musky