Keep in touch with your White Birch Village Family
Sports Writers Weekend
We had a fun weekend enjoying several sports writers here at the resort. They arrived on Friday and we had a welcome reception for them and then gave them a tour of the resort. Thanks to the graciousness of Dick and Sue Govier we enjoyed a great dinner Friday night at Aqualand Ale House. Everyone enjoyed the two musky flights of craft beers. A total of 16 different beers were tasted. My personal favorite was the Buffalo Sweat.
On Saturday, thanks to the generousness of four of our fishing guides; Bob’s Manitowish Guide Service, Erv Keller’s Guide Service, Marty Clauson’s Guide Service and Mike Errington’s Guide Service, the writers enjoyed a day out on the water fishing our chain of lakes. Each guide took a species of fish and the writers did a 1/2 day with each guide. They fished for bass, walleye, crappies and muskies. They were very successful, hundreds of fish were caught and most released. A few walleye were kept for the writers to take home and enjoy eating. Thanks to the efforts and generousness of Jimmy Dean we ended the day with a wonderful meal at The Guides Inn.
Sunday morning a radio show was taped and a little more fishing was done, but the rain decided to change the fishing plans. The weekend was full of fish stories, comradery, and laughter. Everyone had a great time and we look forward to the stories the writers are going to tell.
Carrie Zilka loves the outdoors, everything hunting and fishing. She discovered the world of podcasts in 2007 and quickly realized there were not many that pertained to the outdoors. She will be doing a podcasts of her experience here at the resort. We look forward to seeing what she has to say. Carrie was very enthusiastic and fun to have here for the weekend. Carrie is part of AGLOW (Association of Great Lakes Outdoor Writers).
Carrie had fun catching crappies.
Don Dziedzina has been involved with the outdoor industry for over 35 years. He writes for the Chicago Tribune, produces and hosts Illinois Outdoors TV show, co-hosts The fishing and Outdoor radio show, and writes for Midwest Outdoors. Don is also an AGLOW writer. We enjoyed the depth of knowledge that he brought to the weekend. It was enjoyable having him here. Don taped a radio show while he was here with John and the fishing guides. Don was joined by his cameraman, Roger Wright, for the weekend. It didn’t take long for a friendly fishing competition to ensue. As you will see in the following picture Roger came out on top.
Roger’s 23 1/2 inch 6 pound small mouth bass was the success story of the weekend.
Pat Mayo from WBAY Sports came up from Green Bay with his teenage son Ian. It was truly an inter-generational weekend. Pat and Ian had so much fun meeting the guides and learning more about fishing. Ian was a trooper spending the weekend with all the adults. It was a pleasure having them join us. Pat took video footage while here and interviewed John and will be putting together a segment for their newscast. Pat and Ian caught fish, but no one shared the pictures with me so I can’t post them.
The writer from Midwest Outdoors had to cancel at the last minute, which meant there would be a guide without someone to fish with. John had the hard job of filling in. He spent Saturday morning with Bob, the afternoon with Erv and Sunday morning with Mike. He had a great time. Below are the photos of the fish he and Bob caught. I have to say I really enjoyed my walleye supper Sunday night. 🙂
Timber!
The trees started coming down at 7AM today. Fifteen trees were cut down today before they came tumbling down on their own. Northern Tree Service out of Woodruff does a great job.
The first one to come down this morning was right next to the lodge deck.
The spider is a great machine.
For those who saw the pileated woodpecker hole studded tree it is now gone. All that remains in it’s place is a stump where a bench will be built by the shuffleboard court.
The back of the lodge looks a little bare with the birch and pine tree gone. Never fear we are going to plant lilac trees in their place.
Cleaning up.
We have decided that September is a great wedding month and are creating a spot along the flowage for ceremonies.
Trimming up the branches and then we’ll take down the fences.
Eventually there will be a gazebo over looking the flowage.
The large tree that came down along the creek in the wind storm this is how the center looked.
A big oak tree between Woodside and Hillcrest came down.
Only 3 inches of the tree was still alive.
Time to move the portable John Deer tractor canopy.
Many hands make for light work.
Docks are in!
The docks are in and ready for your arrival. The water is the deepest it’s been since John and I started managing the resort in 2006. Dock day always manages to be damp, cool and gloomy. One of these years they will hopefully have a beautiful sunny and warm day to put the docks in. They managed to get the log out from under the bridge, it took all of them to move it. Two other logs washed up on shore yesterday, the ice must have been thick this year to move such large logs.We are very fortunate to have a great group of guys help us put our docks in each year.
John giving orders.
Section of dock works great as a ramp.
Randy keeps track of the numbered posts….all 225 of them.
They sure stirred up the creek while getting the log out from under the bridge.
Discussing what to do next.
Heave Ho
Team Work
I missed it, right before I took this picture poor Aaron was knocked over and went completely under water. It filled up his waders with water and they still had 3 hours worth of work in the water.
Tackling the stack of pier sections at the beach. there are a total of 84 sections in all.
It’s a good thing they float.
As you can see the water is deep this year. The deepest section is putting in the dock where we keep our pontoon boat. Normally the chest high waders are enough to keep you dry.
Not sure what Aaron is doing here. Maybe he wants to go for another swim.
I think John A. is getting the better part of the deal. Thanks John O. for braving the cold water to help us put our docks in.
More team work.
Enjoying a hot bowl of chili after 5 hours in the cold water.
A busy day at the Village
It’s been a busy day at the village. We started our day at 5:30 this morning getting ready for the 18th Journey’s Marathon. The starting line for this Boston Marathon Qualifier begins at the resort. There were 102 full marathon runners this year. It’s fun talking with everyone in the morning and seeing the excitement build as the race is about to start. They begin with reading the Irish blessing and singing America the Beautiful. It was a beautiful morning today with the sun shining and the temp around 46 degrees.
Warming up in the rec building.
More stretching going on in the fitness center.
Getting ready to line up for the start of the race.
The wheelers are the first to start.
And they are off.
Beautiful day for a race.
Later in the morning we found this huge log under the bridge at the beach. Should be interesting removing it. Our dock day crew has an added bonus waiting for them on Tuesday; getting the log unstuck from under the bridge.
In the late 1800’s there used to be a railroad bridge that went across the lake during the lumber years. There are still a few pilings on the bottom of the lake. Well there is one less as of today. One somehow made it’s way under the bridge.
It’s about 8 feet long. Should be interesting getting it out after a hundred years under water.
To round out the day the Friesema’s who are staying with us this weekend decided after participating in the 5K of the Journeys Marathon they also needed to be the first to swim in the lake!
Randy, Kelly and Katie Friesema our first guests of the season also decided to be the first guest to swim in the lake. Water temps are around 40 degrees since the ice just went out this week.
Brave!
Thankfully the sun was shining and not much breeze.
The ice is moving
With the high winds today and the warmer temps the ice has been moving at a pretty good clip across the lake. Charlie made it to shore just in time, he would have been crushed. Standing on the shore taking the following pictures it sounded like an amplified twisting of a plastic ice cube tray. It was really creaking and moaning. There shouldn’t be any ice left by morning.
Ice build up on the shoreline.
What the beach looks like right now.
Over half of the lake is free of ice.
And the winner is………
Charlie finally took the plunge one day sooner than he did last year. May 5th is the official day for the 2014 Ice Out Contest.
We had three people who chose today as the day;
Peggy Pride – 9:06 AM who voted on Facebook. Thanks Peggy for your interest in our resort.
Susie Morter – 1PM – Susie has been vacationing here since 1988
Alyssa Heeringa – 3:28 PM – Alyssa’s mom won it last year and has been vacationing here since 2009
Drum roll please…..The winner is Peggy Pride as Charlie took the plunge early this morning.
Honorable mention goes to Susie and Alyssa.
Thank you to everyone who guessed this year. It’s always fun to see the dates people choose. In the five years we have been doing this we have had two ice outs in March, one in April and two in May.
As you can tell in the picture there is still a lot of ice to melt on the lake, but with the temps in the 60’s the next couple of days it will be gone soon!
Charlie floated to shore and made it easy to retrieve him. John pulled him out of the water before I could get a photo. He’ll sit here until tomorrow to do some drying out.
The geese are enjoying open water wherever they can find it.
Forces of Nature
Last Monday brought high winds to the Northwoods. We had 6 trees come down along the creek. Spring clean-up begins with cutting up trees. The warmer temps are arriving, but not soon enough for the spring fish opener. No boats out on the lakes. But as you will see the ice is starting to melt. Charlie will most likely take his plunge today or tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.
Charlie update
Winter continues to hold on in the Northwoods. We had a few days of temps in the 60’s. It melted a lot of snow, but the lake remains frozen as we still have temps in the 20’s at night. This next week the temps are holding in the 40’s so the ice melt will be slowed down. Spring cleaning began this week. The melting snow makes it easier to access the vacation homes.
Poor Charlie has fallen over and will remain in that position until he takes the plunge.
The warmer temps opened up the entrance to the creek.
Spring Snow Storm
Mother nature was at her finest in the Northwoods. 16 inches of snow came down yesterday and today. A lovely wet heavy snow has blanketed the resort. The entire area has broken many records this year; many of the records were set in either the 1920’s or 30’s. We are easily pushing 130 inches of snow this winter in our immediate area. For those of you who are already enjoying spring, think warm thoughts as you look at the pictures.
Even the shovels got buried.
Area around the resort ranged from 12″ to 19″ where drifts were.
We always get great drifts between the lodge and Red Oaks from the wind off the lake.
Winter Wonderland once again.
All of the snow piles John worked so diligently to remove with the bobcat last week have returned.
The snow from the driveway in front of Loon and Mallard created this 10 foot + mound of snow.
Fences are buried!
Poor Charlie is buried once again.
Charlie says….enough snow already!
As the snow is falling in the Northwoods, I thought I would share how Charlie looked at the end of the day on Sunday. He was sitting in a pool of water with hopes of the ice going out. Then the weather turned cold again with lows around zero. He is now buried again in snow.
