Black's Cliff Birch Bark Blog

Excerpt: The lake is very quickly heading to ice out. The darker it gets the closer it gets to open water The raft is floating free today of its ice winter home View off the hill today of the darkening lake. The small pond by Save More Grocery store is ice free today it is always the lake that opens... Read more

Excerpt: With warmer temps this week we have spotted our first open water. I am sure the ducks are not far away. Temps going to 65 on Saturday will get things really moving along melting I caught Penny down on our side of the lake looking forlornly at her swimming hole. It will be a few more days before we... Read more

Excerpt: We are slowly melting the snow from the big storm last week. Hopefully the resort looks less white in a few days. We have warmer temps and rain headed our way and that should hurry up the melting. I think Steve is taking the plow off for the last time this week. Hopefully that is a good sign. I... Read more

Excerpt: Snow melting slowly away. For the past 2 weeks I have been dealing with computer key board problems. My computer went to visit the Apple gurus in the mail and all is well again. I can type 9's all day now. Before I had keys acting up all the time. I had tried to update the blog with my... Read more

Excerpt: Troy and I just returned from our final little spring trip before getting in to spring clean up of the resort. We left spring like Missouri to return to snow still on the ground. The lake is slowly turning colors I will post tomorrow Steve's updates on Bear Den We went to the largest sock machine gathering in the country... Read more

Excerpt: I see lots of stressed out people arrive at the resort who just want to unplug from technology, phones and traffic. You have so much more come at your these days. Today I had to deal with my computer which the nine button has decided to not work. Periodically my key board decides to throw me for a loop... Read more

Excerpt: We are starting to see signs of melting. The lake is slowly changing color around the edges and the beach has been spotted under all the snow. July still seems a long way off With all the melting it is uncovering all the branches that came down in the ice storms this winter. We are going to have quite... Read more

Excerpt: We returned home to some definitely warmer temps. This squirrel was soaking up the warmer rays in the trees. There is still a lot of snow and ice to melt but it is slowly going away While we were gone Steve and Chris Moran put in 14 new counters around the resort along with sinks and faucets. I have... Read more

Excerpt: The Gibson family is on spring break this week and off on a trail, We get asked all the time where and when do you get away when you live at the resort. Spring Break is a great time to get out of the woods for awhile. Never fear Steve is back at the resort keeping everything humming along... Read more

Excerpt: Spring has sprung and it was time to tap the trees. The thick snow made getting to the trees hard. I adjusted what trees we were tapping due to the snow depth. I have abandoned the trees at Eagles Nest as getting in out of there would have been thigh high to waist high snow. Instead I put more... Read more

Excerpt: The snow is measured in feet on the lake and in the woods. The deer are sticking to plowed roads and paths as much as they can. They have a trail worn along the lake on the ice Troy has started laying Bear Den's new basement floor. It is looking good! He is happy to have an indoor project... Read more

Excerpt: After an additional foot plus of snow i snapped these pics at the beach. The raft may not ever come out again The deer have been cutting a path along the edge of the lake as they try to get through the snow We actually used the snow blower even on the steps to break up the snow It... Read more

Excerpt: The extra foot of snow mother nature thought we needed sure is pretty... As long as you don't have to move it. We are seriously running out of room to put it. Steve has made our snow banks with the truck as high as he can but they are slowly taking over. Troy was trying to snow blow some... Read more

Excerpt: Winter is holding on and giving us more yet to come We are expecting a foot of additional snow this weekend Time to clean off the roofs before the next big storm. Troy uses the roof rake for the easy stuff but he and Steve had to get up on some of the porch roofs to shovel them off... Read more

Excerpt: It has been a very snowy week with snow measured in feet. Mike and Jeannie Flesch shared their snow shoeing pics in the snow as it was coming down. When the snow was done and the sun came out it was pretty and time to start the clean up. Steve plowed for 2 days getting everything cleaned up and... Read more

Excerpt: We had about 8 inches more of snow come in. It was coming down at and inch to 2 inches an hour in the afternoon We had some hungry visitors stop in. They like to check out the ground below the bird feeders for left overs. Steve having fun plowing Morning after with the sun peaking through The path... Read more

Excerpt: Sunday into Monday the Northwoods shut down over ice. We did not venture out on the roads Monday. I heard Hy 29 was a mess of semi's off the road Steve did venture out and said he went 10 miles an hour down Lower Kaubashine We just stayed home and skated down the driveway cleaning a few cabins Then... Read more

Excerpt: After being minus 30 degrees for more days than we would like to talk about last week it went to almost 32 the last 2 days. Wildlife came out of hiding and so did we Cold? What cold? It was actually kind of foggy today. This is the calm before the storm. We have a ice storm coming in... Read more

Excerpt: Mack is reporting today that it is -8 with a windchill he would rather not talk about Headed down to the lake and the raft looks chilly no sun bathers today Skating rink wind swept with snow This is as far as I was walking in the cold. We expect 3 more days of cold and the temps get... Read more

Excerpt: We have had one and off snow the last few days and it is slowly piling up. The trees look pretty This fat bunny has been munching bird seed under our feeders. I think he is too fat for a hawk to carry off We gathered this last weekend as a family to watch Grant swim at Ripon college... Read more