Black’s Cliff Resort’s Birch Bark Blog

Cool nights we temps going down to 29 tonight ment a perfect night for a campfire and the 1st smores of the summer.

Motto of any campfire, build it and they will come.  Never fails if a fire is built it is a magnet of hungry kids looking for marshmellos and adults looking to stare at mesmorizing coals.  Build a fire and you will not sit by yourself for long

Poe enjoying the warmth and daring to put his head close to the fire.  The life of a resort dog is a tough life

The darker it gets the more ideas that come out on how to entertain.  Sometimes it is guitars, singing… but when Jake is around it is much more colorful.  He learned this trick from the infamous boy scouts better known as “The Buck Boys”  Only Boy Scouts would hold the secret to this invention.  See Jake for a special effects campfire lesson

Picture taken this morning of fishermen at the sunken island.  From their talking I was over hearing that the fish were biting

Over on the shoreline I found Jimmy and Fritz catching crappies.  Their commnet was “Al where are you?”  My comment was “Hey where are you guys staying:)”

In what Craig has claimed is the buy of the year he picked this orange beauty up for 200 dollars.  It is a nice big wide boat.  We have decided not to paint it green.  Steve came up with a great name for it….. remember it is orange and Steve likes his vegtables.

I have decided that I really need to carry my camera around more.  I missed a pic of the first baby ducks on the lake and a baby snapping turtle that needed relocation from Troy’s construction project

Nothing too terribly exciting going on in the Northwoods with the rain the last few days.  The new garden by the sandbox was looking happy to get rain

Lilies of the Valley ready to bloom with the new rain

That is as exciting as it gets in the Northwoods today….

It is raining today and the inspiration to take pictures is not there.  So instead I thought I would include info about the coolest way to see Lake Minocqua

Bayview Lodge across from Save More Foods, on the shores of Lake Minocqua, gave me info on their Lake Minocqua boat tours. They have an enclosed electric boat with comfy sofas that seat up to eight people.  They call it “Limo on the Lake”.  These one-hour cruises are a quiet and comfortable way to see Lake Minocqua. It is also a great way to see the Min-Aqua Bats Water Ski Show.  Give them a call at 715-356-9610 or visit www.bayviewminocqua.com for pictures and pricing.

A friend of mine caught this picture of a brand new baby fawn on County Y about 10 minutes from the resort.  I am sure mama was not far away

Memorial Day Weekend means one thing, the Pink Monkey Party is in full swing.  Savannah is the leader of the Pink Monkey Revolution.

Monkeys, monkeys everywhere

What happens at a Pink Monkey Party you ask..  You will have to attend to learn the secrets.

There is a little Pink Monkey in all of us we just have to find it

Memorial Day Weekend has arrived along with a few of the Ice Out 2009 runners up.  The prize for the runners up is a 5 dollar token to Hilltop’s Rathskellar.  Cliff came out to make an appearance to deliver a couple fo the tokens

Cliff sneaking up on an unsuspecting winner

Marie Voight (better known as Oma) receiving her token.  Who will she find to go down for a rootbeer float at Hilltop with her.  Anyone seen Victoria?

Shortly after Marie got her token, Mike Grady drove in the driveway for his week of peace and quiet at Eagles Nest with his wife Ruth.  Looks like Mike will be heading to Hilltop with Ruth for a beer or float.  Where did Ruth go… she missed meeting Cliff

In other news…

The first volleyball game of the summer took place.  While Gail’s twins were sleeping she managed to get in a big game with Victoria..  Who won, I am sworn to secrecy

Hi Jenny,
>>
>> I’m not sure if you remember me or my family, but my name is Patrick
>> Schmick…..our family had vacationed at your family’s beautiful resort
>> for
>> close to 20 years.  In fact, we loved the Northwoods so much my parents
>> purchased a property so they could spend more time up there.
>>
>> I’ve been following the Birch Bark Blog for a couple of years now, and
>> absolutely love it.  I definitely spend more time than I should at work
>> admiring the photos, and longing for more time up north.  The memories
>> that
>> our family has at your resort are irreplaceable, and that’s a credit to
>> the
>> work that you and your family has put into the vacation spot.
>>
>> In fact, this year at my company’s holiday party, I ended up running into
>> Ted Perry from Fox 6.  You had mentioned his radio spot from the resort,
>> and as soon as I mentioned that I had vacationed at Blacks Cliff, we must
>> have had a half hour conversation about our memories.
>>
>> In recent years, the number of housekeeping resorts as dramatically
>> decreased, but the strong has survived.  Your family has provided a
>> product
>> second to none, for several generations.  You don’t provide a place to
>> stay, you provide experiences, and memories.  One just has to read the
>> blog
>> and a few comments, to realize the special place you really have.  As
>> someone who has Finance and Marketing degrees, as well as an MBA, I can
>> tell you that almost all Fortune 500 companies would die for an
>> organization and customers like yours.
>>
>> I just wanted to send you my comments, as I’ve followed the blog forever,
>> but never really commented.
>>
>> Keep up the great work, the fantastic photos, and maybe we’ll run into
>> each
>> other sometime in the beautiful Northwoods.
>>
>> Take care.

Thanks Patrick I will keep the fingers typing and the pictures uploading, glad you enjoy the 5 minutes in the woods each day that many others do too.  Stop in sometime when you are in the neighborhood

I heard the engines firing up down at the beach as I was heading out with a bucket of paint.  Rob my guest photographer thankfully took a minute to capture the launching of the Raft version 2.0.  The raft broke loose from its first anchor last week and has spent a week anchored down at Holiday and Norway til we had time and the wind died down.  Nothing is more commical than trying to drag the raft into position with white caps on the lake.  Steve headed off in the boat with his copilot Olja to see if it could be done today.

Dragging the raft back is a slow and steady process.  It is still better than dealing with rush hour traffic anyday.  Trick Steve is trying to do is do it in reverse, I prefer to use a longer rope and have the boat in forward but each to their own.  We have all done this task at one time or another and lived to tell the tale

Troy  and Steve making sure the anchor rope is tied on tight.

Ok is everything aligned properly with the stars and moon?  Time to drop anchor….  Hey what is that yellow rope floating in the water…..  Is it the top of the broken anchor from the other day….

Anchor number 2 launched in the water.  Hey Steve see if you can get your hands on the old floating anchor rope.  The old anchor rope broke where it attached to the raft and rope floats so the guys did not want to waste a 2nd good anchor at the bottom of the lake and decided to tie the 2nd old one on as well

The raft has never been attached to, 2 anchors at one time, this year I think we are pretty sure it will not be moving much.  Question is how many anchors will we have by the end of the summer will both anchor lines hold.  A summer never goes by that we do not have to atleast once rescue the run away raft.

Any complaints on the raft placement, see Craig these 2 are done with the raft til fall

Bring on Summer 2009 we are ready for the first swimmers.

Thanks again to Rob for catching these pictures.  You have a job as honoary blog photographer anytime.  Rob’s sister Vicki was sad to see her floating sun raft leave Holiday’s dock area she had been enjoying catching rays down at those docks.  Time to swim to the raft Vicki, remember the bikini next time:)

I have 3 cabins left for Memorial Day Weekend, Shamrock, Norway and Bear Den.  They are 3 and 4 bdrs, I will book them to smaller groups for the same price as a 2bdr.  So if you need to get out of town this weekend give a call.  Weather says it should be beautiful highs in the lower 70’s

If you are watching the National Geography Bee this afternoon at 4pm on The National Geographic Channel today, and I think it repeats on PBS, look for Vansh Jain who is in the final 10.  He is from the local Minocqua elementary school  in Ben’s class and only in 5th grade competing against kids up to 8th grade.  It will be fun to see how the annoucer says his home town Minocqua.