Black’s Cliff Resort’s Birch Bark Blog

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.

I have been so busy with painting this week it was nice to have Rob Moore up at the resort.  When he is here I am always gaurantteed some beautiful pics for the blog.  So today’s pics are all thanks to Rob!  Kudos Rob.  I loaded the pic above bigger than normal for all the screen saver gurus out there

Rob and Doug fished for 3 days.  I heard the perch were biting big time.  They also thought they saw 2 pairs of loons on the lake which would explain all the hooting and hollering I heard as I was varnishing Norway yesterday.

Rob caught this picture back in the bay showing our usual pair nesting

This is my favorite pic, as Rob caught something I never have.  Do you see the bird in this picture taken by the boat docks

I never would have thought of looking for an owl in the middle of the day.  I forgot to ask Troy before I left what kind of owl this is, I am sure out in blog land there is an owl identifier.

Thanks again Rob