Jevne/Zippel

This thicket of young trees along the sandy beach of Zippel Bay is full of yellow warblers and Wilson's warblers and phoebes.  The yellow birds fly around here by the hundreds.  They sing, "Sweet! Sweet!  I am so sweet!" Yellow warblers must nest up here.

Here I am relaxing on the sandy beach which has to be a mile wide. A native lady bug joins me.  I waded in the water up to my knees and it was warm. I heard Lake of the Woods had ice on it two weeks ago.

At Zippel Bay you can get water the hard way by pumping a pump handle 250 times. Or you can get it the easy way by dipping your container into this artesian well were spring water comes up. The only drawback to this method is that you have to put your feet into the little pond on the slippery rocks.  The water is so cold it makes your shins ache. This well was right by the picnic area.

Here I am halfway down this lovely path that parallels the beach. I loved this path!

After we left the Big Bog park we drove to Franz Jevne state park which is right on the Rainy River.  A lawyer in International Falls died and his family donated the land to the state if they promised to name it after him. This is a very small state park but it has nice hiking trails. Right across the Rainy River is Canada. I could see Indian mounds on the  Canadian side.  I could have swum into Canada! I thought about doing that but the water was going fast and it looked cold.  I hiked along the river. I found a lot of hair in one spot. The hair was whitish and 3 to 4 inches long.  I talked to the guy cutting the grass at this park and he said 3 or 4 deer died in that spot.  He suspects wolves, coyotes, or disease killed them. As I hiked I watched the pelicans and the geese and the warblers fly back and forth. I thought, "There goes a Canadian goose, now it's an American goose, now it is a Canadian goose."  How little such silly boundaries mean to the birds and the fish and the dragon flies.  After hiking there for a few hours we drove to Zippel Bay. Our campsite was in the aspen woods.  Aspens are related to cottonwood trees.  And wow, the aspen trees were throwing out cotton like crazy!  The air was full of cotton!  I breathed cotton.  Cotton gathered like snow in the road and our car sent it all up into the air. Nature is so wasteful sometimes.  Yellow warblers were as thick as thieves.  I tried to get a picture of one above my orange tent but no way, warblers will not sit still for anyone!  And the beach!  Oh, my gosh, the white sand beach! It is like Hawaii or Kangaroo Island or Rhode Island.  I could hardly believe this water was fresh. Lake of the Woods is a very large lake. I waded in the water and the sand softened the skin on my feet just like what happened to my feet in the Bahamas. I was careful not to step on the many large mussel shells. We found a couple mussels with their tongues out.  We picked them up and put them in deeper water.  I had no idea that the park in the chimney of Minnesota was this awesome. Toads were calling, Leopard frogs were calling, Peepers were calling, Chorus frogs were calling. This was one strange spring/early summer. Grouse were drumming in the woods making sonic booms with their wings. One morning at breakfast I was eating my oatmeal and drinking my tea when I saw a weasel looking at me.  I (suppressing swear words again) said to my camping companion, "There is a fisher looking at me right now, right over there, staring me in the eyes with big ears and it might be a fisher or a weasel or something but it is looking me straight in the eye and I am freaking out." She asks where and she sees it slink away. We look it up in her books and come to the conclusion it was a pine martin.  Wow. A pine marten gave me the eye!  At at the showers we heard from the ranger that a bear got into the garbage by the showers last night and licked the wrapper of a peanut butter cup candy bar clean. We were just there last night.  I didn't see any bear or moose or wolves but I did see a pine marten and that was super cool. I accidentally left my computer in the showers to recharge the battery.  No one stole it. I am lucky a bear didn't hack my Facebook account.  I slept great in my orange tent and all thoughts of work and normal worries melted away.  Nature had rejuvenated me!