Our Neighborhood

The lake is as nice as it has been all year. While we're all waiting for the hammer of winter to drop, it's prime time to visit the lake and see the fall colors, the remaining wildlife, and enjoy the relatively clear water while it lasts. As we lapped the lake tonight, we were struck by how beautiful our neighborhood is. We're lucky to have so many neighbors who treasure their homes and yard. Our hidden neighborhood is one of the Cities' unknown treasures. 

We made a lap around the lake, from north to south and took some shots of the lakeshore from almost every angle. See if you can spot your house from here.

The mild and long Indian Summer has allowed the lilies to last longer than usual and the milfoil is doing pretty well, too. The freeway drain at the north east end of the lake is totally filled by sediment. That end of the lake is also a little more shallow than it was a year ago and a lot more shallow than it was 5 years ago. There was a statement made in a City Council meeting a few years ago claiming that the DOT had stopped draining the freeway entrance runoff into the lake. That is only true because the runoff completely clogged the drain. That's not what I'd call an "engineered solution." That's just more of the sloppy engineering that turned our lake into a catch basin for the freeway expansion and allowed unhealthy and illegal levels of noise to be reflected from the east side freeway barriers at our homes.

So as we enjoy the hard work of our neighbors and the beauty of a Minnesota fall, we should be figuring out how to fix the problems on our lake during the winter months so that we can enjoy the lake all year next season.