Summer in Northern Wisconsin and the Northwoods is...

Wobbly-legged spotted fawns with big brown eyes.

Foxes, bears, elk, porcupines, and so many others... raising their young.

Undecipherable fragrances wafting on soft breezes.

The "smack" of your line as you hook into a lunker bass, musky, northern or
walleye.

Brats and marshmallows toasting over a wood fire, the sparks painting the sky,
and the smells enriching your soul.

Sunsets against a darkening azure horizon, in shades of red, pink, and purple that
Titian could never match.

Billowing clouds as soft as marshmallows. Crackly thunder and lightning. Pelting
warm rains.

Flowers and ferns, plants and trees... intermingling and entwining into perfect
gardens.

Droves of forest where light filters through, spotlighting mushrooms and insects
and things on its floor.

Diving loons... Soaring eagles and ospreys... And a thousand-million birds
singing.

Tubing and boating... The laughter of kids on a sand beach... The snores of
adults relaxing and smiling and forgetting everyday cares.

Music and theatre and events and celebrations and history and pow-wows and
parades and shopping... and dripping ice cream cones, and peanut brittle and
fudge and lemonade and fish boils...

....And wanting to come back again and again, because you've only scratched the
surface...

That's Summer in Northern Wisconsin and the Northwoods.

Come and be part of it all.
Kids, families, seniors, singles.

Look for stories about Summer activities and events in our Features and Kids
Pages.

By Ray Smith
©2005, Creative Brilliance Associates. All rights reserved.
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission.

The ever-so-slight nip in the air, bringing mists at dusk and dawn.

The unrelenting beauty of orange and red and yellow wherever you look or peek
or stare... as the trees change.

The smell of acorns, wild mushrooms, and drying leaves, as you crackle along a
forest trail.

The moon... the brightest and clearest saucer, as it reflects its magic on
everything, accompanied by the haunting howl of a timber wolf in all its
magnificence.

Cattails puffing their brown seeds and white fluff.

Darkening coats and large antlers of the deer as they cavort and compete toward
the upcoming rut.

The sounds and sights of branches being rubbed... and the bugling of the elk as
they cavort and compete towards the upcoming rut.

Ravenous black bears gorging on berries and nuts as they prepare for
hibernation.

The sights and sounds of a thousand-million birds gathering, then flocking, then
speeding off in great groups towards southern warmth.

Singing camp songs and half-sleeping on someone's shoulder as a wood fire boils
and bubbles the coffee.

The pine trees becoming the greenest thing left anywhere.

Trophy musky coming up from the depths to seize the huge suckers and
jerkbaits as in no other season.

Cold, driving rains that portend what's ahead, while adding life and purity to the
aquifers.

Long hikes, with the forest revealing all the things no longer hidden from view.

Owls swooping as they search the clearing meadows and wetlands for voles and
mice.

Scampering squirrels storing as many nuts as they can find, chirping at
one-another frenetically.

That's Fall in Northern Wisconsin and the Northwoods.

Come and be part of it all.
Kids, families, seniors, singles.

Look for stories about Fall activities and events in our Features and Kids Pages.

By Ray Smith
©2005, Creative Brilliance Associates. All rights reserved.
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission.

Rosy cheeks.
Cozy retreats and roaring fires.
Snowmobiling.
Cross-country and downhill skiing.
Snowshoeing, mushing and hiking.
Ice fishing. Ice skating. Sleighriding.
Hot mulled cider.
Wildlife.
The sublime silence of snow-covered forests.
The shimmering glisten of billions of ice crystals on frozen glacial lakes...
and so much more.

That's Winter in Northern Wisconsin and the Northwoods.

Come and be part of it all.
Kids, families, seniors, singles.

Look for stories about Winter activities and events in our Features and Kids
Pages.

By Ray Smith
©2005, Creative Brilliance Associates. All rights reserved.
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission.

The crystal drips of shimmering water as snow castles and ice melt.

The scampering of small wildlife as they smell the air and feel the sun's warmth.

Birth and buds... the renewal of EVERYTHING -- flora and fauna and people.

Trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit springing out of the soft earth to quickly gain the
sun that the forest will soon hide.

The smells of a thousand flowers and grasses and trees as they explode in
rebirth.

Leaves and trees that have fallen and become part of the earth, renewing the
floor of the forest in a mulch of strength and food that no fertilizer will ever
match.

Deer munching the new, rich grasses on hillsides.

Black bears stumbling and yawning as they emerge from their winter's sleep, two
or three tiny black balls of fur following and bawling, announcing the renewal of
their kind.

The first red-winged blackbirds.

Untold numbers of nests in all shapes and forms... everywhere... as the birds
return and set up housekeeping.

The walleye spawning... the bass spawning... the northern and musky
spawning... the panfish spawning -- as the waters warm and the reeds and
weedbeds absorb the sun.

Frogs bellowing and croaking... loons calling... eagles and ospreys soaring.

The bogs and wetlands filling with lichen and fern, binding together in a
patchwork of life for the dragonflies and mosquitoes, and a thousand insects
unnamed.

Water pouring from waterfalls and filling springs and glacial lakes and aquifers
with a purity that quickens all life.

Rains enriching the soil and calling forth life with a softness.

That's Spring in Northern Wisconsin and the Northwoods.

Come and be part of it all.
Kids, families, seniors, singles.

Look for stories about Spring activies and events in our Features and Kids Pages.

By Ray Smith
©2005, Creative Brilliance Associates. All rights reserved.
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission.