August 10: Water: Lakes
“Make your heart like a lake with a calm, still surface and great depths of kindness.”
-Lao Tzu
Lynx Lake is one of the most pristine lakes in Arizona.
Featured Bloggers for WQW #28: Rivers
Thank you to those who linked.
- BEACH WALK REFLECTIONS
- KEEP IT ALIVE
- LIGHTWRITELIFE
- NOW AT HOME
- SECOND WIND LEISURE SUNDAY STILLS
- TRAVEL WITH ME
- TOURING MY BACKYARD
- WIDE EYED WONDERINGS
IT’S EASY TO PLAY ALONG WITH #WQW
This weekly writing challenge runs from Wednesday through Tuesday at noon. All you need is a quote to go with your post. Write a poem, story, or memoir. Share photos and a story or no story. Just have fun with it and let the quote or quotes lead the way.
Topics for the year (subject to change) are listed on the WQW Page. Feel free to post weekly, or drop in from time to time – All are welcome.
Definition of Lake
“a large body of water surrounded by land.”
Oxford Dictionary online
For More Ideas about Lakes
- YOUR BLOG POST GOES NEXT
- HEAVEN’S SUNSHINE
- HOURGLASS POETRY
- KEEP IT ALIVE
- LADY LEE
- LOVING LIFE
- NEW2WRITING
- SECOND WIND LEISURE
- TRAVEL WITH ME
- WIDE EYED WONDERINGS
Summertime and the Livin’ Is Easy on Man-Made Lakes
“Skip a stone. Take a hike. Sit a spell. Listen. Daydream. Just breathe. This is lake living.”
Unknown
Our parents needed to wait until Dad retired before they had children. Sadly, as far as our enjoyment of lakes was concerned they did not wait.
Lakes were not a huge part of our upbringing in Indiana. Dad worked most of the time, and Mom was pretty much allergic to the outdoors. Lakes weren’t within walking distance so Randy and I could go by ourselves. Our lakes were the puddles that formed in the grass when we ran through the sprinklers.
As an adult, I have been fortunate to live near lakes and enjoy them as often as I want.
In Woodlake, near the Sequoia National Park, dammed lakes are essential for flood control, and electric power, as well as for providing a water source for a semi-arid climate. Kaweah Lake was dammed in the 1960s after a 100-year flood that flooded every town in its path in the 1950s. Today is it also a popular place to kayak.
Bravo Lake was created as a resort destination by enlarging a levee around the natural seasonal lake in the early 1900s. Since that time, there has been some contention between the town of Woodlake, which houses the lake but can’t use the water, and the Bravo Lake Water District. Bravo Lake is privately owned and managed for the exclusive rights of farmers who are part of the district.
Currently, the town is building a pipeline that will skim off the water before it enters the lake and divert it to another lake on City property for use by the City residents.
Near Prescott, Arizona in the high desert region of the Prescott National Forest, there are four man-made lakes. The first one is pictured above.
Sadly, Willow Lake is not one of the best for water activities. We hiked across the trails along the bottom of this shallow, man-made lake.
Watson Lake is the largest of Prescott’s four man-made lakes. For the first half of the summer this year it was used to fight a large forest fire. By the time we used it in early July, the water level was so low that we encountered almost as much vegetation as we did water as we paddled.
Man-Made Lakes in Other Seasons
In February 2013 I visited Boston, MA as part of a planning committee for the National Council for the Social Studies. It was a rare treat to travel to the East Coast, and I spent an extra week in order to visit a few friends there. My best friend’s son took me to see some of the sights in Massachusetts and Maine but I couldn’t tell you now which place was which for sure. This lake was unapproachable and untouched by human activity other than hiking.
Lake Michigan – a Fine and Natural Sight
“A normal lake is knowable. A Great Lake can hold all the mysteries of an ocean, and then some.”
-Dan Egan
Even though my brother Randy gets motion sick on boats, the boat taxi we took from Point A to Point B along the shore of Lake Michigan in 2013 didn’t bother him at all and afforded us a chance to photograph some of the large boats on the lake.
- Cell Pic Sunday hosted by John Steiner – Noyo Headlands Park
- Weekend Coffee Share hosted by Natalie the Explorer
- Sunday Stills – Summertime hosted by Terri Webster Schrandt
- WWE (Water, Water Everywhere) #138 Fannyside Lochs hosted by Jez Braithwaite
I apologize for all the acronyms. Most teachers and administrators use them in education to make explanations almost impossible for the public to understand, and that’s my background.
IRL (In Real Life)
We are having another blogger meet-up if anyone happens to be passing through the Prescott area on September 15th. Let Janet of This That or the Other Thing, Lisa from Micro of the Macro, or I know if you are interested in meeting us for lunch.
If we were having coffee this morning I’d tell you about my week.
- New Project: writing poems or finding old poems for each theme of WQW using one quote and one picture.
- Continuing Project: rating photos as I take them and as I create new posts. Adding key words to key photos
- Rain every day – Monsoon season.
- Dinner with California friends looking at property in Chino Valley.
- Working out details with our new property manager for our Scottsdale condo with Terri Webster Schrandt’s brother-in-law. Who knew where blogging could lead us?
- Getting the ALL CLEAR on both my DVT (deep vein thrombosis) and healed torn meniscus! Now I’ve started some SERIOUS/STRENUOUS leg exercises to repair the atrophied muscles in my left leg.
- New Project: Vince and I are going to serve as Life Group Lay Coordinators for our church to help get 20 small groups started and running.
What About Your Experiences?
Remember if you are researching a topic, you have found a gold mine of quotes. I summarized articles, and the name or website behind the post adds the gravitas I might lack about a topic. Don’t forget that songs count as quotes, too.
Ongoing on Always Write
- On August 9th Story Chat presented Gloria McBreen’s new story, “Backstab.”
- PPAC #58 – “Busy Art in Black and White” (Photographing Public Art Challenge) is your choice of art – no theme! Two more days to link.
- Upcoming topics for WQW
- August 17: Earth: Mountains, Rocks
- August 24: Travel/Transportation: Cars or Trucks
- August 31: Holiday: Labor Day/Work Ethic/Dirty Jobs/or Writer’s Choice/ or YOUR WOTY Review
- For a list of past WQW posts visit my WQW Page
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
Your babbling is music to my ears. Please leave a comment!