Lake Wentworth Association

Well, the New Hampshire winter is not living up to its reputation. It just hasn’t seemed to get going this year. The lake is frozen but because there hasn’t been a long period of real cold, activities on the lake are questionable. Yes, you can go on the ice near shore where the water is less than a few feet deep. If you go through all you do is get wet and cold and walk out. Going through in the middle of the lake is another thing entirely……. The problem is that it gets cold and then warms up and rains. Maybe the Jet Stream will change so that the cold comes to stay for awhile. Everyone who likes snow will then be happier.

Sometimes, we need a bit of amusement in these cold times. I got an email from a person who deals with water quality that included a link to a “singing goose”. The goose does have a message that is related to protecting the lake but it is a fun little video.  The link is:  http://greatlakesecho.org/2012/01/16/video-this-talking-goose-loves-a-mowed-lawn/

It is the time of year, though, to think about what you can do next season to help the lake. There is one group of landowners are working on putting in a “rain garden”. This garden is designed to take water that is rapidly flowing off of hard surfaces and let the water infiltrate into the ground. This means that all the “stuff” that is on that hard surface (droppings from cars, droppings from pets, fertilizers and other things that we don’t want in the lake) are absorbed into the ground. The plants use the fertilizers to grow (they don’t need much fertilizer so do add any to them) and help break down the other chemicals. Anyone or any group who is interested in this kind of project that will help our lake can get more information from the New Hampshire Lakes Association http://www.nhlakes.org/ . They have a person who can help with the design and help in the project.  The New Hampshire Lakes Association also has lots of other resources. If you want a face to put on the NHLA, Susan Goodwin who is on the LWA Board, is also on the Board of NHLA.

Another thing that you might consider is a permeable surface road. If you are contemplating paving, these are very helpful in preventing runoff into the lake. This paving system/method seems like it would not be good in New Hampshire winters but it actually works well. The paving is designed to have water pass through it. Normal paving is not designed that way and if a crack develops (and they always do), then water goes through the crack, makes the subsurface materials wet and then when it freezes again, the water expands and cracks the pavement. A permeable surface for roads does cost a bit more (not as much as you might expect) and it helps protect the lake and keeps the pavement stable.

This is a time to think about warm summer days on our beautiful lake. We want to keep it that way and if everyone does a little bit to save it, it will stay Class A for a long time. The enemy is fertilizers and silt (that contains phosphates) and other chemicals. Phosphates help algae to grow and we don’t want that. We have a great group of people working on Milfoil but algae can be a problem, too. You can’t go out and pull offending algae off the bottom, it is everywhere. Enjoy the lake but take care of it, too.

Finally, it is freezing, the lake I mean. It is late and as of 1/5/12 it is not all frozen but maybe 95%. The freeze started as it normally does with the lake skimming over and the wind blowing the ice cubes up on shore.  It froze completely by the 8th although it is not frozen enough to walk or ski on. There were people ice fishing on Crescent Lake on the 8th but it is much shallower. Near the Smith River, it was not frozen because of the current.

Then, things get more serious and the ice becomes thicker along the edges. The slush that is bobbing in the waves makes neat shapes and the shoreline becomes a huge sculpture.

Recently, we had a few very cold nights and the lake froze with lots of slush in some places but there is smooth ice in others.

The problem right now is that there are still places with no ice. They may freeze tonight but they will always be a little bit weaker than the rest of the lake. Right now, about 95% of the lake is frozen. That may change overnight but you never know. A little wind may make it so that things don’t freeze but the wind can also cause the rest to freeze but be rough ice.

Pictures are from Point of Pines and the last is Red Brook Circle

The news of the lake is not all that exciting from a Winter Sports point of view. We are finally getting some weather that is below the average temperatures for the date but there are still more days when it is warmer than average. People are still playing golf at Kingswood Golf Club although recently they are a little more bundled up than a month ago.

Snow is not on the ground and the weather forecasters are worried about having a white Christmas. The lake is not near freezing, either, so ice skating seems a bit far off. With about 10 days to go until Christmas, there is little really cold weather coming for that time period.

A week ago, there were five loons seen off Brummit Island but they were probably migrating and not the ones we had last summer. Buffleheads and Hooded Mergansers (two kinds of ducks) are still seen in flocks and there is an occasional grebe who show up sometimes in the late Fall. One of the things that seems to be a daily event happens on Stamp Act Island. It seems that there is a crow meeting there every day with hundreds, or maybe on some days, thousands of crows. With that many birds, it gets quite noisy. A crow probably finds an owl or hawk and then yells and screams about it which draws more curious crows. It is quite a sight to see hundreds of black birds flying to or from the island. Huge flocks are seen in the fields around the lake as well.

The lake level is getting down to its “winter” level but just when it gets down a bit, it rains again and it has seemed to rain hard every now and then. There has been ice on some of the swampy areas but the lake, itself,  has not frozen over any night yet. The first freeze or two usually breaks up and has lots of “ice cubes” showing up on the downwind shores but none have been seen yet.

The biggest change, here, is the new web site format. It looks great and from my point of view it is much easier to work with. The old one would sometimes “eat” my articles and I would have to start over. Thank you Rich and Dave Masse! Making significant changes to a web site is never easy but they have done it! They have preserved the webcam (this wasn’t as easy as it might seem) and they have allowed people to see the old website as well. Amazing what volunteers will do!

Peter Goodwin

As of November 28, 2011, lwa.org is taking on a somewhat new look. The change has been some months in the making and is intended to replicate much of what visitors value about the site while making updates and maintenance simpler. The new site should also be less vulnerable to hacking.

There are a few changes, of course. Given how familiar many people are now with photo sharing web sites, the gallery has moved to Flickr (flickr.com). This makes posted photos easier to share and requires less customized code for the LWA site. Also, the webcam page and water level page look a little different, but they offer the same features as did the old site.

NOTE: You will need to create a new login account if you want to post to the forums. It was not possible to carry over all the login accounts from the old site to the new one. Just use the login form that appears at the right of each page to create a new account.

In the coming days and weeks we’ll be working to make some features of the old LWA site — specifically the photo gallery and the forums — available for viewing. If we’re able to do it in a way that prevents new entries, we’ll announce it here and set up a link on this site.

In the meantime, feel free to explore the new site, and let us know what you think.