Water System, Rocks, and Fishing

Here are a couple of pictures of the start of our water system.  We (well, Bill, actually) has gotten the roof on the lean-to and stained the posts, etc, in spite of raining most of the week.  Slow progress...but progress, nevertheless! 

The cable trenching crew showed up on Friday to trench in the permanent cable for phone/internet since our current cable is laying on the ground (as it was installed before the frost was out).  While we had forwarned them, the crew said this was the rockiest trench they had installed in all of Itasca county.  Not sure it is quite that bad, but here pictures of the largest rocks and a few others that they ran into.  So, while we may not have indoor plumbing, we do have permanent fiber cable running to the cabin!



Bill sent to Hill City on Friday to take pictures of a new kind of Lady Slipper (stemless) and he took pictures of the showy Lady Slipper on Thursday afternoon.  I will post the pics as soon as he downloads and emails them to me! 

It felt good to final be able to do some work around the resort on Friday!  Got a couple of cabins cleaned before we went fishing on Dora Lake on Friday night.  We didn't catch anything but a tiny perch (which is unusual as there are usually good sized perch right off the dock at the resort).  Cleaned a couple of more cabins on Saturday while Bill weed whipped and cleaned out fire pits and then we went fishing at Trestle Lake (about 10 miles away).  Bill had a great start with 2 nice bass and a little perch but nothing much after that.  I finally caught a couple of little sunnies just before we left.  In spite of the poor fishing, it was a beatiful evening with a beautiful view of God's hand at work in nature. 

Today we are getting ready for some friends to visit from our church in St. Cloud.  They are staying until Tuesday and we are looking forward to hanging out with them!

Cabin Fever!!

I know I said I would quit complaining about the weather but really, it can quit raining anytime now!  On Sunday, we did get out of the cabin and made a run to Bemidji.  Since it was Father's Day, Bill got to pick the activities.  We saw the latest Pirates of the Carribean movie...rather disappointing!  We also wen shopping at Gander Mountain as Bill backed the boat into a stump a few days ago and we need a new transducer which got squashed again the stump.  We finally found someone who got us to the right section of the store but they did not have the one that we need...bummer!  We made a quick stop at Menard's and then out to dinner at a Chinese Buffet that serves crab legs (one of Bill's favorite foods).  I don't know about the rest of you but I find that I would rather pay more for a smaller amount of good food than pay less for a large amount of mediocre and poor food.  Less buffets in our lives is probably a good thing since we generally eat too much at buffets anyway!!

We have not been doing much at the resort due to the weather and no cabins turning over so this has given us time to work on our water system and I am happy to report that we are making progress!  We got the lean-to roof structure up, got the the water container and pump moved over, and got the pump connected to the water container.  We managed to pump 55 gallons of water from the barrel in the truck into the water container...woohoo!  Now we just have to connect the water container to the cabin and do the plumbing in there.  However, we do need some decent weather to do some of that work so we are praying the rain stops soon. 

Turtles and Whittling

We actually got a lot done today in between and during the rain!  We went over and said good-bye to a young guest that we have gotten to know as she and her dad and her grandma were heading home today.  After that, K went with us to check out the local garage sales as D started working on putting railings on their steps down to the dock.  They have 2 older gentlemen who were struggling to get to the dock and D had been planning to add the railing anyway so this seemed like a good time to do it. 

On the way to the garage sales, we saw this snapping turtle on the side of the road digging a hole to lay eggs.  Here is some interesting infomation that I found on snapping turtles.  Female snapping turtles often have traditional nesting areas and they are known to journey 10 miles (16 km) in order to reach the nesting site. Twenty to 30 eggs are laid in a hole in moist soil about 4 to 7 inches (10 -18 cm) deep that is dug with their hind legs. The eggs are round, shelled, and about an inch (2.5 cm) in diameter, about the size of a small golf ball. Once the eggs are laid, the female turtle has completed her maternal tasks and returns to her pond or stream.  The turtle eggs often hatch in the fall after an incubation of 2 to 3 months.  I am pretty sure that I won't be able to find this spot in 2 to 3 months to watch these turtles hatch!!

We hit 3 different garage sales in the area and got some games and curtains for the resort and some Tupperware (or Tubbyware as it is called in our house) and jeans for Bill.  K still had raffle tickets for a nearby festival so we grabbed those and ran over there.  The festival had a flea market, raflle tickets, live music, food and bingo.  We decided to grab lunch there and play some bingo (at a quarter per card!).  We played 2 cards each and K was giving the number caller (who is a friend) a hard time that she wasn't calling her numbers and then she ended up winning!  The winning was only $4.25 but she had never won bingo before so it was still exciting!  We grabbed dinner for the guys and took it back to the resort.

I spent the afternoon cleaning 2 cabins while Bill helped with the railing.  He also started to whittle 2 walking sticks for the older gentlemen as they had not brought their canes and K had some wood.  It looked like fun so I helped him out after I finished cleaning cabins.  Bill removed most of the bark, then I removed down to the white wood, then Bill used a rasp to get rid of the rough spots and smooth it down and then I sanded it.  We left the top section kind of rough so that it was easier for holding.  The 2 gentlemen seemed very appreciative of the walking sticks.

We are back home now to grab clean clothes and head back for a shower.  Since the weather is getting warmer, we are actually starting to shower more than once a week!! :-)

Too much rain!

It is raining...again!  What the heck happened to April showers bring May flowers and then warm sunny June summer weather??  Okay, I am done whining about the weather but it does make cleaning cabins and keeping a lodge clean a bit of a challenge!!  I did manage to clean 2 cabins yesterday afternoon between the rain and sweep/vacuum the lodge and bathrooms.  K is having a tough week emotionally but we are working through everything.  It has been frustrating to her to have her "restrictions" lifted only to find that she still can't do everything as she still has less than full strength and mobility.  On the good news front, she is handling the chemo well and we are thankful for that!

Bill met John over at Cut Foot Sioux yesterday to fish and get our boat back (as we left it at Leech Lake for him to use this week).  They were just starting to catch nice perch when it started to rain.  Bill did get enough northern and perch to work on a "fish cake" recipe.  I will let you know the results but I am thinking they will be wonderful!! :-)

I was changing a light bulb in the fish cleaning house last night and apparently I am not as tall as I like to think I am.  It was a bit too much of a stretch and I dropped the CFL bulb.  I have not really paid much attention to CFL bulbs in my life but apparently you are supposed to take special precautions when this occurs.  You know me, I had to google this and see if this is accurate as there are no such instructions or cautions on the CFL packaging.  Well, sure enough, (http://www.energystar.gov/ia/products/lighting/cfls/downloads/CFL_Cleanup_and_Disposal.pdf), you are supposed to leave the room for 15 minutes and turn off any ventilation system and be careful cleaning up the mess.  Very interesting to find out!!

Our middle daughter, Macy, ended up in the emergency room yesterday and had her appendix removed last night.  We talked with her this morning and the surgery went well and she may even go home today.  They do the surgery via the belly button and 2 small incisions.  Amazing that the hospital stay for this surgery used to be like 5 days!!  We will keep her in our prayers through her recovery.

Back to work...

We enjoyed our time with the family at Leech Lake. The guys went back out fishing on Monday evening but did not have any luck as it was still pretty darn windy.  I did enjoy Pam's attempt to bring some natural flowers into the cabin:

Here are the two most common pictures when my family gets together.  We are generally either playing cards or reading and talking smart:

We frequently joke about being the "Culhanes" for those of you old enough to remember Hee Haw!!

My mom brought Bill this great old cookbook called the The Outdoor Cook's Bible.  It contained recipes for opossum, muskrat, woodchuck, raccoon, bear, etc. and we enjoyed many laughs over this book!

Yesterday morning, the guys headed over to the west side of Leech Lake (with a picnic lunch packed by their loving wives!) to see if it was any calmer and the fish were biting.  They had some luck with the weather but not such good luck with the fishing.  The "girls" laid out by the pool and read in the morning and watched Sweet Home Alabama in the afternoon. 

We headed back about 4:00 as we started a new bible study group at the resort last night.  We had our "get to know each other and pick a topic" meeting last night and we had nine participants from the surrounding community.  We have decided to do an eight week study on spiritual gifts and we are looking forward to getting to know some of the local people better.

Today was cold and rainy so I worked on catching up on work emails until late afternoon.  Then we headed over to the resort to get 2 cabins ready as we have all 7 cabins rented this weekend...that is a good thing!!  We also had a resort fish fry potluck tonight.  The resort guests provided fish and a side dish and K fried up all of the fish.  We had deviled eggs, pasta salad, mashed potatoes, chips, watermelon, and brownies.  It was a very nice meal and a great time to get to know the resort guests better. 

One last note, last night we saw a turtle digging in to lay its eggs so we decided to try to find them tonight to dig up as one of the young guests was very curious about the turtle eggs.  I was sure that I would be able to tell where the turtle was digging but I was amazed that I could absolutely not tell.  The ground was hard packed and no bare spots in the pine needles, etc.  I was amazed by this and hope to have the opportunity again as I will take pics and mark where the turtle is so wish me luck as I would love to post pics of the turtle as it digs and the eggs.  I would, of course, cover up the eggs again and try to mark a calendar for when they might hatch.  I have heard that they hatch at like 3 am so I may just have to consider some late night trips to the resort around turtle hatching time.  There is also an educational program on turtles at the Cut Foot Sioux Center near here and I just may have to take a day trip over and check it out!  And this concludes your nature lesson for the day!!

Hanging with the family

After church yesterday, we packed up the boat, some clothes, some food, and our annoying little dog (a white pekingese named Mandi) and headed over to Leech Lake.  I continue to be amazed that 48 miles as the crow flies can take 1 and 1/2 hours to drive!  It was good to see everyone at the cabin when we arrived at about 3 pm.  The four couples (Mom & Dad, Susan & John, Tom & Pam and Bill &I) all were at the National Marriage Encounter convention in Duluth last summer and bought a week at a cabin on the silent auction.  Of course, as life goes, not everyone can stay all week but it is nice that we can all be here for at least a few days.  We have not seen Tom and Pam (brother and his wife that live in Wisconson) since Christmas so it will nice to have some time to catch up on our lives.

The guys (Bill, John, and Tom) immediately put the boat in the lake yesterday afternoon and headed out fishing.  Dad stayed with us at the cabin and so Pam and I played against Mom and Dad in a game of 500.  Since Mom and Dad play cards all the time, Pam and I were rather proud of winning 2 out of 3 games!  Part of this might have been due to Mom and Dad not getting very good cards but we will take some credit anyway!  Bill caught one nice sized Northern that they kept and he cleaned that for the fish fry.  During the evening, we just hung out, read books, and talked for the evening and everyone headed for bed by 10:00.

The weather was really windy this morning so the guys decided that they would wait to see if the winds died down so the waves were not so high.  We all headed into Walker to check out the local stores.  Bill needed a hat (as I have been informed that a man can not have too many hats) so he got one a nice brown one at Reed's.  We found a nice little coffee shop and a book store...what more could you ask for, right?  Well, of course, we love to find thrift stores and there does happen to be on in Walker.  We all found a couple of things there...wine glasses, clothes, books, etc. 

We had a fish fry (perch, crappy, and northern) for lunch and it was good food!!  We could definitely tell that we are all getting older as we all decided a nap was in order after lunch.  We are now sitting down by the lake enjoying the nice weather.  The wind has died down a little so the guys have headed out to fish again.  Hope they have good luck with that!  I am looking forward to hanging out with "the girls" as we read and talk smart!

Life is good!!

Here are some beautiful lady slipper pictures that Bill took last week:

The border that we put up in the bathroom at the resort stayed up and looks good.  I remember putting up wallpaper at my mom's in a bathroom and it all fell down overnight.  That was a bummer but we just applied wallpaper glue and stuck it back up and it worked!!

Yesterday was not too busy at the resort for cleaning as I just had to make up some beds and double check that cabins were ready.  There was a cabin that needed to have its stairs replaced as the old ones had pretty much disintegrated so we spent most of the afternoon putzing around with that.  We had an extra set of stair stringers and D had some extra wood from a dock and together they made a pretty nice set of stairs for a cabin.

Today was a busier day.  We did dishes and cleaned our cabin this morning and then headed over to the resort.  Bill worked on mowing while I cleaned a cabin.  I also washed out all of the garbage and recycling cans with Mr. Clean and a mop.  This is quite a bit of work but it is disgusting to have smelly garbage cans!

K made tacos for supper with home made soft shells and they were so good.

We are now back at the cabin and Bill is putting new line on some of our fishing rods.  We are heading over to Big Rock Resort on Leech Lake tomorrow to hang out with some family members for a couple of days!  We are planning to be back at our cabin on Tuesday.

Now I am heading out to drink a glass of wine and relax by a campfire in the great north woods...life is good!! :-)

Measure twice and cut once...really good advice!

The day started out rather hectic when my alarm did not go off at 5 AM and Bill woke me up at 5:25.  We really needed to be on the road by 6:00 as I needed to be on line for work by 10:00 and it is a 3 1/2 hour drive (at a minimum) to get back up north.  So we rushed around like chickens with our heads cut off, including still having wet laundry that had to be sorted as some came up with us and some stayed in St. Cloud.  We got going about 10 minutes late but, of course, I had forgotten to put gas in the car and we didn't have time to grab breakfast so that was another stop (although I do really like Egg McMuffins so this was not too tough!).  Since we usually make the trip in the evening, I also did not factor in the road construction on Highway 371...needless to say I had to contact a co-worker to kick off the 10:00 meeting!  For those of you who know how I drive and how Bill drives, the only reason I was only 20 minutes late is that I drove most of the way!!  I love my husband but he just does not drive fast...which is a good thing when we are meandering on a trip but not so good when timelines are tight.

When K came back from chemo (which went really well and she is feeling pretty darn good), we did not have any cabin cleaning to do so we decided to put up a border in the lodge bathroom.  It is a really cute border that has outhouses on it (see pic below).  So we decided to put the border up on 2 walls and we held it up and bent the edges to get the general length.  While K went and got the level and utility knife, I decided I would jump right in and get the pieces cut.  I drew a nice straight line with a book and made a nice straight cut and since I was doing such a great job, I cut both pieces.  I proudly carried it into the bathroom and held it up to the wall and was totally shocked to discover that I had cut the piece too short...guess I used the wrong bend in the border for the cut.  The advice to measure twice and cut once is VERY good advice.  After swearing a little and apologizing profusely, we decided that we could cut a whole new piece for one wall and put the seam behind the door on the other wall.   We very carefully measured the new pieces and the border does look good!

We then decided to clean the pop fridge and move the shelves so that we could group some stuff together on the shelves.  While I have my head deep in the cooler wiping down the bottom shelf, it reminded me of Hansel and Gretel and the kids in the oven, so I shouted, "Shut the oven door!".  However, when I figured out that this meant K was a bad witch, I explained that I did not really mean it that way.  We had a good laugh and she did proceed to try to push me in while I was cleaning.  However, I do believe that some of that may have been payback for me squirting her with water the other day when we were watering the flower beds.  Here is a picture of one of the expanded flower beds with a really cool slice of a tree trunk.

Laurentian Divide, Dragon Flies, Turtles and various other topics!

Wow...it has been a while since I have done an update so I have lots of topics for today!

I am happy to report that Bill and D were able to drop the widow maker tree without anyone getting hurt.  We just about pulled the bumper off of our truck and had to switch to D's truck so it was sturdier than we first thought.  Here are pics of Bill splitting some of the bigger pieces of wood:

I recently found out that Dora Lake resides on the Laurentian Divide.  My question was "what the heck is the Laurentian Divide"??  According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentian_Divide), this is where the flow of water splits.  This is why one river flows south and one river flows north out of Dora Lake.  Supposedly they teach about continental divides in meteorology school as this impacts weather patterns.  Not sure if this is related, but we have had hail 3 times since we moved up 5 weeks ago??   For your geography lesson of the day, here are the various continental divides in North America.

It was interesting to watch the dragon flies hatch this week.  There are whole swarms of them but I have to say that I love them since they do not bite and they certainly eat a lot of mosquitoes.  There have not been any mosquitoes at the resort but there were clouds of dragon flies that I wish I could have caught on camera but they are too small to show up well in pics.  The other interesting natural phenomena is have the turtles come out of the lakes to lay eggs.  K says that there is one turtle that lays eggs in front of the garage door every year and she moves them every year so I am hoping that hasn't happened before we get back tomorrow!  We dodged quite a few turtles on the roads coming down and I anticipate it will be the same on the way up.

Speaking of coming down to St. Cloud, it was about 75 degrees degrees when we left early yesterday afternoon.  We were finally able to pick up a Brainerd radio station and when they announced it was 99 degrees in Little Falls, Bill and I both turned to each other and said, "Did we just hear that right???"  It was rather shocking to experience the hot weather here.  The first order of business when we got home was to turn on the air conditioner.  We then picked up Minnow and went out to eat and shopping to give the house time to cool down.  Here are pics of Minnow (since I am shamelessly proud grandma!) including one with veggies all over her face after eating!

It was great to see everyone at work today as I do miss my friends there!  Had a nice supper with Haley and got to see the house where she moved in.  I have to say that it is very nice for a college house but I still think it will be challenging for 10 people to get along for a year...there should be some interesting drama stories from there to share?  I also have to say that I was impressed with how clean they left "Haley Hotel" (which was the nickname for our house while Haley and friends were residing there).  :-)

Fish Fry...Yum, Yum!!

Chelsey took this picture of the "widow maker" tree before we headed out on Friday.  We are hoping to get this cut down tomorrow with some help.  Right under this tree is where my car is usually parked!

The little building that you see in the background of is pic our outhouse.  :-)  Some day soon I will take some pics of the cabin and bunkhouse/office and post those also!!

Bill, Chelsey, and I just bummed around on Friday and it was a fun day!  We didn't leave for Bemidji until after 10:30 and then we had to stop at every rummage sale along the way.  No super deals but it was fun to look.  We finally got into Bemiji about 1:00 and stopped to grab a pasty at Pasties Plus.  Chelsey had never had pasty but she found out how good they are.  I could not find a website for them but here is a review:  http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-24354203R-pasties_plus-i.  While the pasties are not necessarily healthy, they are very good covered with gravy!  Of course, I am working on getting Bill to figure out how to make them!

We also stopped at the "Old Central School" which is a really cool old school that has been converted to shops and exhibits (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LJTeVZMjrM).  There is a great quilt shop, a stained glass shop (my favorite), a mercantile and exhibits from the historical society.  Of course, there is an exhibit on Judy Garland and we did drive by her house as we were meandering around.

Next stop was the Three Bears Chocolate Shop (http://www.visitgrandrapids.com/shopping/three-bears-candy.html) ...oh, yes, I got to satisfy my chocolate cravings as the only chocolate I have eaten in weeks is Tootsie Rolls (which are very good but just not the same as "real chocolate").  We tried several different pieces including chocolate covered potato chips as Chelsey had never tried those.  I would recommend this as a stop if you are ever in Grand Rapids!

We hit a couple of other stores and then got a call that Evan had finished his day in Hibbing early as they had class right through lunch.  Needless to say, he was starving so we met him at El Potro Mexican Restaurant.  We have eaten there before and they have very good Mexican food.  Bill, Chelsey and I were not really very hungry after a late lunch but we still enjoyed having dinner together.  Then it was time to say good bye to Chelsey and Evan as they were heading down Hwy 169 to the cities.  We enjoyed our time with them and look forward to having them come up again hopefully in the fall.

Bill and I did dishes and cleaned our cabin this morning.  I have to say that it is nice cleaning a space this small...it sure cleans up fast!  Dishes take a little longer but we hope to have running within a week or so if all goes well with the water project this week. 

Finally, I am getting to the story that goes with title of this blog...I know, it is about time, right? :-)  We had a fish fry for supper tonight.  It was the perch that Bill, Chelsey, and Evan caught on Thursday.  Bill breaded them in ShoreLunch and fried them in a cast iron pan.   We had some of Bill's Baked Beans and fresh corn bread and it was all AWESOME.  Wow...I had forgotten how great fresh fish is!!  Sorry to Chelsey and Evan that you couldn't stick around to have some but I did eat some extra pieces for you.

Fantastic Fishing!!

Wow...lots has been going on in the great North Woods!  Chelsey and Evan came up early on Wednesday afternooon and we just kind of hung out and went out to dinner with them.  They did some fishing off the dock on Wednesday night but nothing was biting except the mosquitoes (which still seem to be as big as hummingbirds!).

I worked from the resort yesterday as K had her first post operation chemo treatments.  Bill, Chelsey, and Evan finally unloaded the blocks that we bought last weekend and put about 25 blocks down where the water tank will sit.  In the afternoon, they headed out for fishing and WOW, did they catch fish!  Evan and Bill caught some nice size notherns.  Chelsey decided she was tired of being mean to minnows and decided to fish with no live bait.  The fish really liked that idea as she caught a really nice blue gill, a nice walleye and then they hit a school of perch where they all caught lots of perch (filling about 1/2 the bucket in the pics below)!  However, since we already had steak thawed for dinner last night, the fish fry will have to occur sometime over the weekend.  I am looking forward to that!!

So while K and D are gone to Bemidji, I have my first bait customer that I actually have to assist and, of course, he wants minnows rather than leeches or night crawlers that are already packaged.  I explained that I had never done bait before but he was a local who knew his way around.  I found the big net and the little scoop and managed to catch enough to fill the scoop which I then emptied into his white bucket.  The very nice man looked at me and said, "I think that I need some water also as they keep much better with water!".  Sure enough, I had dumped the minnows into a dry bucket without thinking about adding water!  I explained that this was why I generally cleaned and Bill or K took care of the bait sales!!  :-)   When I shared this story with K & D, they suggested that perhaps I thought we charged more for minnows with water??!!

After K came back from chemo and D went to work and everyone was out fishing, K and I had our meltdown and make up moment.  It had been coming for a while and although it was difficult, it felt good to clear the air between us.  I don't think people can spend this much time together without that happening occasionally!

After fish cleaning, I stayed at the resort to get charcoal started for dinner (since we decided to use one of the resort grills), while Bill, Chelsey, and Evan ran back to the cabin to get the food, etc.  As they were starting to back the boat into the spot where my car usually sits, there was a very loud popping noise and the top half of the maple tree that they were going to park under suddenly broke loose and fell into the next tree.  Luckily, the boat was not yet under the tree but unluckily the tree top is still leaning on the next tree.  This kind of tree situation is called a widow maker up here due to the challenge of controlling the top of the tree while cutting down the bottom end.  Since we are 25 miles from the nearest emergency room, we will see about getting help to cut down that tree!

Evan has training in Hibbing today we all got up and said good-bye to him at 5:30 and then went back to bed!!  We are heading over toward Grand Rapids today and will be meeting Evan for supper and then they are heading to the cities (where they will stay with Evan's parent tonight as they both work in Mankato tomorrow).  I am looking forward to a "bum around" day with Bill and Chelsey!