In case you were wondering why I went a while without posting updates, it is because we were not at home, and at home all at the same time. Just a different home, where we do different things for a week. Family and cousins, blueberry picking and fishing. Kids go tubing and swimming.
Violet and I fished a lot. A couple of times a day. Middle hours were all 4-6″ perch off of the dock, which is what her first fish ever was. (As was my own, 40+ years ago, on the same chain of lakes, with my dad in an old rowboat.)
There it is. <grin> her first perch hooked and reeled in.
She understood, up to a point, the mechanism of jigging, which is how she would manage to hook a few every time we went out. It also made me a bit nervous about flying jigs, but for that reason I brought an ice fishing pole for the kids when fishing off the dock. I really believe that having good equipment for the kids to use, that is their own size, reduces frustrations because you are not losing good fish due to equipment malfunctions.
Again and again we made that hike down to the dock. She insisted on always carrying the rod and worms herself.
She did eventually get her first sunfish in the evening fishing.
Her first keeper size bluegill.
Her first monster sized bluegill. This one she was hesitant about touching. <laughing> Was bigger than her head and I was glad to have a good drag system on the reel, but she got it in and swung it up onto the dock all by herself.
She announced on the last day that she wanted to make a fish into meat and eat it. Up until then we had just been putting them into a bucket for her to see, and then saying “goodbye” when we were done and letting them (mostly tiny perch and sunfish) go. Phoebe took this pic of me cleaning Violet’s biggest sunfish of that evening with Violet looking on and very interested.
She had me hold her so she could watch the fillets frying on the stove. I just dredged the fillets in flour seasoned with salt and pepper.
And then it was gone. Have to admit, I am really proud of her asking to participate in gathering her own food, and then eating it all. Hard to beat fresh bluegill for eating too.
Violet was not the only one who went fishing.
All of the kids caught some really nice fish, except Nell, who spent a ton of time in the water swimming and playing on the floating trampoline whenever the rest of us were going fishing, which is fine too.
<grin> gotta love pics of cute kids with fish.
It was a nice way to end every evening out there.
I got up before 5 am most days to go fishing with my brother Matt and nephew Ben in Matt’s new fishing boat. (Ben pictured above.)
Matt really loves his boat. And it has improved his fishing. The gadgets he has on it are really incredible and cuts down the time it takes to find fish.
This is a typical take for a few quick hours each morning.
Matt generally does not eat fish, but my family loves fish. We ate fish pretty much every day at least once. We caught and ate walleyes, largemouth bass, crappies, sunfish, bluegills, and northern pike.
We liked eating the fish so much, we really did not bring any home. Good thing too. The cooler was filled for the trip home with bags of frozen blueberries. Almost every day Patti would take a break from all of the noise of the resort and kids to pick blueberries, and every day Patti would pick 2 to 4 quarts of blueberries.
Pretty much all of the green behind Patti that is not trees, is blueberry bushes. She worked an area affectionately called Blueberry Hill down an old logging road. Every opening (and there are many) has enough plants that you could pick as long as you could stand the mosquitoes and horseflies. As you can see, even with the summer heat, Patti wore clothes that were difficult (but not impossible) for the bugs to bite her through.
With all of the rain they had up there (it was not only here that it rained a lot) the berries, and berry bushes, are huge for wild plants.
The kids demolished well over a gallon of the berries over the course of the week, and we still had more than we had ever gathered on our vacation before, due mostly to Patti’s couple of hours a day of picking.
We do love the north woods.
Only downside to the trip, and it was not an intolerable one, is that if there was no wind, there was a lot of bloodsucking insects around. Thankfully, most days had some nice steady winds.
When not fishing Violet enjoyed the playground at the resort.
She really is a joy.
She liked playing with the other resident kids, and loves the water still.
Most days also involved a trip to Side Lake Store for ice cream too.
We ate ice cream almost as much as we ate fish. Almost.
We visited friends we generally only get to see once or twice a year.
Leaving for fishing in the morning, a sliver moon said good morning to us.
And beautiful sunrises over the water in the mornings would be on the horizon when fishing with Matt and Ben (and once, Mark too) was about to start on our arrival at favorite fishing spots.
This photo is the same as the one above, just zoomed in much closer.
And every evening, fishing off of the dock with the kids, left us with a stunning sunset over the lake.
We finished the trip, stopping by on our way home, at my cousin Sue and her husband Jeff’s, self-named Podunk Paradise, where we hung out, the kids played with chickens and dogs, ate, and had a few last beers in the northland.
The chickens did not mind Violet.
And Violet loved picking from their raspberry patch.
That was the trip. We made it home without anything more than stress and trepidation about the drive. Honestly, that part is really hard on us. Physically, I never really recovered from doing all of the driving, and now, on our second day home, neither Patti nor I have been up to finishing the unpacking. Hope we are both physically ready for the week tomorrow. Back to work and city driving again. Need to get the Ness Farm mowed again. (I did make a short jaunt out there today with Phoebe and I will do a separate post on that.) Frank and I need to get out to the Minnetonka garden to do work there. Our own yard and garden turned into a bit of a jungle in the 9 days we were gone. Summer goes on.
