I have not been online much of late. That is not a bad thing. The world is a messed up place, and due to storms taking out internet connections, and our spending time in parts of the world without internet or cell phones anyway, we had several weeks, mostly bereft of the influences of internet, media, and constant cacophonous instant communication. It was really nice.
The fishing was fairly poor in a general way, being that usually we can count on catching a few bucket loads of large pike and bass, as well as limit after limit of panfish for fish fries for the whole extended family (15 people this trip) which ended up being 3 big meals, just of panfish.
This is the type of fish that we caught enough of to put together large meals.
Each evening we took the time to, we put together as many limits as we had people in the boat. Hard to beat fresh crappies for a fish fry. Made a great fish soup too.
What there was a lot of, was blueberries. Patti and I made three trips picking, and ended up with 8 quarts frozen to bring home, all we could eat while there (blueberry pancakes and fresh eating) and a container for Kim who runs the resort (Pine Beach, Side Lake Minnesota) because she had been too busy to pick her own.
This last shot is of a plant called Ledum, known commonly as Labrador Tea. Patti has taken to collecting it while we are up there for tea. Apparently it was commonly used by Native Americans as a medicinal plant, Europeans then popularized it in colonial times as a substitute for black tea. It really works as a pick-me-up, as Patti found, after having a few cups in the evening, and then finding herself unable to sleep until the next day.
I do not have photos of our time at the beach, and we did spend a lot of time there, but I spent it in the water for the most part, and our camera and water do not mix well. So sorry, no photos of us jumping (well, kids jumping, found out my body does not work that way any more) on the water trapoline, swimming, and general play in the water. We did not have the heat up there than there was down in the twin cities, and the nights did get down to the low 60s and high 50s, but the daytime would hit in the 80s, which meant we would live in the shade and the water.
So that was all we did. Well, I also re-read the 5th book in the Game of Thrones series, and a biography of Hunter S Thompson.
We came back to heat, weeds, garlic, and the first tomatoes and peppers.
Just an example of how if you do not cut the scapes off, and they set bulbils, it does reduce the size of the garlic heads. I do like having some bulbils though as they are a great way to increase the amount of seed garlic you have.
Rumi Banjan and Joe Lauerer tomatoes both had a few ripe ones.
We ate the Jimmy Nardello peppers this evening, stir fried with venison, onions, ginger, and lots of garlic, over rice.
And that catches you up to where we are now. I think. I might have missed something in there, but we have not been up to our farm for a few weeks, and I won’t get back up there for another two weeks, at which time I will need to be doing T-bud grafting on apple tree seedlings. Will be doing that down here as well. I have a handful of seedlings trees here at home, as well as 95 at the Adickes farm in Buffalo. Lots to do yet this year. Fun to be eating fruits out of the garden again.
