The Perfect Way to Spend A Sunday Afternoon

Sitting at the lake with a fishing pole in hand.

A fish is a fish no matter how small.

For some of us this is about all that got on our lines.

Canoeing with farmish kind of friends.

Great Bobber Rescue

Spark has been begging to take the canoe out for the first time this year so we made a trip into town, that's where the lakes are, this afternoon.  He was so excited about going today that he was up at 5:30 a.m. and had the canoe loaded in the truck before I was even out of bed.

He and Dancer went out and tried their hand at fishing but didn't get anything. 

Dancer came back with wet pants.  Spark explained it by saying that he was vigorously paddling.  Vigorously paddling or splashing, depends on which kid you ask, but I don't want to get involved in that so I will let them work out the definition.

After getting back to the shore, Spark wanted to try a few casts off the dock where he got the bobber tangled in the reeds.

Back in the canoe he went to rescue the bobber.

As he was getting his bobber, he declared that it was a "bobber graveyard" out in the reeds.

In a couple of minutes he had himself this nice little collection.

It's Too Nice Not To Blow Off School

When you live where it is possible to have snow on the ground eight months out of the year, you take advantage of nice days October.  This month has been unseasonably warm here in the great white north, we have hit over 80 degrees a couple of times in the last few days.  Our norm for this time of year would be about 60 degrees for a day time high.  On the weather they said today broke a record from back in 1890 something.  If these temps only come around every 130 years I feel it is our duty to enjoy them.

We spent the late afternoon taking the canoe out, hopefully not for the last time.

Dad helped them get all their fishing gear and themselves into the canoe.  For some reason this step always invokes quibbling between them.

Off they paddle.

It seems every single time they have to go through the rushes, the turn must be too sharp from the dock to the lake.

They made it right through and were on their way.  They have gotten quite proficient at paddling and steering the canoe.  We taught them the old fashion way, put them both in the canoe and shove them off to figure it out for themselves.  Through trial and error they learned.

After Spark and Dancer came in, Dad went out with Dancer to try fishing in a little cove across the lake.  I fished off the dock but only got one fish that was nothing to brag about.  As it was getting duskier the mosquitoes started to dine on us.  Spark and I decided to call it quits when we needed two hands to swat at them all and drove to a side road where we could see the cove, we couldn't see it from the dock, to make sure Dad and Dancer were still afloat.  They were so we headed home to start chores and dinner.

We realized that Dad had the house keys in his pocket out on the lake so we did the chores and then waited on the porch for them to get home.  It was a happy sight to see them drive in.

Labor Day Fun

We got a slow start to the day around here.  No laboring going on what so ever all morning.  By 2:00 we thought we should get something done and mowed part of the lawn.  Dancer mowed with the push mower for the first time and did a good job with it.  When we got about half done Dad said let's just take the canoe to the lake and do some fishing.

Nikki doesn't get to come with, she is just too hyper.  This is her home when we are away from home. 

The lake we like to go to.  It isn't very big so the waves don't get very big either.  Today a lot of it was a smooth as a mirror.  It was beautiful out there.

The kids took the canoe out and tried fishing on the other side of the lake.  They didn't catch anything.

Dad and I stayed on the dock and he caught a ton of snack size fish.  If there are any big fish in that lake we sure haven't seen them.  We only have three fishing rods so one us doesn't get to fish, we should probably get another one.  When the kids were little that was enough because it took one person just to keep their lines untangled and bait on their hooks.  Now that they are each able to man their own poles we could all have our own.

Dancer had a library book over due that was requested so it wouldn't renew.  We ran that in to town tonight because if you get the book in the drop box before the next day the library is open after the day your book is due it is still counted as on time. Her book was due on Saturday but if it's in there now before they check things in on Tuesday there won't be a late fee.  We picked up some things we needed at the store while we were in there.  There was hardly anyone out driving around or shopping, it was kinda eerie.  Maybe because school starts here tomorrow everyone is home getting ready for the big day.

We ended the day with a nice bonfire.  It is cold here, see your breath cold, so as soon as the fire burned down we were all high tailing it in the house. 

For a family that had nothing planned for the holiday weekend we sure had a good time.

Her Maiden Voyage

All summer Dad has been watching Craig's List for a canoe and there haven't been any to be found.  Lately though there are just scads of them and we able to buy one.

Dancer and I took her on her maiden voyage and came back dry.

Spark, our self professed non canoer, and Dad went out next.

As an aside, Spark's first canoe ride was his 6th birthday.  We were up in northern Minnesota at an environmental learning center.  One of the classes we took was about voyagers and about 20 of us were in this huge canoe.  It was so big we sat, I think, four people across.  There was ice we were trying to go through so the people who were paddling would ram the canoe up on the ice, chop at it with the paddles, we would fall through and they would start all over again until we could get through this ice patch.  Spark started to panic and yell, "We are all going to die" over and over and over.  Not only was he yelling at the top of his lungs but there were cliffs on each side of the lake that his voice was echoing off of.  Since we were in absolutely no danger what so ever, and a lot of the people we were with we had just met a couple of days prior, I was frantically trying to get him to stop yelling.  No go.  We got to where we were going, did our voyager activities and Spark refused to get back into the canoe.  Dad, being the fabulous dad that he is, walked all the way back around the lake with Spark so he wouldn't have to get in the canoe.

They came back not only dry but smiling as well.

Dancer did a little fishing and, although she only caught one little, tiny hors d'oveur sized fish, she did catch a good sized salad.