Great day just to fish

There are days when it is nice just to be on the lake, whether the fish are biting or not. I don't have one of those fancy fish finders, and I don't read the fishing tables. Mainly I just fish when I feel like it. If the fish are biting, I keep going, if they aren't I stop. Usually.

Today we fished for crappie, mainly jigging white grubs. Boy there were a ton of bites but seems the fish were just playing with us. Lots of nibbles few nice bites. In two hours the two of us caught about fifteen or so. Threw them all back for someone else to catch.

The lake was like glass almost all morning. An occasional gust but otherwise just nice and calm. Easy to use that trolling motor and not fighting the wind like it is often around here. The water temp is about 80, which is getting nice for swimming.

My wife likes to fish, which is good, most of the time.

Spring finally

I don't know why it has taken so long for me to post to this blog. Try to put something here at least monthly.


It has been a good spring, though wetter than we would like. I suppose there is always something about the climate to love or hate and this year it is all the water. Our drought that began last summer is over. The lower part of the lot is under water, about a foot of it. That means that the dock and lift are still waiting to be pushed off the shore and the boat is still in the driveway. There are ducks and geese swimming where I normally cut grass.


As an amateur gardener, it has been a busy spring. Time will tell whether it is productive. In addition to a small vegetable garden the weekends have been spent clearing brush and planting a number of small shrubs, for both their flowers and fruit. We have planted cranberries, lilacs, gooseberries, blueberries, currants. A straw bale garden is also underway.
We have taken down six trees that were either in danger of falling over, or had outgrown their space. Now the challenge is to get grass and shrubs to grow where the trees once stood.
I am sitting on my deck looking out over woods full of songbirds and you can almost see the leaves growing by the hour. Royals and Seattle on the radio.
It is mothers day and I am so thankful for the mother of my children, for my mother and the soon to be mother of my first grandchild. It's a good day.

Burning the red sox hat 2014

No better way to start the new year

A time to move

Tomorrow we close on the sale of our old house. How quickly the place we called "home" for over ten years has become relegated to status as "the old house".

I am sitting on the steps to the kitchen, trying to put a few thoughts together. Collect the memories.

I lived here for almost a year by myself. From August 2003 to June 2004. While Rob finished high school, while Rachel rebuilt her life after a Peace Corp tour was cut short by war, while pre-teen Caroline dealt with the trauma of leaving the street where she learned to walk and talk, while Robin prepared for one more move, I was here alone. After 24 years of marriage, one year of relative solitude was not what I was expecting from my life. But it came and it went and it was good and it was bad. I would recommend it to others. It reminded me of how much my wife is part of me, and I of her.

I had little furniture. What I had Rachel had helped me move with a UHaul. A bed, a dresser, a treadmill, a lazyboy, a recliner. A coffeepot.

We moved the family here on June 16, 2004. Our 25th wedding anniversary.

This was Caroline's home more than any of the other children. I remember her shaking in fear as a first epileptic seizure gripped her on the stairs. The helplessness of parents who could only hold her and pray. But it was also in this house she met much of the wonder and trial of junior high and high school. Birthday parties, sleepovers, helping me put up Christmas lights and smoke the perfect pork shoulder.

It was a good place for a man and wife to enter their fifties, and be confronted with their own mortality. There were health scares, big and small, that reminded us of how much we need and love each other, and how limited is our time together in this place.

I remember Rob bringing his future wife, Laura, to this home for the first time.

I remember  Rachel screaming "I passed" and leaping in the yard, when bar exam results came in the mail.

I remember watching my wife sit quietly at the dining table, reading her Bible, taking notes. Pausing to stir a pot, start a load of wash, say a prayer.

I remember our loyal friend Rocko. He who was oblivious to the move from St. Louis, and was always happy to see any of us. How he aged so, and how the walk around the block eventually turned into a walk to the end of the street. He's still here, under a rock that is under a tree that borders our back yard.

I remember special meals shared with those we love so much and special visits from family members Judy Jarrett, Betty Walker, Kristin Walker, Hannah Izard, Emily Izard, Rodney Welch, Kevin Welch, Audrey Welch, Barbara VanAntwerp, Becky Amos, Shelby Campbell, Katie Welch, Audrey Welch, Laura Welch.

I remember the joy on Robin's face when her big sister Betty showed up for a surprise weekend visit.

I remember long drives to see our children, drives that started and ended in this driveway. To Chicago, to St. Louis, to New Orleans, to Waco.

I remember winter snows that seemed they would never end, as the drifts piled higher and higher. I remember learning how not to plow when the wind is blowing.

I remember watching our team win a couple of World Series from this place, how we all called or skyped each other as the last pitch of the last game was thrown.

Thank you Lord for a home where prayers were answered. For jobs, for relationships, for guidance in the big and little decisions of life, for physical healing. Lord, our prayers of thanksgiving from this place were lifted often it seems, but never ever enough.

October at the Lake

This is a pic of the new place in mid October. Leaves gone from most of the trees. Boat docks off the water and on the shore. The evergreens beginning to stand out much more than in the summer. The cars on the road nearby sound louder, now that the sound barrier the leaves create is gone. One last cutting of the grass, and I'll be done with that until Spring. Time to put away lawnmowers and clean the dust off the snow blowers.

Got the Lake house

We got the house on the lake that we have wanted for a while. I'm looking forward to seeing how the seasons change on this little acre of ours. We haven't moved in yet, that will come after we sell the current house. For now we'll be spending a lot of weekends here, moving a few things in and doing the yard work. This photo was taken yesterday from behind the house and looking out on the lake, while I was cutting the grass.

I want a lake

I am in the midst of a multi-year search for a home on a lake.

Our home in the suburbs of the Twin Cities is too big. It is great at Christmas and holidays when its all decked out for a special event, or when company is coming. But the rest of the time its a lot of space to keep clean and maintain, not because we want to but because we have to. Because its there and we own it.

Thus, the past year and a half we have been working on a dream of swapping bedrooms and an extra story for lakefront. It's a big undertaking and one that is easy to do around here, but difficult to do exactly right. While we have hundreds of lakes to choose from, finding one that is the right size and suitable for year round activities with houses in our price range is tougher. Combine that with the normal problem of finding a house that you actually like, and it gets pretty tough. In the last week we've gone back and forth between the expensive, ready to move in type to the fix-it-up yourself project that you wonder if it can be made livable. All of them are farther away from the city, which is both a positive and a negative.

We are looking for land (but not too much), privacy (but with neighbors close by), in the country (but near the city), flat lot (but not too flat), and finally a Goldilocks lake that is just the right, not too small or too big, not too deep or too shallow, not too popular or too deserted. Piece of cake. 

The weekend I did almost nothing

Got rid of a futon by giving it away on craiglist. Went to see "Hunger Games". Grilled steaks on Sunday night. Cut the grass for the first time this year. Loaded salt into the water softener. Went to church. Went to Costco. Got a haircut. Ran about six miles each day. Played scrabble. Watched a Cardinals game on tv. Scotch guarded the new outdoor furniture cushions. Planted flowers in various outside containers. Restocked my supply of charcoal and hickory chunks. Pulled weeds. Finished watching "24, The Complete Series", for the third time, all while running on the treadmill. Watched game 6 of the 2011 World Series, also while running. So baisically, running, watching tv, yardwork.

Punk Landscaping

My attempt to trim back our crabapple tree took on a life of it's own over the weekend. My punk landscaping turned this twenty foot tall orb of lush green leaves into the humble totem you see before you.

I have been known to take out trees from our yards over the years, usually because they are too close to the house. I hate for trees to touch my house, which is like installing an escalator and red carpet for squirrels.

On Sunday I started out by trying to take out some of the higher branches that were squeezing up against the roof. I thought I might be able to actually trim it, like a shrub. Deep down inside, I knew this was impossible, and that the tree would eventually end up as shown in this photo. Anyway, this was how I spent my afternoon, chain saw in one hand, tree limbs in the other. I filled 15 lawn waste bags and also got assorted knicks and scrapes on my legs, head and arms. I am betting that by August it will be looking somewhat like a tree again. My spouse is skeptical.

Also a photo of the house in June as we enter our brief, but welcome, summer. New landscaping in and starting to come alive. Eventually those electical boxes will be hidden, at least that is the plan. It was 102 in Minneapolis today, though with the windchill it only felt like 99. Nice to have a little taste of true summer, which is rare here.

Burning the Red Sox hat

We started the year off right with the ritual burning of a red sox hat. The tradition has been previously documented in this blog.

House - Early September

Not much in the way of falls sign from this picture. However, the tree in the front yard has been trimmed. The shrubs along the left side of the front yard have been replaced. Here and there in the neighborhood a few trees a showing color, but with the exception of a drop in temp, it still looks like summer.

The flowers below are from our side patio.

Project complete

This painting project of the bathroom and bedroom is finally finished, Like all such projects it took longer than expected but i'm glad to have finally done it, after putting it off since we first moved into this house in 2003. It took half of last Saturday, all day Sunday, Monday evening, all day Tuesday and 6-10pm on Wednesday. Another shot of the bathroom from a similar angle.

The secret ingredient for great barbecue

I smoked a pork roast this weekend, which was rather crazy because of a massive painting project in the bathroom. Note the bathtub full of old wallpaper. Sunday morning after church I loaded the smoker and went about my business of removing wallpaper, taping windowsills and trim, and painting. Periodically when I needed a break I would tend to the meat, which mainly involved throwing some some hickory chunks on the fire and heading back to the project.

The bathroom turned out fine, and after about ten hours both it and the meat were done. The roast was amazing, one of my best. It had a juicy black crust that covered a deep smoke rink about a quarter of an inch thick. Worn out from the painting, I sat on the couch with a sample of the pork and dozed off watching football.

The secret ingredient was the painting project, which forced me to leave the meat alone. I had something else to do that kept me busy and away from the opening and closing of the smoker that is always tempting but bad for the meat. I've heard it over and over that the secret to great barbecue is to leave it alone, and it's so very true. The trick next time will be finding something easier than painting to occupy my time.

Home - Mid August

I'm starting a series of photos that i'll post of our front yard through the seasons. This time of year it is almost impossible to take a shot of the house, due to this huge birch tree in our front yard. It will be trimmed soon but for now it's nothing but lush green everywhere. Taken this afternoon.