Let the fishing season begin... Finally!

 

Let the fishing season begin...

I've been impatiently waiting for opening day of Trout season.  Trout streams are open on January 1st, trout ponds however open on the 4th Saturday in April.  

I get opening day fever, a throwback to growing up in MA. where streams and ponds opened officially on "Opening Day" (Not sure if this is still the case) it created quite the party atmosphere and many crossed fishing lines on the rivers, and ponds I fished. It was always so crowded, at some spots you were elbow to elbow with others on both sides of the river or pond banks, whether it was the Nissitissit River, or Sucker Brook in Pepperell, MA.

It's Opening day for Trout ponds in NH this coming Saturday the 24th the fourth Saturday in April.  Jarrod and I will take the boys, get the boat out, trailer wiring ready, and hit Mt. William pond.  Lots to do between now and then.

Saturday on Mt. William pond.  What a great day fishing, it was 36 degrees when I got up, warmed up quickly to the 60s, windy though, almost lost my hat a few times. 

It was odd James and Jarrod both saw a sign at the pond that said opening day was Friday the 23rd, when everything I read on NH Fish & Game website said the 4th Saturday in April. Oh well. 

We started at the back and went along the whole back side, not a bite, we finally settled in a cove, out of the wind. We got blown off anchor 6+ times in 25' water getting there.  Once the trout started hitting they hit hard for about an hour then nothing.  

First fish was caught by Jarrod, big surprise!  A beauty of a Brook Trout (Brookie).  I owe him $10 for the first fish! And the biggest fish!  We caught 6+ fish total had another 5+ on and lost 'em, it's a delicate balance learning to not have slack in the line, reeling vs setting the hook by pulling up on the rod without ripping the hook out of the fishes mouth a great day learning and relearning for all. We kept 3 fish total and used them for teaching fish cleaning to the boys, we each did one fish. they're in the freezer we'll fry them up later.

Second Brookie was caught by James
 

TV "Star Struck"...   Had a hey "I know you..." moment.  I got to see North Woods Law" Sargent Kevin Bronson, I recognized him immediately when we got to  up at Mt. William Pond on Saturday while launching the boat.

Pretty cool seeing Kevin, there were too many folks milling around and we had to get on the water so I didn't get a chance to talk to him.  He was just doing Fish & Game stuff, and talking to all the fisherman, good to see them at the ponds and lakes locally, everyone I saw had valid boat stickers.  

We didn't see any of the environmental boat police, looking for Millfoil, Zebra clams etc.on boats, they tend to hold you up for 10 minutes or so looking for info on where you had your boat last, looking for Millfoil attached to trailers, motors, etc.

I got to rewire my trailer the lights aren't working, spent 15 minutes mucking with it and gave up.

~That's my fishing story and I'm sticking to it...

 

Thursday morning 4/22 around 1AM, I woke up  to hear a loud rushing sound, opened my eyes wondering what could be making that loud a noise, not a car or truck, I realized it was a cold front coming in, it was the wind, it came roaring down from the Weare hills to our house, Hannah barked at the noise one time then went back to sleep as did I.

Tuesday afternoon Rose & I took ZEB to the vet for his Lyme shot.  There's still another shot but the vet has to order it.  Leptospirosis...  For Fox/Raccoon, etc. that carry a particularly bad disease. Dogs can get leptospirosis from puddles or bodies of water that carry urine from infected wildlife. The bacteria infiltrate a dog’s body by burrowing into their skin.  We have a lot of Foxes, Raccoons, around here.

Hah, I told you I put grass seed down, well now its all washed away, Wednesday we got a deluge of rain, it was coming down in sheets, so now I have puddles of grass seed piled up around the yard.

Rose noticed chickadees flying in and out of this little hole in the Maple tree! I don't think that hole is even 1" across.

My Hyundai Tucson hit 100k miles, I noticed it at the VETs office on Tuesday!

Proof that God has a sense of humor! The face of a hydrothermal vent worm under an electron microscope...

  Stay Safe!

April 15th and the "S" Word

SNOW?

 

Thursday 4/15 The "S" Word, it was bound to happen, not that we wanted it mind you, I'm already in full spring mode.  They're predicting 4-10", then late last night we got an inch or two.

Friday 4/16 morning still just raining. Awesome.  Then at 7:30 it turned to a heavy snow. By Saturday morning all but a few remnants remain of the snow!

The rain we got yesterday and today has really greened everything up, the fields, the lawn, like it all got heavily fertilized green.

Hannah's off to the vet this evening, she doesn't do well at the vet hyperventilates herself we'll have to see how she does.  This'll be Zebs first time alone in the house without her, we'll crate him just in case.

This is what remains of the crate, Zeb escaped easily, he's quite the Houdini when he's crated, we won't do this again.  This crate has seen it's last use...

Tomatoes are doing well, a bit leggy

Peppers

Swiss Chard

Seems that the neighbor on the hill across from us moved out, and we saw Tony's house is for sale too. so that's both our neighbors across the street in a week.  House prices are crazy right now. Tony's house is selling for $326,000 Crazy, it's a New Englander similar to ours.

Put down grass seed Saturday, the snow is all gone now, the dogs have tore up the lawn all around the house, the cars we drive up in the front during mud season don't help either. It's a spring ritual now.

Went to Wally World in Hooksett on Saturday afternoon, lot of the shelves are empty, nobody was filling them, supply chain issues most likely.

Saturday evening I found a new channel (to me) the H&I Network Heroes and Icons showing old military TV shows, "Combat", "The Rat Patrol", and "12 o'clock high"... Awesome! The Rat Patrol was one of my favorites growing up. The WIKI says; Rat Patrol was an American action and adventure television series that aired on ABC between 1966 and 1968.

Sunday we worked on filling ruts in the driveway and are the plow dug up. Getting all the yard hose sprayers replaced, and configured, and took a chipmunk in a Havahart trap I set with Peanut Butter (baited with Skippy Super Chunk) for a 2 mile drive... I read you need to take them 2 miles or they'll find there way back. I'm not taking any chances..., we take the trap and put it into a green trash bag, one to keep the animal calm in the dark bag, and two fleas are always a concern.

Daffs need to be pulled apart, probably to late this year

Dad's Plum is ready to POP!

Weeping Cherry has just started blooming

 

In 1913, political commentator Walter Lippmann wrote: “Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong; where truth is poisoned at its source; one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to misleading a bewildered people.”

Stay safe..

The Weekend!

 Big OL' Owl

It was a grain store day yesterday, we picked up a couple of Wildlife Grains and some whole corn.  While we were up in Henniker getting grain, I figured we'd run over to Jarrod's house, they have a new kitten, Julia is a cute cat, she's grey with yellow eyes? I think they were yellow/orange... not sure which.

Oh, while at the grain store we got a Big Ol' Owl kinetic sculpture. We both liked it as soon as we saw it. I've picked up several traveling for business in Canada previously for Rose none this big though.  I've never seen them here in the US before.

This one is huge compared to the one's we have.  The counterbalance ball is a solid steel 5 Lb ball. It stands almost 6 feet tall.

Moved some stuff around yesterday, grain barrels moved to the field. I was poking around,  and noticed Harry Lauder's walking stick has catkins on it.

 

The Rhubarb is coming up we're talking about subdividing it, it's a big job, maybe...  the crown is quite spread out now instead of a 6-8" group of crowns on a younger plant.

I assembled the owl, damned thing weighs 40Lbs and is very awkward to pick up and move that much I can tell you.

 

Jarrod got Rose a nice galvanized steel birdbath for her birthday, I got it assembled and put out by the garden. We've had bad luck with the glass bowl ones and the concrete and plastic ones don't seem to last. We'll keep this one over by the garden so it gets filled regularly and we can keep the dogs out of it.

Zeb found a nice spot to rest his head this morning.  

Daff's are blooming on the side of the house more coming soon.

My blackberry plants are budding out, the deer didn't eat the stalks all the way back this year, there are still some 12'+ long canes that are doing well.  should be a great crop this year.

 Lilacs are all starting to bud out, some of them are putting out flower heads already.

 

It feels like we're still a solid month ahead of where we should be this season. 

I'd love to get the cabana up and get some comfortable furniture out of the shed  to sit on around here, but we know from past years that getting these up early is looking for trouble, we can get some pretty vicious winds this time of year.

So far the April showers just haven't materialized here so water worries are still there.  It is supposed to rain next Thursday through Sunday, I can only hope.

We re-potted a bunch of stuff, Broccoli, and Kale, and onions.  That's two more trays planted and on the heat mat and under grow lights.

Stay Safe out there...

April 6th

April 6th - 8th

Our new Martin house is up, Rosie was afraid the Swallows and Martins would be here before we got it up so it went up on Sunday.  As of this morning the sparrows are hogging the house.  Seems they only want to play in the martin house in the morning though.  The new house has 1/2 moon openings to make it more difficult for starlings to raid.

Our older Martin house is still up, I don't know that anyone has ever stayed in it for a season though, they all like to play house but nobody wants to stay long term.

Jarrod, Crystal and the boys were here for Easter, Ham & Turkey were great, the highlight for me was the homemade scratch Cheesecake Rosie made, YUM!

Tuesday Rose and I raked and shoveled the gravel off the lawn at the end of the driveway from the plow one disadvantage of a dirt driveway.  We found one clump of solid ice underneath the dirt and leaves.

Can't stop thinking about the garden, is the soil thawed, it would be great to get it tilled early. 

And so it begins... 1st tick of the year this morning Rosie felt something crawling on her neck and lo and behold it was a tick one of the dogs brought in.  I grabbed it with tweezers and cooked it on the stove burner.  Actually two ticks today Rosie found one crawling up the wall too. we'll put the Flea and Tick stuff on them tonight.

Our Tree Swallows came in today, as usual they send in a scout a day or so before

Our lilacs will probably be out next week the buds are popping.

Stay Safe out there!

April Fools Day

 April 1st 2021

 

WATER AGAIN?  We did some driving the past couple days and are noticing the water levels are far to low for this time of year, ponds are low already we're seeing 20+ feet of muck where there should be water, rivers are showing 2-3 feet of banking already, we're already talking about having to scale back on the garden. It seems to me they are letting the dams down to far and to early.  A lot of the local ponds are lower than I've ever seen them in the spring over the past 30 or so years. We are hopeful that April showers will help. Our water level here at the house is OK so far. We drove by Glen Lake and 20% of the lake is muck no water.

Crocuses, Daffs coming soon, lily, and Hyacinths soon enough.
 

2018 - 3 Years ago EASTER EGG TOSS at Sheila & Ricks
 

Seems like it was a lot longer than 3 years ago...  Damned Covid!

Happy Easter!

Weekend plans

 

Birdhouse Clean-out Day Saturday 3/28

We took down 10 or so bird houses, took them apart and cleaned them out, replacing only one house with a bad rotted roof, most were close to full to the roof with grass, sticks and chicken/turkey feathers, one had bluejay feathers inside.  

 We may not get to completely empty the rest of the houses this year as it's getting time for the birds to start nesting.  The effort took quite a while, but we figured out the fastest way to do it by the time we reached the field. The best way was to take the house completely off the pole first, then unscrew the house bottom board, then pull out the nesting debris and reverse the process to get the house back up. Rinse, repeat... With the two of us working on the houses we got all of them around the house and the ones in the main field completed.  We found one box that appeared to have had a mouse living in it, as there were rodent tunnels throughout the nesting materials inside. No mouse though.

The house sparrows for the most part being the culprits filling the houses with sticks, grass and feathers all the way to the top, I can only imagine what the boxes on the front of the barn look like...

Saw a couple of bluebirds collecting materials for a nest they are looking at the houses along the road heading for the pond.

I assembled the new Martin house we picked up at Tractor Supply, I like the design, we'll see if it attracts some new tenants this year, we won't put it up until the swallows come in.

Oh, and we have Crocuses flowering on the south side of the house, our Daffodils are 10" tall and flower heads are coming up

Our Broccoli seedlings are kind of leggy, I lowered the LED lights, and added a second LED Light source. I've been brushing the tops of the seedlings in an effort to try to make them sturdier, a fan is also said to help, only time will tell.  Time to thin the seedlings too.

This week 3/29 we're out and about looking at used cars, Roses car won't pass inspection, we don't want to put another $500-$1000 into a 2008 vehicle with 87k miles on it.  Ended up at Toyota in MHT, looking at a 2018 RAV4, we walked out on Monday, they dropped the price by $2,500 and we went back and bought this one.  Yeah, another crossover, trucks are just to expensive...

Stay Safe