Who forgot what?

Labor Day… it’s almost what the name implies. It should be Labor Day hour. Right next to us down the shoreline is my neighbor my brother(s). On Monday of the Labor Day weekend it’s the annual Bert and Ernie show. My brothers wait till the last second to take out the lake side stuff.

Stuff being dock, shore station, and tons of water toys. It’s an event that has to be viewed from afar to be fully appreciated. Close up you’d go deaf. Other family members and friends who have happen upon this event are left in amazement.

As the curtain rises on the cast of characters which include my two younger twin brothers -the grunt boys, an older brother - the wise old sage and yours truly – the brain of the outfit we see them wrestling with the outer sections which have sunk into the silt a good 2’. Women and child in the neighborhood wear ear mufflers for many an F bomb is dropped.

There are also many of the a "throw me a wrench" requests as it drops into 6 feet of water. Also, a few "I wouldn’t do that’s"…" but I already did's." and "you set that 500 lbs. section on my foot, dang-her hay!"
I think you get the picture. Pan-damn-moan-I um.

Then bang… silence for all the kids are headed down US 51 and back to school. There are usually four or five phone calls from family members asking to see if they forgot the this and that but that’s the kick off of our fall season and the closing of our summer "family camp" and a little sadness.

Catch phrases…

Unexpected when first heard, they catch you in mid step. Sometimes they are only one word, other times it’s how they are said with a local twang. Many of us have a habit of picking them up and throwing them back out in the wind without really knowing we are using them.

It use to be that these gems started in a region in the country and took months to travel coast to coast. But within today’s mass communications and the internet gold mine phrases are in popular use within days.

Nice ride… all in, dude… chill… some are older ones. They seem to spring up like fall mushrooms.

From where I sit, I am in one of the last places that get hit or to be in on the bounce of the hip-hop world and it’s jargon. The fast progression of word creation seems to make a slow U-turn at the Wisconsin state line... Ya hay.
Will we hard headed cheese heads ever catch up to nation lingo? or should we….
the answer is…. u bet ch, or no

Mystery rock…..

I have this rock out back. It seams it knows its got a home with us. That’s right a rock with a personality. Most rocks just sit there content, not even minding if they get rained on. Through the four seasons nothing effects them. But this one rock is different. For some reason this little fellow likes to take trips.

One day it’s in the grass yard, the next on the other side of the woodpile. I tried skipping it out on the lake to get rid of it. I’ve even inspected it and found that it doesn’t have legs and I was puzzled how thing got around and kept returning. It’s been years since northern Wisconsin has had an earthquake so that could not have been the answer how this bit of granite had traveling papers…

Then yesterday it was parked on our back steps, an ideal place to trip over it. A rock just can’t move especially up hill. Come on, who is kidding who, it had to be my younger brother playing a fast one.

But no… I found out it’s our Springer dog, Katie, that has been a rock collector. She has it in her small head that she must re-landscape our yard by digging sink holes for bird baths and bring up half the shore line rocks and placing them at convenient ankle spraining places.
I must have a small talk with her, but as a female of my family she will not listen.

It's Friday night.

I sat at the computer all morning with a blank space between my ears.... Zip, not one good thought came flying through the gray matter. Before I knew it, it was work time at the golf pro shop. A slow day there as well, then it was off to Whitman's to watch two clowns playing the "slots" for amusment only.

Right, boring! They were winning big while I started knodding off.
So all day long zip for material for today's blog... I even tried counting the differnet type of bugs that past by my headlights on the way home tonight.

I promise to be "on" by Mondays blog for I'll take notes all day tomorrow as I'll be baby sitting two OLD pals.

The eyes have it….

They are between your ears… the door to everyone’s personality and they tell everyone what kind of a day you are having and who the real you happens to be.
The other day we stopped to get boat gas and this fellow was opening the place comes out to see what we needed, "Gas" we replied. To that he told us that he was only the maintenance man and that the place wasn’t open for the day. It was around 8 am… we were fishing early. Our outboard engine was running on fumes due to a slight miscalculation so we asked if there was any way to get dockside gas….

He turned to use and said with shifty eyes , "Yaa, you got cash and I can get you gas, I don’t know how to use the credit card machine, only cash will do." We got our $60 of gas and I well think it , the cash, went into his pocket and not the owner’s. His eyes had told us a lot.

Last night we had dinner guests and during the evening I give several of them a copy of a small story I had written about our daughter who has battled CF. They thanked me by looking straight into my eyes. Their pipe line to their personality registered true sincerity for their was a bit of moisture in the corner of their eyes. Not much has to be spoken between friends, just a pat on the back and a smile.
If I have learned one thing dealing with people is that if you really wanted to get the true read on someone, look deep into their eyes and who blinks first is first man out.

Parentless…

Last night at Whitman’s two fawns (baby deer to you city folk) came into their yard to grab a quick dinner of corn that the bar tenders put out in a feeder to draw the deer in under the lights. It’s a local thing. Feeding deer than dodging them with the car. Then bar talk followed…

For weeks a doe would bring her two fawns in for corn chowder. It was a nightly thing and all the faithful would stop sipping their beers to watch the deer feed. Several nights ago only the fawns showed either meaning the doe ditched them which happens annually in the late fall or the greater possibility is that she is decorating someone’s hood. It all gets down to the fact two little guys are going to have to fend for themselves.

The same thing happened several day ago with our Loon chicks. Their Ma and Pa flew off (an annual thing) and now the two will have to either feed on fish for themselves or stop in at McDonalds for a McFish. Sometimes I wonder if humans should do the same with our young, fly off early. We would be a stronger people but then where would we send Mother’s Day cards?

So, it’s that time in the north where the cords are cut and ALL must fend for themselves…
I wonder if Rosebud has made me my lunch?

The correct prespective...

We’re talking view-points here. Yesterday we did some rocking at a friend house. Sitting in his living room we were sitting in rocking chairs watching a SCI-FI movie as half the world went by in twenty-foot boats. Our friend lives on a point on a very busy chain of lakes. Meanwhile, the other half of the world was busy blowing the hell out of itself and the other half trying to get out of an airport.

Everything was in motion even the SCI-FI flick we were watching. The movie plot was as follows... two different space creatures were chasing each other around inside a buried Aztec temple at the south pole. Each set of creatures hell bend on trying to rub one another out. ( sounds like the evening news) They only stopped every once in awhile to have lunch on a member of a human crew that got trapped trying to study the place.

Are you following this? We couldn’t for every once in a while some nice boat would run by and… and where were we?

This morning I was out in our so-called yard and I turned over a large rock… underneath it? Right, a colony of alien space ants and the plot thickens…. To them I was a huge threat, a big thing that intruded upon their daily routine. I.E. the plot of the SCI-FI movie condensed down to the simple act of turning over a stone, so there it is…it depends on which side of the rock your perspective is.

Dog Days…
In one week all the boat traffic, car traffic and general confusion headed south. It still amazes me after all these years what the start of the school year brings to the northwoods.

First there is a definite deference in the actual sunlight. The lower sun angle brings out a golden sheen to everything and the sky is a lot bluer. Yes, I know what’s around the corner after fall but lets not talk about it. There’s less traffic in town and you can actually find a parking place plus find a table at our café without a very long wait.

Once again the restaurant people and motel/hotel owners are singing the early fall blues but that’s the business life they choose to buy into. We’ll have a week’s grace prior to the Labor Day rush when all the cottage people run up the white flag and pull roots. During this three-day weekend it’s a mad house pulling boats, docks and everything else out of the water before the water turns a nasty cold.
This is it folks, butt busting time, all must be in order for the Packer’s first game for nothing gets done on Sundays there after. Once the whistle blows to the start of the first game, forget it. Knowing this year’s team forget about the season. But hope springs eternal but that’s three seasons away.

A hundred buck a barrel….
30, 40 then 50 but $100?

That’s where it’s headed! Crude as it maybe, oil drives the world. We do have our spikes in price and Ralph Exxon knows what he’s doing. And what are we going to do with outdated pennies? The copper in pennies is worth more than the penny itself. The price of copper has tripled as have the price my dentist is charging me for my fillings using some foreign material. Yes, I have a few extra holes in my head, must have been a metrorite.

How many times have you heard that we need an alternate fuel?
Not just crude oil but everything under the sun and possible the sun itself for it may go out in another 4 billion years, then what?

A hundred-dollar barrel is around the corner. However, some of us would gladly give a hundred bucks for the right types of barrel especially the type that comes from Scotland of even Lynchburg, Tennessee. A barrel of their finest, PRICELESS!

Then what we are talking about is the right perspective on things.
So how many of us car pool? Why walk when you can ride?
Mass transit? Are you kidding me, it’s for the masses not you or I.
But let's get in shape!
When it comes down to it just say no to that extra Krispy Crème! We all need more exercise. We could hire a goat to mow the lawn, drop a notch or two on your belt by heading home before the bar closes. Why not walk the next 18 holes and save a golf cart or I’ll see you in cardiac rehab. However, I have an excuse, a bad knee, what's yours?

A new boat anchor? but they float.

Old books…. that’s what our encyclopedias are, old. There was a time when things, life, didn’t move so fast. It was a time when publishing companies like World Book would spend big old dollars complying a sets of books that contained all you ever had to know about anything and more. From A to Z it in one of these books. It was a simple matter of opening the right volume and your question about the capital of Ecuador was answered but no more. You just pop in a DVD and the world is within reach in a key stroke.

Times have change and our set of World Books now collect dust. When we purchased them it was for the "benefit" of the kids. "It will help them with their schoolwork." This was the sale pitch we were given at the time. Actually the purchase was to help the poor sales person standing at our front door who needed a quick sale. I mean you just can’t say no to your mother.

Now as I thumb through these reference books I realize just how dated they are. Alaska and Hawaii were territories. Many of us have witnessed the most amazing advances of mankind due to science, communications, and medical achievements over the last five decades.

These dinosaur books were printed in the late fifties and they lack the half-century of history in which current events and advances changed the world. Now the good people are bad and the bad the good. Boundaries and country names have changed. And so has what we perceive to be important. What was once critical to mankind is now lost and the advance in the tech world is mind goggling and a few things disheartening as well.

Yet, here I stand at the beginnings of the new millennia with a DVD in hand that’s packed with twice as much info as a 28 volume encyclopedia set asking a very important question…. "What in the blue blazes are we going to do with 50 pounds of old outdated books?"

Chick report #1

They have done a fine job out there. The loons hatched their eggs and two chicks are on their way. Several months ago they were little fuzz balls riding on their parents backs.

The two adults would raise holy hell when something they thought might be after their young. In the mornings you could here their calls of alarm from around the lake. Late evenings we paddle out to greet them and see how they were doing. This is the quite time of the day with boat traffic at a minimum and other prey birds at rest. Crows and eagles are the ones that worry the Loons and the residents of our lake who worry for the loon chicks like a mother hen.

As it’s mid August the chicks are now mostly grown but are still easy targets for the eagles. At present they are learning all the tricks from their parents, diving, fishing for food and yesterday I heard their first faint calls. This is one of many benefits of being lakeside. The one thing I don’t miss is the lake weed harvest that MLC has to go through.

It’s our Point, it keeps growing…

We live on a medium to small 170 acre lake. From the air it looks like a figure eight. When you think about it from the ground as well. It’s a natural drainage basin lake. There is no stream into or out of it and only one small spring which tries to maintain the water level. Our place is on a point where the two lobes come together. It was an eight iron shot across to the other point. Now it’s a pitching wedge.

To say we haven’t had our normal amount of spring rains and winter snows for the last six years is putting it mildly. The lake level is down 28 to 30" and that water is someplace else. But where?

The change in weather patterns has effected something else. A short walk in the woods with your eye wide open shows that stress on many of the trees. It’s a Brown Out! This shortage of annual moisture has had only one positive, it’s helped the local boat propeller business, it’s booming.

Just yesterday I went for a short spin on the lake and had to row home. I thought I knew every rock in our pond. Someone keeps moving boulders around our lake... got to go work on my tan and rake our ever increasing lake side beach.

Pass the worms…

The boys went fishing. We were on the big lake in the big craft. Look out world, here’s comes the fish hawks. No need for a depth finder, GPS, lake maps… for the lake bottom (structure) is a given, the three of us cut our teeth on these waters.

Tackle, check… rods, check… beverage cooler, check… beer, check… ice, check… hooks and sinkers check… so off we shoved with a morning coffee in hand and the morning mist rising.

First came the banter like who kick butt on Golden Tee at Whitman’s and a lot of etc. We were heading to the Magic Spot known only to a few thousand other fishers (people). We were half way to our first hot spot when our navigator spotted something on the instrument panel. The gas gauge read an 1/8th. Our pilot told us that it must be in error for he had filled the gas tank several days prior….
Not wanting to hand paddle the 26’ craft against the wind for five day we did a visual and ya, the gauge was right. So we limped back to "home port", Lakeside Landing to top off the tank… then back on the water and out to sea to find "Little Table Top", the magic spot.

This spot is a raise from 45 feet to 12 feet and the smallmouth bass socialize there daily waiting for us to serve them breakfast. The problem is that its in the middle of a very large lake in an area thats windy. Its a miracle to hit it on the first pas .
To find the magic spot you position the boat mid way from Point B and Point A in one direction and in the other direction off a white sign and someone’s boathouse 3 miles across the lake. All this in a 20 mile an hour wind with an anchor that couldn’t hold a canoe.

Up and down with the anchor a dozen times it was and an hour later when we set to hook into the big ones…

" Say, could you pass me the worms?"… "What worms?"

No one told me…
I had two right shoes on….
My right rear was flat…. The one on my car.

My dog ran off to the neighbors again…

No one makes it through college in four years…

That a beer batter fish fry is a waste of fish
and that eight miles an hour over is speeding…

That those who blog should have some profound thing to say…

and that your best critics are those that don’t know you…
for your friends will not tell you squat.

However, mom told me that tipping the help is a gift to mankind and so is a smile…and you can except to see tomorrow for it’s His best gift to all of us.

A belated thank you, it’s better late then never.

As we stumble through life there are times when the mind take a vacation from the real world. The fog sets in and we forget ourselves. It happens all the time but the problem is that most of the time we don’t realize that we are in a blank state of mind.

I did it again this past weekend. We were at a friend’s daughter’s wedding having a good time, ( way to good a time) when age and a scotch or twoooo to many caught up with me. My dear Rosebud saw the black space between my eyes. It was over time to leave, well over time.

Needless to say she drove home and I awoke the next morning not with a hangover, but a worse feeling. Like I forgot something… and I knew what it was… I had forgotten to give a best friend a slap on the back, a look in the eye and to say thank you for including us among his friends and guests.
So to Fred and the rest of the world… thank you for putting up with me!

There, now a fraction of my past sins maybe forgiven, time to commit a few more.

The secret receipt…

You fire up the grill and the question is... what to put on it? Not here in Wisconsin, it’s Bratwurst and has been for thirty years. For those of you on the moon and never tired one you’ve missed the boat.

However, after thirty years of chowing on Brats it’s catching up to all of us here in cheese-land. Our state’s waistline has expanded with Brat’s popularity nation wide, and I do mean nation wide. Ten years ago we happened to be visiting family and friends in Hawaii.

It was in the fall and the Wisconsin Badgers were playing the Hawaii U. Warriors. We had tickets and it was time to tail gate…party on. We were prepared for a heart healthy parking brunch in the parking lot with pineapple on the grill with mango sauce. But the folks that we were staying with had stopped at the local market and sure enough there in the meat case were not only Brats but Johnville Brats, the Best!

Brat’s fame has grown and so have the choices… beef brats, turkey brats and cheese brats for heart health minded people. Now for cooking these jems… not only do you need a charcoal grill but you need a large pot into which you put two cans of beer, opened, pouring the beer over sliced onions. But here’s the debate.

Some people grill the brats first then place them into the cooking pot with the stewing onions. Then there is the PROPER way to cook Brats (imho) in my humble opinion…. you place the brats into the Beer/Onion stew and boil them first…them you grill them. In this way you don’t waste a drop of pork fat!
Then there is the matter of what goes on the cooked brat sitting there in its correct Brat Bun, and yes there is a correct Bun to use and not a hot dog bun, heaven forbid.

You add mustard and kraut only ...thank you.
If you disagree with this, tuff... get your own grill.

The wind beneath my wings….

Soaring high over the lake they seem to glide effortlessly and standing far below we call hear their faint high pitch calls. Eagles are a thing of beauty. But so are the commons loons which inhabit most northern lakes the target of most eagles. The Loons calls in the morning are far better off than an alarm clock.

But here’s the problem, Loon chicks are an easy meal for the eagles. Loon parents spent the better part of the summer watching the "kids". Even in early August when the chicks are ¾’s grown they are still easy targets for our American symbol.

Last night we were with friend from a lake just down the road. They told us a sad fact that an eagle had killed one of their lakes’ Loon chicks and injured the other . Then the Loon parents had to turn on their chick and kill it for it would not have survied. Sad to say there are no visiting Loon Doctors. Also, sad to say this is the second year in a row this has occurred on their lake.

For those of us that have lost a chick of our own and have had another in peril, the lose of a baby Loon tears at the heart, but this nature stuff close up is better than Pirates of the Caribbiaen Part Two, it’s the real stuff. It's even better than the new heard of wild turkeys which has made it's way north through Iowa.

Dial Down…
I swore that I’d near get an air conditioner for our lakeside cabin… that was several years ago. Two weeks later I was eating my words. We were in the middle of a heat wave and the humidity was pouring off the both of us. Our knees buckled and we high tailed it to an appliance store and picked one up just in case the heat wave returned.

Over the last few years we’d had many a just in case and they are getting to be more and more times when we’d hit the on button. Dang’ it’s hot this summer! I know as we get older we start to lose it, memory that is, but I don’t recall a hot spell that lasted as long and that’s taken the starch out of so many areas of the country.

Up here in the past when a heat wave hit some people would sit in their air-conditioned cars to break the spell but with gas prices, no way. The only other out was to hop in the lake sit in an inner tube with a cold beer in hand. Us northern folks are just not use to sweaty pitts.

I am very sorry that in early blogs this year I complained about cold weather. Shame on me, never again!

Last night our neighbors in Minnesota sent us over a cool front. I take back anything I ever said about gophers.

So I missed yesterday's posting, I was busy, very busy doing nothing, it's no big deal. So let's try this one on...


Things that are never in reach….
The obvious … the TV remote, the cordless phone, the dog whisle and the car keys.
The non so obvious… a match for the charcoal, the boat keys (dropped in the lake), and your reading glasses to read the fine print on the bag of chips telling you the high fat content you are consuming. Yesterday was a real bear.

Things that make strange noises in the early am…
your stomach after a late night at the Watering Hole ( a Mexician restruatant )… a wood pecker family out in the morning feasting on a breakfast of grabs in the large pine tree just outside your window… your younger brother playing with his new chain saw (he can’t sleep either he had dinner with you at the Mexican joint) … the guy at the end of the lake who is redoing his landscaping with a dozer at 6 am... my neighbor the dentist who loves flying his seaplane in the mornings and at night and his take off path is 20 feet over our home…


These are only little things in the big picture of things. When I think of people who are up at 5 am just to comute to work, what’s a little noise or a lost car key…
Let’s be thankful for the little stuff and not bombs going off next door.