It Is So Hot

Too hot to even work in the garden for long. My gardening friend and mentor Mary wondered if she had heat stroke today but ended up with only a burnt nose...sorry Mary I just had to share!

We took a ride on the lake the other day to cool off a bit. No fish caught, we didn't try very hard, but I did catch this guy sitting on the rocks staying cool.David has been playing on his bobcat planting 'crop' on the walking trail and readying this spot for a deer feeding plot.
Peeko and I took the camera and walked around our lower field. Peeko immediately found something he treed.
And I took pictures of blooming wildflowers.Fodder for the bear. The wild raspberries aren't ripe yet but there are a lot of them.
My strawberries are almost ready to pick. Dear bear stay away from my strawberries.And soon we will have potatoes from a barrel. This is an interesting process. We attempted it last year ending up doing it incorrectly hence no potatoes from the barrel. It seems as if we used the right process this year. You put 4 seed potatoes in each barrel and cover them with dirt. When the plants are about three inches high you mound compost around them leaving the top most part of the plants uncovered. You continue this process until the plant reaches the top of the barrel. After the plants bloom and the flowers begin to die they turn into a berry looking thing. We will then turn the barrel over and walla potatoes. I could (and think I will) dig in the compost now to see if I can grab any new potatoes....once it cools off outside!

Father's Day

A special day to be sure for two very special fellas, Ry and Lenny, who are celebrating their very first Father's Day. Our granddaughters are certainly lucky little girls to have these dad's for their very own. We are so proud of the men, husbands and dads that they have become.
Ry and his little lady Abigail
Len and his little lady JuliaWe spent this past weekend helping Lenny and Kelly shingle their house. Thank goodness he had lots of 'young' help. In fact he had enough help to keep me off of the roof. ...phew.
The young
These are Len's half brothers Issac and Caleb the two fellas that did the job I would have had to do.And the 'old'.
David( bending down) and Len's dad (in the hat carrying shingles) worked hard and both felt it at the end of the day.It seems that there is a technique to shingling and that would be
Asses in the air
Since I wasn't on the roof I did get time to be with Julia and Kelly. Julia spent most of the days outside and does love it.
I am proud to say that she ended up with 'grandma feet'. They were not as dirty as mine always are but we did work on it. We 'walked' through the grass, on the rocks and in the dirt. Yup her feet got dirtier than they have ever been. I didn't get a picture of those feet but wish I would had!
Here she is fascinated with a long blade of grass.And she has her first two teeth. Not easy to get a picture of but you can just see them in this close up.We are now back home to some much needed rain.
Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there.

Boat Lunch

72 degrees, no humidity, a light breeze, sandwhiches and tea are the perfect makings of an afternoon on the lake for 'boat lunch'.
We thought that perhaps the sunnies would be spawning and we might be able to pick a few up but it was such a nice day that actually catching a fish was second on my list. I was just anxious to spend a few hours on a calm little lake.
As it turns out the fish are spawning and we caught 29 sunnies. After our first few we decided that we would throw anything back that was not as bog, or bigger than our hand. I think we threw only a couple back as they were all big fish. I have not caught sunfish this size in forever.

David and his fly rod pulled in the most fish

I and my bobber pulled in my share as well.It was a great day on the lake having boat lunch and catching fish.

No New Sightings

I have the camera on the tripod ready and waiting for our bear to pose but since I am ready for him of course he is no where to be seen...despite my lure of strawberries strategically placed by the pond! So I have had to entertain myself with deer. Despite the bear in the woods the deer continue to come to the mineral lick. What we noticed on this one was the black nose, that does not seem as prominent in this picture. And as I zoomed him in, the ribs were showing. Must have been a hard winter.
This momma came in with her still spotted fawn.
We have been fishing on a few good weather days believe it or not. David caught a nice big 20 1/2 inch walleye that needed to be thrown back as on Leech Lake you cannot keep walleye between 18 and 22 inches. He caught another that we did keep....no pictures however. Now we need about three more for a meal!

Since we are not catching fish I have been, as usual, in the garden.
This is my newest minimal maintanence spot. Filled with 'garden art' and annuals in pots.And this was my first bloom, looking very nice in the 'Grandpa Ott' garden. This luminesent plant is blooming right beside Lenny's first trike that is now being used for garden art. I wish I knew the name of this plant. I promised my friend Mary that I would be better about marking all of my plants this year!

WOW

All I can say is wow and all David can say...over and over again is..."That is a big f---ing bear, that is a big f---ing bear"!

We have been seeing lots of paw prints on our walking path in our woods and the dogs have been doing a lot of sniffing when we walk and Peeko has been getting a little skittish when he goes out at night...AND our garbage was torn up this morning as it sat at the end of the driveway waiting for the garbage man.

Tonight at 9:30 I was sitting on the couch knitting, David was in the kitchen getting us a yogurt and I heard him say what I thought was, "Deer, deer" and I thought big f-ing deal we see deer all of the time. I looked up at him and his mouth was hanging open and then I realized he was saying, "Bear, bear!"

Yup there he was down by Tackla's pond, a very big bear at that and black as can be. We watched him go into the woods closest to the house. He sort of hung out there for awhile. I of course did not have my camera handy, had it in the camper for our trip to Nicollet tomorrow. Because the camper is parked close to the house I braved going out and got it. I then stumbled around trying to hurriedly get my tripod set up. The big ole bear once again trotted out of the woods to Tackla's pond. Trying to get that damned tripod up when I want to do it quickly just does not work! Our big bear ambled across the grass and began going into the woods behind the house. Out on the back porch I went and said to the bear, "Hey where are you going I want a picture of you". He turned and curiously looked up at me standing there on the porch with no gun in hand only a camera! I did get this picture but because it was almost totally dark it is not good. However you can get the idea of the size of this fella!

David has been bear hunting and has actually shot a bear (will never do it again by the way as it is a waste to hunt anything for trophy only). Anyway this is the biggest bear that he has ever seen. Yup folks he is big. I will no longer be going into our woods without David and his trusty gun. I would carry it myself but I am sure if I were confronted by this fella I would probably freeze. I would probably be better with camera in hand.....

Wow wow wow.

I am sure he will be back and I am not going to take that damned tripod down for no reason. I will be ready next time mr big ass bear!

This n That

It's been awhile since my last post. I have spent my time playing in the dirt and no Mary I am not yet done planting. One would think I should be done after all of this time but I still have some space left.
Plants are slowly popping through the mulch. I have held off (until yesterday) planting my vegetables because it has been dropping to the 30s at night.
Here it is my boat gardenAnd the new plot behind the boat garden
David did take me fishing one day (or as Jess calls it, dragging a bobbin around the lake). But this is the kind of crappy weather he takes me fishing in! Not much fun and as usual no fish in the boat much less on our lines.
On day we looked out at one of our many new trees and saw seven cardinals perched in it. The birds and butterflies love this tree.
I have put out an oriole feeder which the hummingbirds flock to. Here are a couple of shots of one in the nearby treeHe blends in quite well with the leavesTomorrow we are headed to the Leonard campsite to help our friend Chrissy celebrate her 40th birthday and of course to spend some time with little Julia....expect pictures!