I am aware that it has been a dry spring and summer since it is approaching the middle of July and I have only mowed our lawn once! Our local paper announced on its front page this past week, “Rainfall in Wheaton was 3.46 inches below normal during June”. That kind of a headline is the reason I never ever considered farming as my life’s occupation. Farming can be likened to visiting the casino every summer with the families’ nest…..
Are the fish running yet? What kind of stupid question is that? I believe that question should be rephrased to ask are the fish swimming yet! In past blogs I have stated that I grew up on a farm that was mostly rocks and sloughs. That explains why ‘running fish’ might confuse me. Then I moved to our present home where sloughs are almost nonexistent and creeks, a river and Lake Traverse replaced the water holding functions of the sloughs…..
Spring is not for the faint of heart! It’s the only season that teases, mocks and frustrates all of us as it struggles to make its entrance and lead us to the promised land, summer. As I write this blog we are being punished by forty to fifty mile an hour wind gusts with the promise of up to six inches of the white stuff tonight and tomorrow! Our snowbanks are slowly receding and just as we begin to breathe…..
Yesterday I finally took a hike with a friend that I have been meaning too hike with for several months. I pulled my pair of snowshoes down off the hook on the garage wall and wrestled them onto my boots. In 1980 we moved to a 7.9 acre plot of land out in the country several miles west of Wheaton. Immediately I developed a close friendship with the southern edge of our property as it contained a creek. I had never experienced a…..