Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving seems to have crept up on me in record fashion this year.  With dad gone my mother hasn't the energy or desire to have a house load of people, even her favorite sons, so Thanksgiving will be at my sisters.   I do understand my mothers thoughts on this as living in Minneapolis, it's a full 2 - 3 hours away for any of our family to share the feast in Dayton, so we get out of having to do much of anything other than drive to Wisconsin and bring a dish.  If you have been a fan of "Fishin' With Dave" for a while you know that I am an avid Green Bay Packer Fan.  You would have to be living in a cave not to know they have not missed a beat since entering the playoffs and winning the Superbowl last year.  Knock on wood the Packers are 10-0, the only undefeated team left in the NFL.  It is really interesting how complete the transformation from Brett (who?) Favre to Aaron Rodgers has been.  Of course as the 2008 NFL season began almost everyone in Sconnie was upset with Ted Thompson, the Green Bay general manager who let Favre go in favor of Rodgers.  By the same token most were sick of his retirement antics however one could argue that he still was one of the best despite his game ending interception against the Giants in the NFC Championship game.  You know the old saying, a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush!  Well, when Favre retired again from the Jets then unretired to play for the Vikings all bet's were off.  In 2009 the Vikes went 13-3 for the season, including 2 wins against the Pack and Aaron Rodgers.  Well, the Vikings went down in typical Favre style as he threw an interception in overtime to allow the New Orleans Saints to go to the Superbowl.  Deja Vu!  In the meantime the Packers continued their development and have won the last 4 games against the Vikings who continue to struggle finding an identity.  As beloved as Brett Favre was to the Packer fans, his attempt to stick it to us by signing with the Vikings and the success of Aaron, most of us have really discounted his decisions.  After his first retirement, the Packers were going to retire his number at the first game in 2008.  I suspect that they will eventually put his number up in Lambeau but I think it's going to be a while! The Packers play the Detroit Lions on their historic Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit.  It's a little too early to get cocky about it and certainly the Lions are capable of beating the Pack.  Never the less the Packers make the down time between soft and hard water a lot more interesting and fun.  GO PACK!!!

Amongst other things like putting the boats away and settled for their long sleep and breaking out the ice fishing gear is the development of the fruits of our labor, slowly fermenting in Lory Brasel's basement.  Lory decided to get into making wine this year and together we bought some equipment to perfect this age old craft.  With an abundance of fruit this season, there was no shortage of varieties to make.    Here is a nice and colorful picture of our wines sitting in carboys, finishing off their fermentation.  From left to right they include raspberry, pear, wild grape, plum, and chokecherry.  The raspberries, pear, and wild grapes come from my property and the plum and chokecherry is from Lory's.  Not shown is 5 gallons of apple wine that we pressed a few months ago.  This picture was taken about 6 weeks ago, you can see the foam on the top of the wild grape wine as it continues to ferment.  Lory has since re-racked the wine into smaller carboys and will be ready to bottle next week.  These wines tend to be very dry and will require us to sample each one to determine just the right amount of sweetener if needed, a tough job but someone has to do it.  The picture does little justice as the wine is very colorful ranging from a deep Cabernet color to a rose to a pleasant chardonnay hue.  Obvious these wines are not as sophisticated as one would buy in a store but it's like anything you do yourself, it always has that special aura about it and I can't wait to open our first bottle.

The weather doesn't look like it will start to make ice until next week where the highs will be in the low 30's with the lows in the teens.  With the Ice Fishing Show starting on December 2  I would bet there will be walkable ice somewhere by next weekend, a great start to the season.  I still have a lot of work getting my gear ready and luckily it's fairly organized.  New line, re organizing the tackle box, charging the camera and Vexilar, it's a whole new season!  Have a Great Thanksgiving and do give thanks for all that we are fortunate for.  I have added 2 Thanksgiving songs for the holiday, enjoy.