Aspargus is Up!

Asparagus at it's Finest

Well it seems as though spring has finally broke through as my asparagus is comin up like gangbusters!  Nothing is better than fresh asparagus brushed with olive oil and put on the grill. I have well over 100 plants and soon I'll be harvesting over 2 pounds a day.  Over the years I have started replacing my old and worn out aspargus plants with New Jersey Giants which are all male versions.  The spears are significantly larger and they don't go to seed like the older Mary Washington variety.  Either way I have a lot of friends who like me now as I am awash in fresh spears. I will start saving some for Leech Lake opener in 1 1/2 weeks.  I am working on installing a 3rd Lowrance unit on my boat, back on the console.  I hate drilling holes in my console however I want it to look good so I'm stuck drilling away.  Another frustrating item, a friend of mine agreed to share some of his boat trails that he has on the same lake that I fish in Canada.  He exported them then e-mailed the file, I downloaded it, put it on a microSD card, imported it into my unit and wow, perfect, just what I was looking for, a safe route into a remote bay.  I spent some time renaming everything so I could control my display better, saved my work then the next day I turned on my Lowrance and all of the stuff Paul gave me had vanished!  I am still working on fixing it, maybe a soft restart to reset everything as this should not be a problem.  At least I have the original data!

Joanne Wenaas

Tuesday was a sad day however was a good reminder that time does march on.  My fiend Paul, who gave me the files mother had died over the weekend and her funeral was in Eleva on Tuesday.  Her name was Joanne Wenaas as I worked for her husband Victor from 1970 to 1976, before I moved to the Cities.  Vic owned the Mobil gas station next to my grandparents house as they owned it prior to Vic.  Joanne was the bookkeeper and every night as I closed, I would drop the daily money off at their house.  I probably learned everything I needed to know about business from Vic.  Every Memorial Day Joanne would buy petunia's to plant in the area between Highway 10 and the driveway where you would pull in to buy gas.  Joanne and I would bet who's flowers would look the best at the end of the summer however she soon decided that she could not compete with all the things my dad taught me as well, Vic always made sure I had plenty of Rapid Gro to keep them fertilized.  I think he liked that we always had a beautiful bed of petunia's and I don't know if he ever gave Joanne a hard time or not but it is one of the wonderful memories of Joanne.  As well her and Vic had some great children that still remain my good friends 45 years later.  She will be missed for sure.  The service was fabulous as the church was standing room only, a fitting tribute to a great lady.  Good Bye Joanne however you will live through you offspring!

Saturday I will pick up my cousin Paul and we will head to our Cousin Greg's place north of Bloomer, Wisconsin for the Wisconsin Fishing Opener.  It will be a great opportunity to see Greg and it will give me a chance to get the boat out before going to Leech Lake.  I put a 22" prop back on and am anxious to see how it performs.  I am anxious to see if Greg can really put us on fish!