Mid Summer Chores

 

First Crop ready to be cut off the cob.

Although I am still trying to figure out this new format, it doesn't seem too bad this week.  The problem with being retired  and fishing is there always seems to be something going on during the weekends and everyone else is working during the week days.  With Mille Lacs opening back up to walleye fishing, and even though it is catch and release only, my goal is to get up there in the next couple of weeks to try some lead line trolling in the basin areas.  I haven't done that in years because of the various closures however this August should be a great time.  In addition to that, hopefully the Mississippi River turns on soon as we have caught some fish, it's been a slow year.  Admittedly I usually don't start fishing the river until August and this year was July, time will tell as the river is hot on my list.  So what's been going on?  My last post had a picture of my sweet corn and this week it's finally ready to go, and go it is.  The garden has 6 rows of corn, each at about 48 feet long.  The first 3 rows were planted first with the last 3 rows planted 2 weeks later.  Each row produces about 10 dozen ears of corn and as of this post, I have only dealt with the first 1 1/2 rows, meaning there is still about 15 dozen ears that have to be taken care of before the next batch ripens, meaning there will be another 30 dozen ears to attend to!  I have shared some corn with the neighbors and there is already 19 vacuum packed bags in the freezer so hopefully with the help of my friend Bill Lundeen we can hammer out the rest of the first crop, which he should be nicely rewarded with for his help!  The cucumbers are about done, maybe a few more batches and the tomatoes are just starting to turn red.  A bumper crop of peppers and the onions look fabulous, I suspect the salsa production will start up real soon.  One day I might figure out that all this gardening is simply work yet the vacuum packed frozen corn freezes well and even after a year it still tastes as fresh as the day it was picked.  It's pretty amazing.

Honey Bees at Work.

Besides dealing with the garden, the city of Dayton decided to plow up a perfectly good 2 acre park down the road and plant it with sunflowers.  Admittedly it looks good however there are about 60 cars parked up and down the streets with little regard as to who's grass their car tires are on.  It is quite a field however with the traffic I have been avoiding it.  Apparently it has gone viral on the local Dayton and Champlin community Facebook pages, people all dressed up to take pictures, families with kids, it's all good.  What it is really good for is the bees that are on the back of my property.  Years ago a friend of a friend was looking for a place close to his home where he could keep honey bees.  With the orchard and a big garden, this would be perfect and invited Bruce to utilize my land for his hives.  the bees do a fabulous job, one could actually sit in my cucumbers and listen to the chorus of bees humming all around you.  Perfect for assuring a good crop.  Well the sunflowers should really help to provide a nice yield of honey this year as the bees do not have to travel far.  Her is a picture of one of the two hives.  The bottom pick and greenish compartments are where the queen resides.  She lays her eggs to produce worker bees to make honey to survive the winter.  There is a screen between the pink section and the first blue/yellow section to prevent the queen from laying eggs into those top boxes.  The screen is too small to let the queen who is much larger than the worker bees to get through yet it allows the workers to make their way up and basically make honey in the upper sections.  Often they make so much honey that they remove a full box and replace it with an empty one that the bees fill up again.  The bees make considerably more honey than they need to survive the winter, and sadly with disease and things like mites, often the hives die out in the winter, and they have to be replaced each year.  Supposedly this year's bees are said to be of a Russian variety and more hardy to the cold as well as more disease resistant.  We'll see as I really enjoy them on the property and they are pretty low key as pollen is their only focus, not stinging people!

As stated, I am hoping our luck changes on the river this month.  Canada is closed until August 21st and nobody is optimistic that we will be able to fish Lac Seul in September of this year.  Team Walleye did move our fishing opener event out to October 9th and it seems like everyone is gearing for that date.  Being a pretty good at trolling for walleye, October is an excellent time of the year for this technique.  Some of our guys have been calling me on techniques and preferred lures for Leech in October.  Letting out too many secrets is necessarily smart but they still have to catch them!  Besides trolling is work and many of the guys aren't into it.  My brother Steve Anderson has been negotiating on a new used boat that would be a nice upgrade for him.  It's a great time to sell a boat and I promised him help with transferring his electronics and trolling motor.  I remember when he bought the one he is selling, he called and told me he was going to look at a Lund 1625.  After telling him he's crazy and to definitely go bigger he called on the way back stating I was right and he ordered the 1725.  Well this new one is a 1775, a little longer and has more space.  He just retired and my advise.....your not getting any younger!  Leech Lake and Lac Seul is where one appreciates the extra size.  Oh well, obviously there is plenty to do.