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. 

Biding My Time

In preparation for possibly participating in Wisconsin's fishing opener next weekend, I decided to take my boat out on Sunday afternoon, the better of the two days.  We got a nice rain on Friday/Saturday and although Sunday was somewhat windy, I found a small lake west of town that had a nice landing, making it easier for me to test my strength.  My Ranger has a 115 hp Suzuki Four Stroke outboard.  I am constantly amazed by these motors and their unbelievable ability to sit all winter with nothing more than Sea foam added to the gas, and start within one or two revolutions of the engine.  My previous 115 Susy did this and my new one came through the winter storage as though I had just shut the motor off 5 minutes ago.  One thing about the new boat is it doesn't idle as slow as the old boat, which consistently trolled down to 1.9 mph.  The new one is about 1/2 mph faster, which is not a big deal and may be related to the fact that the motor is still tight and needs a few more hours to loosen up more.  This also gave me a chance to test my new Lowrance HDS5 sonar/GPS for use with my front trolling motor with the built in transducer.   The GPS worked very well however the sonar took too long to lock onto the bottom and in a 3 foot weedy bottom, it did not even acquire. This was pretty frustrating and reading the manual did not offer much help.   Later that evening I posted the problem on Walleye Central's Electronics Forum and on Monday I had some great replies, including one from Lowrance's customer tech service.  Apparently there are setup selections you have to make in the main system's menu for your specific installation.  Changing to the suggested settings, I attempted to get a reading off my concrete floor and it worked great.  My 2010 maiden voyage was a success as I solved some issues that required some outside help.  I am ready to hit the big water.   Although casting for crappies yielded nothing admittedly I did not try too hard.

 The weather in Minneapolis continues to be about 2 1/2 weeks ahead of schedule.  The lilacs are coming into full bloom and my fruit trees have exploded with blossoms.  Luckily my good friend Bruce got his 4 honeybee hives in place on the back part of my land just at the perfect time.   With 5 acres of land, a large garden and a small orchard, the bees are a welcome addition.  I remember a few years back a neighbor (and not the most congenial) challenged me with a sense of displeasure "Dave, I understand you have bee hives on your property, I have to say that we have noticed a considerable increase in bees around our house".  Responding, I asked her if they were about 3/4 of an inch long, big and fat.  "Yes, that describes them perfectly, they are all over my flowers."  Without even flinching I stated that she really has a problem with bumble bees as my honeybees look almost like flies and she was obviously mistaken and misinformed .  Having just been outmaneuvered, she left without saying another word.  Most of the other neighbors find it fascinating and a side bonus is Bruce brings me enough honey to last for a whole year.  It tastes especially good knowing it came from my property and surrounding area.

The bees perform a very important function of pollinating all the fruits and vegetables throughout the growing season.  My yields on raspberries, apples, pears, cucumbers, and blueberries are second to none and I always have a bumper crop.  The middle picture is of a honey gold apple tree and the white blossoms are of a pear tree.   Feeling better I planted my potatoes and onions in the garden today.  This year I went with an interesting variety of potatos including Yukon Golds, Kennebec, Norland Red, All Blue (a blueish purple fleshed type), and Cal White.  Could make and interesting looking potato salad!  Along with the potatoes I put in onions.  Using plants instead of bulbs gets me larger and better keeping onions.  I know last year most of my onions averaged over 4 inched in diameter.   My garden center had some 8-10-42 ferilizer, which is a great for starter and root crops.  Time will tell. 

Hopefully I will have a great report from Wisconsin next week.