What I Did Over Summer Vacation

Well, its been a pretty good summer, a little weird for having a new baby move in right in the middle of it, but with the spirit of "divide and conquer", we have been able to do some fun things, but usually not all eight of us at the same time.

For me, some of the funnest times this summer have been spent on Don's sweet boat. I was telling Bishop Hayes about it, and he pointed out that I have spent more time on Don's boat than I would have spent on a boat I owned myself, and of course he's right. I don't have the time or money to put into fuel, maintenance, slip fees, insurance, etc., etc. Never the less, it is an awesome boat, and Don is great company. So, without further ado, here are some pictures and captions of the summer:

Here is a picture from one of my few canoe trips this year, back in May. The fishing has not been very good, compared to last year. I don't think I canoed at all in June or July.



As I alluded to above, one reason I haven't spent as much time in the canoe is because we've gone out on Don's boat. Here are some pictures from a trip in June:

Eleanor




Zach watching Fort Knox slide by, or as Eleanor prefers to think of it, a castle, or in the alternative, Egypt.



Later, after the Magnus was born, Don and I went mackerel fishing early one morning. There were mackerel everywhere, even some bigger fish churning up the surface, but we got skunked. It was a beautiful morning, never the less

Don running the boat down the Penobscot River.



We had an awful lot of this kind of weather this summer.



"As long as the fog doesn't catch us, we should be fine"


Don, getting bored with fishing, decides to check out his sweet craig's list inflatable dingy. It looks like it could use a little more air, eh?



For Bucksport Days, I took Zoe, Emily, Eleanor and Zach to the Parade.



Then the bounce house, but I didn't get a picture of that. Zach was a little intimidated at first, then he got used to it and he wouldn't leave.

Then the car show. This is Brother Joe Jensen's car. Its a REO Flying Cloud. He was the Bishop in one of the wards in Manhattan. I am pretty sure he was the Bishop in charge of the building when they converted the top floors into a Temple. That would keep you busy. He has a summer home on Alamoosook Lake, but when he finally got released as Bishop so he could enjoy it, his wonderful wife got sick. She passed away this spring. He has been here a lot this summer though, with lots of family. He is a great guy.



After the car show, we went home, ate, dropped off Squeezie and then Zach, Emily, Zoe and I went with Don and Terri and Molly on a trip around Verona Island. It was a beautiful trip on a beautiful afternoon.



Zach showing Don how to run a boat.


Zoe and Emily hanging out on the bow.


Here is a picture of Don's wife Terri and their daughter Molly. The boat is named the Miss Molly in her honor.


Here is an old farm on Verona Island.


Here is a picture of the new Penobscot Narrows Bridge, with the old Waldo-Hancock Bridge behind it.

And the bridges from below



In August, Don, our friend Perry, and his two boys took the boat to Rockland for the boat show. As you can see, the weather was pretty typical. I spent a fair amount of the trip humming "three hour tour, a three hour tour."

Perry at the helm, while Don explains something important. You cannot shut off the engine unless the key is on. This may seem trivial, trust me though, its not.

Don in his typical mode. If Don doesn't get a brain tumor from talking on a cell phone, then nobody else will either. He is selflessly conducting an experiment on himself to prove once and for all, that there are no health risks posed by cellular telephones. Hopefully he is right about that.

This schooner was heading away from Rockland.

These schooners were heading into Rockland.



Saturday morning was clear and beautiful. This is a Buzzards Bay 30. My friend Robert Baird had done some of the bronze castings for these boats.

Here is a good picture of Don's boat. We woke up and Don cooked about 6 lbs of bacon, because that way he had plenty of bacon grease to deep fry the two dozen eggs we ate. Boy that was yummy, and you couldn't beat the atmosphere.


Here is some of the crew trying to move after eating.

Don at his home away from home, Hamilton Marine, trying on some rain gear.

Here is the galley on a boat similar in size to Don's boat. We took this picture for some ideas.


The ride back to Bucksport was beautiful. This is what Camden looks like from the ocean.



Before school started, we needed to have a campout at Camp Bravo.

Here is the set up, Zoe is tripping over a tent peg and falling towards the fire. Smooth!



The Crew. Zach, as usual, is heavily armed, but still smiling.


Emily, reading Charlotte's Web, the climactic scene of which takes place at the Blue Hill Fair, by the way.


Zach and Zoe enjoying the camp fire.


Classic Squeezie pose, classic Squeezie expression. I have decided that Eleanor feels no guilt, and can therefore not be persuaded by appeals to her better nature. She just doesn't give a crap. This is the same trait that makes her so accepting of everyone. I'm not sure its good or bad, its just Squeezie, and what you see is what you get, because she doesn't really care what you think of her, so she can't be bothered to pretend to be something she's not, unless that thing is a princess.


Bedtime. Zach kept falling asleep, sometimes with his eyes open.





Safely tucked in.



Here is another picture of Egypt. I took it Thursday. Don, two of his friends and I spent 8 hours fishing. Our combined catch was one mackerel. But again, good food, awesome weather, and wonderful company made for a delightful trip.

Today I took Zach and Zoe to the Blue Hill Fair. I love the Blue Hill Fair, or as Squeezie prefers to call it, the Blue Hair Fair.

"Zach, get close to the goat and I'll take your picture." Zach doesn't trust the goat though.

Notice the nervous fingers in the mouth as he dares to reach in to pet the goats.


Almost September, time to start getting ready for winter.


The Horse Pulling competition.

Zach and Zoe in the Army recruiter's HUMVEE.
Zoe, keeping it real.

Zach, checking out the hardware.

He was trying to talk the recruiter into sending him on an all expense paid trip half way around the world to a warm and exciting destination.

Zach has grown a lot lately. We checked him out on the growth charts this morning, and he is in the 25th-50th percentile. Here he shows he is taller than the tires on the sweet HUMVEE. He looks a little Chinese here.



We finished off our trip to the Blue Hair Fair with some Ox pulling. I love the ox pulling.




Well those are some of the highlights of the summer, there are many others: Zach falling out of the canoe head first, the birth of Magnus, the sweet Saab convertible, swimming at the Bucksport pool, Zions Camp at Flagstaff Lake and ice cream to name a few, but Joey has covered a lot of those, and I'm sleepy.

P.S. Utah beat Michigan 25-23 at Michigan.

Ten Things You Can Do to Make Your Next Canoe Trip More Exciting

10. Suggest that it would be a good idea to attach hooks to the ankles of the smallest child, and tow him with a rope in hopes of catching a really big fish.

9. Issue cutlasses to the crew before departure, in case of pirate attack.

8. Always refer to the kids' hats as "combat headgear".

7. Identify any rapids you encounter as "x falls", where x= deadman, widowmaker, doomsday, etc.

6. If you run aground, propose to remain in place till freeze up, and then walk out over the ice.

5. Claim that any large birds you see are vultures. Comment about how seem to be following you for some reason.

4. Remember that any fish that gets away is a fresh water shark.

3. Constantly ask one of the kids if he or she is a really good swimmer.

2. About halfway into the trip start inquiring who was in charge of packing the tent. Mention that its going to be a cold night, what with no sleeping bags and all.

1. Tear out a blank end page from a bible, and divide the page into pieces equal to the number of your crew. Make a black spot on one. Fold the pieces up and place them in a hat, and have each of the crew draw out one piece of paper. Whoever gets the black spot is the Jonah, with the understanding that in case of trouble, the Jonah will be thrown overboard, albeit with much regret.

Hong Kong Bird Flu

Joey has been excited to get the bird feeders up and running, but I fear all these birds have brought the H5N1 virus. Zach threw up on Eleanor's Birthday Thursday night. We were at the restaurant but I could tell he wasn't feeling good, so I took him outside so that if he threw up, he wouldn't wreck the evening for everyone else in the resturaunt. He perked up after a while, so we went back inside, but stopped off at the bathroom because I wanted him to try and go potty. As soon as we were in front of the toilet he threw up. Awesome! We went back outside after that, because I didn't want to stay in the bathroom, but I didn't trust him to know if he was going to throw up in time to make it to the toilet either.

Then yesterday afternoon, Squeezie started throwing up, then last night Zoe and Eleanor both threw up (once each in bed, and several times each in the toilet). It was a long night. Joey was going to go the the Stake women's conference, but decided to stay home and take care of the sick kids instead, because I am apparently not qualified.

Here what most of the family is up to this morning (its about 10:00 a.m.).







Its a pretty blah day.

Canoe-Copia

Well after a short and wet trip last Saturday, and in view of a cold windy forecast for this Saturday, I took advantage of some unseasonably awesome weather on Thursday to play hooky from work and go canoeing. The weather was gorgeous, and thanks to cleaning out the car for FHE, I had found the parts to assemble one working fishing pole!

Zach and Eleanor were game for an outing, so we loaded up the canoe and headed out.



It is definitely more work paddling without Zoe to help out in the bow. When we got to the good fishing spot, I realized I had left the fishing pole in the back of the Yukon. Doh! I tried a little more commando fishing, with the same results as last Saturday.

Since the weather was so awesome we pushed on towards Hot Hole Pond. We had to go up and over one beaver dam, but with the canoe so lightly loaded, it proved to be no big deal. Just on the other side of that dam, as we were entering the lake, we saw some Canada Geese. One of the honked at us for a while, then flew off with his two pals. I took a picture of them, but you need a magnifying glass to see them,



or in the alternative, click on the picture and zoom way in.


Hot Hole Pond was more thawed than I had expected, but the center of the lake was covered with some rotten slushy ice. It was weird. Most of it was the consistency of a slurpy, you could pick up handfulls of it, and poke your paddle through it, but other parts would also fracture in big plates a couple of inches thick. Here is a picture of us aboard the ice breaker.



It was pretty slow going for a while.

We paddled to one of the inlets that has what I consider to be a beautiful waterfall. It looks like something you would see in a Japanese garden. It is always worth the trip. It even smells great from the splashing water. If you look closely you can see a big tree growing on the top of a huge rock in the upper right portion of picture. Thats determination.



By the time we headed back, Zach was sunburned and ready to fall asleep, but it was a fun trip.



When we got home Squeezie tried to convince Joey that we had run aground on a clay bank, and I had told her to get out and push. She went on to tell Joey that she had protested that if she got out and pushed, she would get all wet, and that I had replied "thats O.K., you'll dry out," What an imagination that girl has!

She also told the girls that we had seen pirates, that they all had one eye and one leg, and that we shot them. I like the fact that in her mind, the best approach to a threat is pure naked aggression.

Well, Zoe and Emily were bummed out that the had missed out on the pirate battle, so when Saturday rolled around sunny and warm instead of 50 degrees and cloudy with stiff winds, we went out again.



This was our first trip of the year with four kids, and I was a little worried about if we would fit or not. I need to teach Zoe to steer this year so that next year she and Emily can be in their own canoe.

The first thing we saw was a birch stump that the beavers had chewed off, and it was soaking wet. My first thought was that a beaver had been chewing on it and had dripped water all over it, but the more I looked at it, i decided it must be sap running up from the roots. I still don't know what the real reason was, but it certainly caught our attention. Well, mine any way.



I did remember the fishing pole this time, and fairly quickly caught a pickerel in my favorite hot spot. The first time he hit the lure was three feet from the side of the canoe, and he made a big enough splash to get water on Eleanor and Zach and scare the crap out of Zoe and Emily. On the next cast we caught him. As I got him up to the canoe, Zach was screeching about how he wanted to go home, and he was trying to climb under Zoe's canoe seat, and I was trying to get the camera out, and the girls are looking over the side for a better look, threatening to capsize us, and then the fish shook off the hook. No picture.

Well, we didn't get skunked, but another 45 minutes of trying every trick in the book yielded no further results. The girls wanted to go to their favorite camping spot on Hot Hole Pond, so we paddled on down. It is probably 2 or 3 miles total from the parking spot to the lake.

The extra weight in the boat made it much more of a proposition getting it up and over the beaver dam. Zoe had to get out and help drag it up and over. (I helped too.)







This trip there were no geese, but we did see a loon. Again, its hard to see without extreme magnification, but try clicking on the pictures if you want to see the loon.





All the ice that was on the lake Thursday was melted on Saturday, except for a narrow shelf of ice on the south shore.



This picture also shows a pretty typical outfit for spring canoing. My wool pants tucked into my 16" tall bean hunting boots, a wool shirt and a hat. Pretty old school, and except for the UT baseball cap, wouldn't look noticeably out of place on Hot Hole Pond in 1915. I have my share of Patagonia fleece and breathable waterproof membrane shells, but the more time I spend in the Maine woods, the more I like wool. Last year I canoed for 3 days in late July wearing some wool calvary twill pants. That was a revelation. Wool gets the rap of being hot. It doesn't have to be. Look for something in a lighter weight, like a pair of pants from a tropical wool suit. Wool has the reputation for being scratchy, but it doesn't have to be. The tightly woven fabrics, like calvary twill or gabardine are quite smooth. What wool does accomplish is absorbing a ton of water without feeling cold, or wet or clammy. Wool also breathes. These are two things that synthetics are fairly poor at. Wool also is much better dealing with sparks. Anyway, I am a wool fan, and if you haven't checked out wool lately, you should.

The kids climbed around Camp Alpha for a while to stretch their legs. I took a picture of them on the rock.

I also had the video running on Zach, just in case something took place worthy of america's funniest home video, but it was all pretty uneventful. He does look funny walking towards the crevasse.





Here is the return trip from the island.



After we left I tried fishing in the tail waters of the waterfall. I have seen a couple of dozen trout here in years past, but saw none this time, and had no bites. I grew up fishing for trout in Utah, but have no idea where or how to catch them in Maine. It is a mystery I hope to solve at some point.

We did see a beaver lumber out of the willows and plop into the lake, but it happened so quick that most of the kids only saw the splash, and I didn't come close to getting a picture. Another sweet blog momement missed.

On the way back we were able to canoe right over the beaver dam that had proved to be such an obstacle on the way up.



When we were almost back to the truck we came upon a mallard drake. They are much more tame when duck season is closed and they aren't constantly getting shot at. Eleanor wanted to touch it.



Even when we got close enough to make it fly, it would only go 30 or 40 yards and plop down again. We followed it all the way back to the truck.






Once we were home I had Emily take a video of me unloading the canoe. Here it is:



Probably not that helpful, but I like it anyway.

Well it was just about perfect. No real wind, not too cool, not too hot, sunny, no bugs! Zach, if you're reading this 20 years from now, I'm sorry you were born one step away from being an albino, and that you have skin cancer from all your sunburns, but we had fun, right?

First Canoe Trip of the Year!

We were supposed to go last weekend, but I was hovering near death, and didn't get out of bed. Its too bad in a way, because last week it was sunny and dry, but a little cold.

Well today we woke up to rain, but in Maine it rains, but we are essentially waterproof, so after laying on a little guilt trip on the girls, and threatening them with Cinderella-grade drudgery if they stayed home, they decided to go canoeing instead.

It took a little time to get everything dug out of winter storage, loaded in the Yukon, unloaded from the truck, loaded into the canoe, but eventually we were off.

Eleanor could not be persuaded to go, but here is Zach, Emily and Zoe.



The river was HIGH. The highest I've ever seen. We canoed right over beaver dams that were 3 feet out of the water last fall.

I thought it was very pretty. I like the clouds and the water.



We saw dozens of ducks, but didn't get too close to any of them.



The hope was to go fishing, but I don't have any freshwater fishing rods that are in working order. I did try to fish with some line wrapped around an old plastic coke bottle, which has worked in the past, but by the time I got the bottle rigged up, the rain was coming down in sheets. The water was frothy from the rain. (click on the picture to capture the full drama of the moment, and see the flock of ducks flying in the distance.)



The kids huddled under the emergency blanket and ate beef jerky.



At the height of the rain, water was pouring off my hat, onto legs and running down and filling my boots.

After some futile attempts to catch a fish, we pulled anchor and started back. Of course about that time it stopped raining.

I took some video of Zoe paddling. She is very good. I was in the back of the canoe (not paddling) and she was paddling up a noticeable current, but making good progress none the less.



Anyway, it was a short trip but fun. Zach stayed totally dry, and everybody stayed fairly warm. Not bad for the first trip of the season.

How to make pancakes without a mix:

We were wondering what to eat for dinner tonight, so I found a recipe for pancakes, and after changing some stuff around to match what we had in the house, this is what we came up with:


* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 7 teaspoons baking powder
* 2 teaspoon salt
* 4 tablespoons white sugar
* 2 1/2 cups milk
* 1 egg
* 6 tablespoons olive oil
* 2 tablespoons of vanilla

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and oil; mix until smooth adding warm water till its the right consistency.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

They turned out reasonably well, and weren't too hard to make. The kids seem to prefer them to regular Krust-Eze mix. That name cracks me up.

Saturdoom

This has been kind of a discouraging day. I was planning on watching the kids today while Joey attended a day long cub scout training in Belfast. I know she didn't really want to go, but felt like someone in the Primary should learn about cubs, and it seemed unlikely that the Primary President would be going, so that left Joey. This morning she got up on time, but said that her stomach was upset. She tried eating some breakfast, that didn't work out too well so she took a shower, which didn't seem to help either, so she went back to bed and pretty much stayed there till about 6:00 pm. I don't think she ate anything at all today.

I have learned that the kids do well if you have a plan. If there is no plan, they just snack and fight and make messes all day long, so this morning, after everyone had eaten and gotten dressed, we set up a schedule as follows:

8:00-8:45 Dishes * Zoe and Emily
8:45-9:00 Clean the House * Everbody
9:00-11:00 Free Time * Kids
9:00-11:00 Dump Trip * Dad
11:00-11:30 Clean the House * Everyone
11:30-12:15 Lunch * Everyone
12:15-1:00 Free Time * Everyone
1:00-2:00 Make Choc. Chip Cookies * Everyone
2:00-2:30 Clean up * Everyone
2:30-3:00 Computer time * Zachary
3:00-3:30 Computer time * Emily
3:30-4:30 Make corn bread for dinner * Emily and Dad
3:30-4:00 Computer time * Eleanor
4:00-4:30 Computer time * Zoe
4:30-5:00 Dinner * Everyone
5:00-5:10 Bath * Kate
5:10-5:20 Bath * Zachary
5:20-5:30 Bath * Eleanor
5:00-5:30 Clean Kitchen Floor * Zoe and Emily
5:30-5:40 Bath * Emily
5:40-5:50 Bath * Zoe
5:50-6:00 Scriptures & Prayer * Everybody
6:00-7:30 Movie * Everybody

Wow. We have a lot of kids. By and large the kids stuck with the schedule. The cookies turned out good. The cornbread was tollerated by about everybody except Eleanor (thank goodness). Everybody got half a cookie for desert.

Joey came out to watch the Movie. It is Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. It was fine, much better than the previews would lead you to believe, but that is not saying much I guess.

Of course the kids were excited to see Joey. She has been gone Tuesday to Parent Teacher Conference, Wednesday to Stake Leadership Training, Thursday to Parent Teacher Conference, and Friday to Relief Society.

After the kids and Joey went to sleep Eleanor woke up crying, so I went in to see what was going on. She was sitting up on her bed looking around.

"Squeezie," I said, "what's the matter?"

"I am throwing up all over everything!" she replied, sounding puzzled.

Sure enough, she was throwing up all over everything. She mostly got Zach's camo fleece blanket, doused his pillow, and hit the floor. Her mattress only suffered a few minor insults, and remarkably, either her blankets were unscathed or its just too dark to notice. Her hair was drenched in vomit, so into the bath she went, even though that was not on the schedule, and the bedding went into the laundry, except for Zach's pillow, which I washed in the kitchen sink, and then tossed in the dryer.

While I have been typing this the unbalanced load alarm has gone off 4 times, and Squeezie has thrown up once (in the toilet, Hurray!) and she woke up again, but didn't throw up. I am glad she didn't eat much dinner.

I remember one year working at Windridge we had a little outbreak of everybody puking all over everything. I was in a cabin with Steve Dreher and we had the 10 year old kids, probably 10 or 12 of them. Thats when I overcame my sympathetic vomiting reflex. Well, its 11:05 and Eleanor just threw up again. I don't suppose any of us will be in church tomorrow at this rate.

Boat Fever!

I think perhaps the reason Zoe threw up last night was because she suffers from Boat Fever.

Boat Fever has been going around a lot lately.

I went with some friends to the Maine Boatbuilder's Show in Portland today. It was, as usual, awesome.

If a penny saved is a penny earned, I could have earned about $13,000 today by buying this boat, since it was on sale at $130,000, down from $143,000.



Here is an iteresting boat. It is a Coquina designed by a famous (maybe the most famous) boat designer named Nathaniel Herreshoff in 1890. Nat Herreshoff is to boats as John M. Browning is to guns.



I wondered, when I saw it, if it that this is the same boat I saw at Benjamin River in the late summer of 2004. We were visiting Robert and Jodee Baird and went for a ride on the water. Bob showed us the boat that Wooden Boat was photographing for an upcoming issue. So, imagine my surprise when today I get done looking at this boat and then turn around and see Robert Baird walk in the door. I live two hours away from the boat show, he lives 2000 miles away from the boat show, and yet we bump into each other in a crowd of a several thousand during the course of a 3 day event. Weird.

Here is another Herreshoff design called a Herreshoff 12 1/2. On my first ever trip to Maine, I got to sail in a Herreshoff 12 1/2 called the Chick-a-Dee in Pulpit Harbor on North Haven Island.



We ate at Norm's, then on the way home stopped to look at a boat my friend Perry is interested in. It is a 31' Ronald Rich wooden motor boat. Boat Fever Strikes Again!





We'll see if he winds up buying it. The seller and the potential buyer are far apart on the price, but when boat fever hits, sometimes that doesn't matter.

Science versus Science Fiction

Here is a picture of Pluto taken by NASA:



LAME!

Here is the surface of a model of Pluto produced by Zoe:






Clearly Zoe kicks NASA's butt.

Obstacle of the Day?

Well, the day is still young . . .

In my continuing effort to disappoint as many people as possible, as often as possible, this morning instead of being in U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, for the sentencing of my client, I am instead here at home.

As I pulled out of the driveway after the bus this morning I heard an awful clunking and pulled over in the next driveway, suspecting a flat tire. It turned out to be a little more drastic than that.






I backed out of that driveway, and tried to drive up the hill, but it wouldn't go, so I put it into 4 wheel drive, and it still wouldn't go because the transfer case wouldn't lock in, so I let it roll back down the hill a little, and then the 4WD locked in and I was able to drive it back home.

Looking at the snow, I can see that the tire was flat before I ever left this morning, and when I turned the corner at the end of the driveway, I pulled the tire off the rim.

You can see (maybe) that the flat tire leaves ripples, or little hills. Here are two tracks, one is from driving the Yukon onto the flatbed, the other is from earlier this morning on the way to work.




The good news is that Scott, my tow truck operator (are you on a first name basis with your tow truck operator?) came over, so I am counting that as a home teaching visit for March.



Meanwhile, my client's wife is driving down from Canada only to find that the case has been continued to later in the week. You can't disappoint people much worse than that!