Logan Trip

On Thursday My two brothers, my nephew and my Dad drove up to a ranch in Paradise that has hunting and fishing. Fishing is catch and release, but there are definitely some big trout. You can't tell from the picture, but there are some lunkers in there. We didn't go to fish though, but we enjoyed looking at the fish while we waited for the sporting clays competition.

I neglected to take any pictures of the sporting clays. Here is a picture of Jake, Jon, me and Doug afterwords though. You can see how pretty it is up there.

While we were driving around we saw a couple of roosters just sauntering along the road.

Doug, doing what I can't exactly tell.

Jake, annihilating the applesause cookies my dear sweet mother baked for ME.

We stayed in Logan that night and the next morning we got up and went pheasant hunting. It was a little cool.

The view from the bench.

This is picture of our guide Sean, and some of the dogs we were hunting with.

Dad

It doesn't really show up in the pictures, but its pretty steep, up and down. The elevation is about 5,000 feet. There is not much oxygen for my sea level acclimated lungs to process.

By this time I was carrying 4 pheasants in my vest, and huffing and puffing in the thin air. I started shedding layers at this point.

We had a great time. We let a lot get away, but everbody was successfull and it was a lot of fun. I'm sure all of us will remember the trip for the rest of our lives.

I can't tell which picture I like better, so I'll post both.

Thirteen, if you're counting.

Cleaning the birds. Maybe its just as well that its out of focus.

I'm beat! Thanks Dad for a n awesome trip!

Alpine Trip

As I write this, I am in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake visiting family. Today my parents and I went to see my cousin's house in Alpine. In the past the house, which dates back to pioneer times belonged to my grandparents on my Mom's side, and before that, to my Great Grandpa Healey.
My Cousin, Danny, has done a great job restoring and updating the interior. It really looks nice. Our family lived there for a year or two when I was in first and second grade. Later, when my grandma and grandpa Healey lived there, I would go stay with them for a week or so in the summer, usually around hay hauling time. Its hard to believe its the same house.

For know I am just going to post some pictures, later I will edit this post and put them in order and caption the pictures. As you can see, the remodel is not quite done, but I'm glad Danny (or at least his Mom!) let us wander around the construction site.

Without further ado, here are some pictures:

Rusty Duck Dessert Topping

Ok, I grew up in Utah. I used to think people who thought Utah was a desert were dumb. My thoughts went, hey, it rains and snows here, there's not much cactus, I've never seen a sandstorm, so this can't be the desert. When I was about 23 or 24 years old, I took my first trip East of the Mississippi. As the plane descended to land in Syracuse New York, I realized that Utah was, in fact, a desert.

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It wasn't the lakes and rivers that tipped me off, it was the trees. I had helped plant and water a few trees, and looking out of that plane window, I knew there was just no way to plant that many trees. That summer I worked at a camp in Vermont. It rained. Sometimes it rained all day long. There were no sprinkler systems, and you never saw people watering the grass, but the grass was always green. Weird.

The weirdest thing that happened that summer took place at the end of the July session. I was in the process of moving out of the cabin I was in, to one on the other side of the lake. I cleared off the shelf where I had set my keys a month earlier, and they were green. In one month, on an indoor shelf, my brass keys had tarnished. I was flabbergasted. Welcome to New England. In the intervening 20 years, I have seen things rust for no apparent reason. Sometimes literally overnight. Guns rust unless they are coated with oil all the time.

Fast forward to a week ago. I was outside working around the yard, doing stuff I should have been doing last fall during the Newell trial. The neighbors dog came over and was terrorizing Squeezie, barking and trying to play. Squeezie was squealing in terror, the neighbor was hollering for the dog to come back. I went to rescue Squeezie, but I didn't want to freak out my neighbor, so I set the gun, which was unloaded, on the outside oil tank. I ran the dog off, went over to take a tour of my neighbors new garage, tried to get the Saab running went in for dinner etc etc. Went to church Sunday, went to work Monday . . .

Well you can see where this is going. A week later I was unloading the car after church (we travel to Church with more gear than the Saints needed to cross the plains) when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. I turned and my heart sank when I say my M6 sitting there in the weather.
Even if I had more than one gun (which I am not admitting to, what with Janet Napolitano investigating right wing extremists and stuff) this would still be my favorite. It is a shotgun, it is a rifle.But Wait! There's more: it has a place in the stock that will hold 15 bullets and 4 shotgun shells. I have used it to shoot porcupines, skunks, red squirrels, and a couple of chipmunks who couldn't tell the difference between my home and their home. I once shot a mouse inside the kitchen with it, and the gouge in the vinyl floor is still visible. I even shot a flying crow with it, which still amazes me, because it is not well suited to that task.

As you can imagine, I felt shock and horror to see the gun in this condition. I felt guilty, because there was really no excuse for forgetting it outside. I tried to console myself that when I had bought it 10 or 11 years ago, I only paid $198.00 for it, but I know that now they cost around $500 and sometimes at auction they will go as high as $650. I tried to comfort myself that this would provide a good excuse to finally Molykote it, since it rusts a little bit whenever I carry it out in the rain or snow. In the end it was just plain sad. The rust seemed like it could be so bad that the gun might have to be written off, but I wasn't going to just give up. Here are some before shots:








The rust was really unprecedented. I tried shooting a .22, but the hammer had so much rust that it was binding, and wouldn't fall fast enough to detonate the primer on the cartridge.

The only good news was that the bores were miraculously free from rust.
A few days later I broke it down. I was dreading unwrapping the cord on the barrels because I was sure that the paracord had acted like a sponge, keeping the barrels wet even longer and preventing things from drying out between rainstorm. Much to my surprise, the barrels looked remarkably good. I am wondering if I hosed them down with oil or vaseline before wrapping them.

In the past, whenever I noticed a little rust on one of my guns I would spray it down with Rusty Duck. This is just something I found at War-Mart one day. It seems to do a pretty good job. When you spray it on rust, the rust kind of dribbles off with the excess oil. My hope was that a hearty application, along with some 0000 steel wool would loosen things up and prevent the rust from getting worse while I gathered materials for a complete refinish.
Man! That stuff is remarkable. I had never given it a challenge like this before. I was amazed.



Here you can see where the parkerizing has rusted off, but to be honest that happened years ago. I always think its weird to go into pawn shops and the receivers, in fact all of the metal, on all of the Winchester model 94's are silver instead of black, but it just happens in this humid climate.



It doesn't look too bad unless the light hits it just right.


Heres the left side before:
And after:
Glossy!


A half hour later and the gun was back together, and it shoots.

Almost as good as new! Thank You Rusty Duck!

Man Camp

After a steady diet of Calvin Rutstrum, Horace Kephart, George W. Sears, garnished with a little Townsend Whelen, I thought I should quit reading about camping, and actually do some of it. I was most intrigued by Townsend Whelen's quote that a tent such as this one,

was more than adequate for anything short of -20 or severe bugs.

Or check out this quote from Steward Edward White in his book Camp and Trail. On page 83 he writes: "Undoubtedly the lean-to is the ideal shelter, as far as warmth goes. You build the fire in front, the slanting wall reflects the heat down and you sleep warm, even in winter weather."

I was game to give it a try, if a bit skeptical. So I picked the longest Friday night of the year, got permission from my wife to skip date night, for which we had no money anyway, and invited some friends over for man camp. Peter Dauk and Don Brown declined, being a little bit smarter than the rest of us, Matt Wilson was interested, but didn't know if he would be able to get together, and Jason Barrett was game, but thought he might have to work on an appeal brief that is coming due. It looked like I was in this by myself, and so I modified the plan, and took a lot of stuff, and then kept track of what I actually used, what I wished I had etc.

The location for Man Camp was Camp Cobra. Camp Cobra is on a tiny stream of clear cold water with a gravel bottom, and in some fairly dense fir trees. It is close enough that you can get to it, but far enough away that there is no temptation to run back home because you forgot something.

Another test was to see if it was true that ash was the ideal wood for a campfire. Kephart claims that green (i.e. unseasoned) ash burns with a clean flame, makes long lasting hard coals and puts out a great deal of heat. While there is some ash at camp cobra, I didn't want to cut down those trees, so I cut some down on a different part of my land. I decided not to use the chainsaw, because Gearge Sears, a.k.a. Nessmuk would have used a hatchet with a blade the size of a book of matches to build a log cabin. I cut down three tree about this size.



Then, I loaded them on my recreational skidder and dragged them the rest of the way to Camp Cobra.

Yes, I realize that Nessmuk generally frowned on imported Japanese ATV's. If that offends you, please check out my mechanical toboggan:



Before you get all indignant the last 5o yards was on foot, and involved a river crossing. Well, river may be a slight overstatement since you can step over it if you have long legs. Anyway . . .

Below is a picture of the mountain o' gear positioned at camp cobra. At this time its about 2:30, and about an hour or so before sunset. At this point I spent the rest of my time cutting and dragging tree length stuff back to camp, to cut up in the dark. The temperature at 2:30, according to the digital dangler, was 23 degrees Fahrenheit.

After the sun set, but before it got dark, I set up my tarp. It is an 11' x11' tarp from Tentsmiths, and it is a thing of beauty, at least to me. I love, probably too much, because I am reluctant to use it because it is so nice. Here, I set it up as a lean-to. The way to do it and have sides is to set it up on the diagonal. The ridge pole originally had a triangular flap that hung down, but I tucked it up around the ridge pole. There is also a corner that is flat on the ground on the back edge, and is underneath the ground cloth. Anyway, it works. The front is about 5' off the ground, the front opening is about 7' wide and the back wall is about 6' wide at the base. I also tied a rope from the center tie out to a convienient tree, which makes the interior quite about bigger. The lean-to is about 5 ' deep I think. By the time I got situated, it was almost dark, and about 10 degrees.

By this time, I could tell that I was getting pretty dehydrated, and I realized that I didn't have enough wood to last through one of the longest nights of the year, so I decided to get a fire going and heat some water for some instant soup and bask in all that sweet heat reflecting down on me. I filled a pot full of water, and then started a fire with my Swedish firestarter and a cotton ball. There were tons of dry twigs, so starting a fire was quick and easy. I didn't have a good way to get the pot over the fire though. I put it next to the fire, and I was surprised for some reason to see that it had frozen over. Obviously it was 32 degrees when I pulled it out of the stream, and sitting in the snow at 10 degrees in an aluminum pot wasn't doing much to insulate it, but still I was surprised.

I moved the fire a little closer to the lean-to, as I wasn't feeling the Miami heat toasting my back, and that about put the fire out. More twigs = more fire, but the pot wasn't heating, so I got two logs, and pushed them close enough together on either side of the fire so the pot would sit above the flames, that about put the fire out too. Eventually I got my 5 minutes of boiling time to kill any bugs, and drank my soup. It was good, but tongue burning at first and cool at the end. (Actually I set it down and cut up some more wood and it was frozen when I turned back to it.)

I started putting some ash on the fire. It burned great, except as the night wore on I realized that it put out a ton of smoke, and although it made great coals, the coals did nothing to warm the lean-to. Only bright leaping flames from softwood did anything to ease the chill. I think Ash would be the bees knees in a stove, but for a lean-to heater, the choking smoke was a downer, and there wasn't as much flame as I needed. Granted, it took a few hours to figure this all out. Here's what it looked like at about 7:00 p.m. and 6 degrees with light snow and swirling wind.


Against all recommendations I had no reflector behind my fire. I know better, and this may be a primary reason the experiment failed. I big reflector tarp, which I brought but never set up, may have acted as a chimney, and should have reflected more heat into the lean-to. There was no convenient way to do it, and I was playing catch up by this time.

I was sitting on an Ensolite pad and a wool blanket folded in half. That was not enough. I was coldest from the ground, more than the air. As you can see from the pictures, there was only an inch or so of snow on the ground. Not really ideal, but nothing that would have given pause to Townsend Whelen either. You might be able to see how close I was to the fire, but I was still fairly cold on my back, and failed to sense any heat reflecting down on me.



By about 8:30 I was tired, sore, and beginning to get cold. I thought I had probably contracted emphysema and maybe lung cancer from all the smoke I inhaled and was thinking about packing it in. I dozed off and awoke a moment later by the sound of someone crashing through the woods. Instead of laying down sustained suppressive fire with the m-6, which is my preference just on general principles, whenever I am startled while in the woods, alone, in the dark, I hollered to see who it was, when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but Jason Barrett, fresh from the doctor's office. It was a delightful surprise to say the least. We set up his tarp in an effort to block some more wind, and proceeded to cook up some venison steak and hot chocolate etc. It was nice to have someone to help saw some wood up.

Here is Jason, stricken with walking pneumonia, yet totally game for a winter camp out.


Here's me, affecting the nonchalant pose that a Calvin Rutstrum might strike in such a circumstance:


We stuck it out all night. It got down to 3 degrees with some wind. Then we left early in the morning. Like 1:00 a.m. early. Well it was a learning experience, and I still have a lot to learn.

What worked well:

Swedish Anorak
LL Bean Washable wool pants with suspenders.
Army Surplus Mukluks
Swedish wool mittens, keep your hands warm, but you can also pick up hot pots and burning logs with no problem.
Woodenboat mug was awesome: no burned lips, kept my hot chocolate hot.
I had a candle, that was nice, but would be better if I could hang it up like the stonebridge folding candle lantern that everyone likes so much.

What didn't work well:
One Ensolite pad and a wool blanket is not nearly enough.
The tarp did not stay warm. Next time I will make it narrower and deeper, more like a cave.
You definitely need some kind of reflecting surface behind the fire, the taller the better for smoke and wind management.
Fresh ash burns as advertised, but for radiational heat, standing dead softwood is the way to go.
Balancing a pot on two logs with the fire between them is not as easy as it sounds, at least for me.

If you have any other ideas on what I did wrong, please don't hesitate to comment.



Update: I got some good sugestions at Canadian Canoe Routes. Check it out here.

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.