Friday, August 27, 2010

Favorite trout stream



Here we are after hiking up a 2 track road for a while with a picnic lunch and fishing poles in hand. The perfect spot for an afternoon to cast a few lines and relax.






If I had the money to buy this place on a little trout stream in Canada, I would. I could spend the summer and fall up there fishing and relaxing. It is one of the most beautiful spots in the
area where we spend each summer. I'm sure my Northernbliss friend knows where it is ,... don't you Janet?



That is a dream of mine is to have a small cabin similar to the one near these falls to unwind each summer , catch a few trout, work on some art, read or just sit and listen to the water falls 24 hours a day.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Isn't technology great..this is a test message from my BlackBerry to my blog.

Barn animals


Another temporary resident of our barn, a small possum. My daughter came in from taking care of the horse last night and said she saw a possum run into the lean to. We found him hiding in the wood pile where we left him hoping he would leave in the night.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Peaches


It's time to can peaches from our tree and a few that I bought from a local orchard. We normally have a ton of fruit but a late frost this year got the blooms. We have about 15 fruit trees from Peaches, Apples, Nectarines, Pears, Cherries and plums. Some years we do Cider or Apple Jack, and can the fruit. We also freeze blueberries, red and black raspberries and black berries. Then we have a large garden of vegetables we can and freeze.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Canada


This is the front of the rock slide I mentioned yesterday. Quite insane to climb the front of it but people do it. It is a wonderful sight and would love to have a cabin perched on the top of it.



While in Canada we fished a chute on the river one afternoon with no success. The beauty of the
river made up for the terrible fishing. We fished with everything, mostly worms on a bobbler but only got a couple small bass. I was hoping for a walleye, pike or even better a trout. The large pool of water looked like the perfect spot for fish but nothing except the wife losing several of my spoons and Rapalas. She promises to replace them but I'm still waiting.





The river at this point moves very swiftly in a narrow gorge and in fact appears to have quite an undertow. Several times my bobble would be pulled under as the current pulled my rig downward.







This is looking south downriver and is another beautiful view. We have been coming to this area for over 40 years and each time we find something new. Earlier this day we traveled down to north side of snowshoe creek to the river to fish. Another beautiful spot with the wide stony river banks. I was worried that when we drove down the hill covered in stone we wouldn't get out. Well, we didn't as the truck would spin halfway up the hill (no 4 wheel drive) so we jogged to the road and flagged down someone on the construction crew with a four wheeler to pull us out. We tried the south road but couldn't get past the sand ruts near the river. Next year we bring the four wheeler and an aluminum boat for the bush roads.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Rock Candy Mountain




We spent a week in Canada this summer and always climb Rock Candy Mountain near the camp. It is a wonderful view overlooking Cumming and Tunnel lake for miles. On the way up we found a huge mushroom growing out of a tree the size of a basketball.








Then on the climb up there was a party coming up the front of the mountain by way of the rock slide. Not too smart not only because of the rock slide but the area is full of poison ivy. You can see one of them right in the center of the picture.





Then the view from the top of the mountain, where I would love to have a cabin. In fact, shortly north of this place is a cabin high a top of the mountain that you access from the road back to Little pickerel lake. I wonder what an evening up there in a lightning storm is like. I bet you can see and hear it for miles.




Here is the gang at the top of the hill, now ready for ice cream at the trading post.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Hot Pepper time


So the garden has been very fruitful this year and it's time to start canning. I picked from a variety of peppers including Serrano, Jalapeno, Hungarian, Red Chili, Red Cherry and Tabasco. I made the mistake last week when we did Salsa to not wear gloves on only the Jalapeno, never again. My hands burned several hours afterward until I put cream on them.


Of course my wife had to do a little pepper humor.










And then we put it all on to cook with some other stuff in the pot and made some warm pepper relish which we love to put on a sandwich, meatloaf or use it in cooking. We ended up canning a double batch of this and of salsa the same day. Yesterday we did about a bushel of tomatoes into canned tomatoes. Later in the week we can peaches, tomato soup, tomato juice and maybe more beets. I will put a picture up of what we canned so far another time. We also froze blueberries, blackberries, red and black raspberries from the garden for my daughter to make pies this fall.

Barn Swallows


I have had barn swallows in my barn for many years now. In fact we have rescued several of them from the fly tape in the horse stalls. They became stuck on the tape and we would get them down, wash their wings with canola oil to remove the glue and leave them in a box with food and water for a day and let them go. I have since put up a mesh to try to keep them from flying into the horse area where the tape is and started using different fly traps.

I'm sure one of the babies we rescued is in this bunch here. The babies fly out during the morning all day and return at night crowding in the nest while the parents perch nearby. At what point do you think the babies are big enough the parents kick them out of the nest. It looks crowded now.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

nothing here but space.

I just realized that I have never entered anything in my blog because I was maintaining a web site about my conversion. Of course that web site hasn't been updated in a while even though I have much more done on the vehicle and is close to running. So I promise to update that site in the very near future. Mea while I'll probably use this blog for my rants, raves and ramblings when I feel the urge to do so. I don't want to be one of those blogs that get updated once a year. All for my one follower, Lisa... thanks for the support Lisa. Although I do have many many more following Wattmotion.com