David's Eagle Project Done

This evening in pouring rain from the Mexican Hurricane Willa that was passing north of town, grandson David finished his eagle scout project, a fire pit for the youth of the church. A month earlier volunteer work crews had cleared the circle one evening and constructed the benches a week later, finishing up by the headlights of cars in the parking lot. With delays in the delivery of materials and with dark coming earlier and earlier every week, it was hard to schedule a time in the daylight to finish up.  David decided that come rain or shine, this afternoon at 5 we'd finish up since this weekend most workers would be off to the Florida panhandle to help with Hurricane Michael clean-up and the children in the ward wanted to celebrate Halloween around the campfire.  Of course it poured rain all day although the weatherman said it would be a nice day with just a slight chance of rain. Anyway, in spite of 5 inches of rain the gravel was spread and the pit itself was put together. Everyone was soaked to the bone and went home to a nice warm shower.

Gamecock visit.

Since we are now training gamecocks, we thought we'd visit the University of South Carolina, the home of the fighting Gamecocks,

and the new home of our daughter Kim since she moved from Australia. Her new condo is the bottom floor pictured here.

We heard she was straightening her back by sleeping on the floor and promoting good posture by eating while standing up, so we took her a comfy bed and a table and some chairs to help her relax when she gets home and help her to start furnishing the place so she can entertain guests.

Cockfighting Florida Style

You might remember that we bought a handful of chicks so we could have fresh eggs for breakfast. However, they all turned out to be roosters.

So why not select two to train to be cock fighters to earn some cash for the farm?

Here they are in their first fight:

Do you think we're going to make any money?

Scalping or Scalloping?

When we suggested to the scouts that we go scalloping, some, being wild and crazy as they can sometimes be, thought we meant wild west scalping. They soon found out what we really meant. Here we are at Crystal River on the Gulf a Mexico getting ready for our adventure and heading out to sea.

My official job was to be the spotter and constantly count heads bobbing in the water to make sure that no one disappeared at the bottom of the sea even though the water was only 4 feet deep.

We had a great time and got better at finding scallops as the day wore on. Our limit was 2 five gallon buckets. We got only got about 1 gallon--not bad for beginners.

Afterwards we swam in Three Sisters Springs to get the salt water off then headed home to clean the scallops and share them with our families.

They were delicious cooked with butter and sprinkled with lemon, This is what scallop shells look like.

The Florida season for scalloping is July and August strictly off the coast near Crystal River. We went on a Thursday and there were lots of other scallopers all around us.

Don't Fence Me In!

That was grandma's reaction to my latest project--putting up that last two fences that I've wanted to put up for three years. She's an open range type of person. But now we can control where the cows and horses are in our fields. That keeps the grandkids and animals separated when it comes time to safely do some hiking, biking and perhaps camping in the fields, especially when we have bulls.

Mermaids and mermen?

The ancient mariners are rumored to have thought that the manatees they saw in Florida looked like mermaids and mermen. When last January we went manatee hunting, we were so excited to see so many that we forgot to take a closer look to check the rumor out.

This last week we saw some more and decided to take a closer look this time. Were the ancient mariners right?

Gone fishing!

This month's adventure was to go fishing with 10 of our grandchildren under the age of 8 in the northwoods of Minnesota. Be sure to click on the pictures for a closer look so you can check if you recognize everyone. Aren't we a great looking bunch of adventurers?

They say the fish get pretty big up here

so we asked some pretty big friends we met for advice as to the best places to fish.

They warned us about the bears

but suggested we scout out the headwaters of the Mississippi

and Lake Superior at Duluth.

But we found the best fishing and the most fun at Lake Thirty One.

Of course you had to dress right so as not to scare off the fish!!

We caught lots of Northern Pike for a delicious fish fry. Here you can see the fish about ready for us to eat. The large aluminum foil covered things on the stove top are just three more of the Pikes ready for us to eat. On the center block are another whole Pike and another Pike cut up into fish bites dipped in batter,  fried and ready for hungry fishers to dip in various sauces. Of course, as you can see, we had a nice pot of grits to keep all the Florida born happy. There were no leftovers.

The fishing expedition with the grandkids was a joyful success. The grandparents, the parents and the children all had a great time.

But of course, in my mind the best part was early morning swims to get my blood circulating for the day while everyone else was sleeping, group swims across the lake and back, and every evening perfecting my Finnish sauna techniques.

This little pig went to market

Miss Piggy, a wild pig, has been enjoying the company of our horses and cows for some time now. She is about the size of Choco, our miniature horse and often trots around the fields with the other animals. She usually joins the horses and cows when Caroly feeds them in the morning, gobbling up the food they spill.

But about three months ago she started tearing up our lawn as though she thought that she knew a better location for our garden. She even rooted out our blueberry bushes. So we called out the Pig Busters to capture her and move her to a more suitable location several miles away. Now we can keep the garden where it is and have a smoother ride when we ride the lawn mower,

It turns out that Miss Piggy was actually Mr. Pig