A Regular Babe Winkelman

This is a family weekend at the lake. Betsy, Pete, Henry, and Clara arrived Wednesday evening. Will, Sandy, and Anders arrive tonight. "Grandpa time" is definitely in effect.

Henry was excited to show me his new Spiderman fishing rod. I rigged it up with a practice casting plug, and he spent time on the deck casting down onto the lawn. His technique was pretty good right off the bat.

Henry has a great new fishing hat too.

Meanwhile, Clara was providing adorable smiles.

After breakfast and the practice casting session, we prepared to go out on the lake for a fishing trip.

Henry tried a bobber for awhile, but we were fishing in fairly deep water, so I suggested he just drop a line straight down without a bobber, and he seemed to know how to do this right off.

The next thing we knew, Henry had hooked and landed a bluegill all by himself. He immediately named it Sebby. We put it into the livewell, so he subsequently spent lots of time watching it and the crappie I had caught earlier. That one he named Gill.

Here are Sebby and Gill, respectively.

I thought he might be grossed out by my cleaning his two new pals, but he was not and seemed quite interested in the anatomy of each one and trying to see what they had been eating. Now he is looking forward to a fish dinner. I asked him to carry the filets into the house after cleaning them.

After our evening meal, we went out again for a short while, and Henry did it again. He hooked and landed a 9" bass all by himself. For the day, he caught more fish than anyone else.

Grandma Kathie, Clara, Great Grandma Jane, and Josey were all waiting for us when we came back in for the night.

4th of July Weekend

In addition to watching 4th of July golf cart parades, we enjoyed a number of other things these past several days. Grandson Henry picked out a delightful wind toy for our yard and gave it to me for my birthday. He suggested we bring it to the lake, so we now have Kermit the Frog, or one of his relatives, riding colorfully near the entrance to our cabin. (I told Henry that he sometimes likes to ride on the other side of the cabin, where he can watch the boats go by.) I love these kinds of wind toys and kites and their bright colors.

Our two flower gardens are doing very well, with lots of petunias and other things blooming. Kathie planted columbine a couple of years ago, and it is gorgeous right now.

Several years ago, I bought this 5000 piece picture puzzle, but until now, I haven't been motivated to start it, as opposed to simpler 1000 piece or other smaller puzzles.

Well, I finally got it out of its box. It took one day just to turn all the pieces face up. I was able to sort out all the edges as I went along, but they are all completely black, so putting the edge together is a non-starter.

I watch or listen to baseball games or listen to books on my iPod while I work on the puzzle, and since I took the picture below, I've actually managed to put together maybe 250 or 300 pieces. That's around 5% of the puzzle. At this rate, I'll be working at this for a long time, although probably the rate of "putting together" will accelerate as the number of pieces remaining diminishes. Fun! See what retirement allows?

The morning of the 4th, we decided to paddle as far up the river as we could. Kathie's mother was a trooper and went along with us. There are often lots of animals to see, and this trip was no exception: 2 deer, a beaver, eagles, a kingfisher, and lots of jumping fish.

We had to drag through a few areas. When we got as far as we could without portaging, we stopped to fish awhile. It felt like a western trout stream, but there were lots of smallmouth bass instead (and some suckers, one of which Kathie hooked when offering a worm for bait). Our neighbor passed us on the way up there (he was using an electric trolling motor on his canoe but had to paddle some of the way). He caught an 18" bass just as we got to the area where they were fishing.

Yesterday, Kathie and I took our boat the other direction and found a spot in the flowage where weeds were growing. We had quite a bit of bass action there too, and I hooked the following 15-1/2" smallmouth. Not a huge fish, but a nice fighter and good for a meal. I was using two rods at the time–a lightweight rod with a bobber and another that I was using to cast a leech on a jig. This guy hit on the lightweight rod. I was just getting ready to cast the jig, when I noticed that the bobber was nowhere in sight. He was a tussle on the lightweight rod, which probably made it more fun. That's Kathie's foot, not mine, by the way.

Local July 4th Parade

There is no end to the entertainment available to us here at the lake. A short distance from us is the Musky Tale bar, a fun watering hole that we visit from time to time. The owners are friendly and have freely made their boat ramp available to us. They have live bait available for fishing, and on Sundays, they have a drawing for a cash prize that is always a good time. We have enjoyed stopping by there, meeting new people, and having a laugh or two.

The Musky Tale operates a set of fishing cabins and an RV park. Many of the folks who inhabit the RV park are retired and spend their entire summer here. Earlier this week, a number of them decided that the Musky Tale should host a parade in honor of Independence Day. So, they worked on their golf carts, came up with costumes, and sweet-talked the bar owner into leading the parade with his ATV and work trailer (in order to give the "Musky Queen" a proper place in the parade).

The parade was this afternoon at 2PM, so Kathie, Mom, and I had to go over to join the other spectators, most of whom were other campers and guests of the bar. It was one of the shortest, sweetest, most fun parades we have ever seen.

Here is the Queen in the lead parade unit, which was decorated with a turkey decoy and some kind of other stuffed wild animal.

Music was provided by the one-person drum major and band (she carried a boom box that played appropriate Independence Day marches).

I don't know where these folks found all the hats and decorations. Some of the carts were handing out cups of beer. Others tossed candy to the "crowd."

More of Eleanor's Birthday

I'm certain that no one could possibly overdose on stories about my grandchildren, so even though Carrie has already posted a couple of delightful reports on Eleanor's birthday, I thought I would add more information and pictures.

I was impressed with the pretty dress Eleanor wore for her 2nd birthday, which was printed with flowers and butterflies–a pretty dress for a pretty little girl.

Among her gifts was this new backpack. She modeled it for us. It looks good with the dress.

She also got her very own lollipop drum, something we understand she loves to use in her music classes.

Now she also owns her very own pair of low top "Chucks."

And, to make her time in her kitchen even more fun, she received a supply of "food" in all the basic food groups.

Of course, no array of gifts for Eleanor would ever be complete without one or more new books.

Carrie had put lots of time and thought into decorating the house for Eleanor's birthday, including these two arrangements of flowers.

With a little help from Mom, Eleanor blew out the candle.

Then she got on to one of the more important parts of the day.

Happy Birthday Eleanor, and many, many more.