Summer's begun - Update from Maine

[John Fraser]

Been busy taking the three boys to lacrosse. Here's Ethan (#17) taking a shot yesterday.

Then out in the vegetable garden quite a bit:

But still have a little time to catch a few of these fun, toothy fish:

And tonight I had to fix a leaking toilet tank. Looks like I've got the wrong parts. So it's off to HEP tomorrow to get the right gasket and bolts.

What's everyone else been up to now that school's winding down and the weather's warming up?

 

[Luke Berkey]

Looks like your summer is getting off to a good start. With temps in the mid 90's I took the day off to get on the water for the first time this year. Only for an hour or so because I still had too much other stuff to get done.

I think the dog needed the time on the water as much as I did.

Maybe next time I'll have time to wet a line. I hope everyone has a safe fun summer.

 

[Al Hansen]

John,
Do whitetail deer frequent the garden? Looks like a great buffet for them. Our grandson in DePere, WI also plays Lacrosse. Enjoyed those fishing pictures.
Al

 

[John Fraser]

Luke,
It looks like a great day to be on the water! Your dog looks to be enjoying it. I took Molly out on the boat Sunday and threw a few bumpers. She gets really excited over the fish.

Do you keep your boat in the water or trailer it? With me trailering, it's hard to leave the house for anything less than 3 to 4 hours. What will you fish for this time of year?

 

[John Fraser]

Al,
There's a doe with a fawn hanging out by the garden, but so far she's stayed out of it. There's even a family of woodchucks that hang out there too. But they haven't tried to get under the fence yet. For the woodchucks, I have sighted in my .17 from the garage window about 70 yards away. But only to be used if they get in the garden, my wife likes the "chucks".

Lacrosse seems to have gotten pretty widespread. My neighbor has grandkids that play in Florida and Minnesota. The boys from MN were playing with our sons in the yard a couple of weeks ago. They even got up early the morning they were to leave so that they could play one more time.

Those pickerel (and bass) kept me busy many days when I was a kid. The pickerel were my favorite thing to catch through the ice with tip-ups and shiners.

 

[TimJ]

John,
The garden is looking good. Nothing quite like looking at a nice clean garden. I try not to look at mine too closely. I'll have to take a few pictures.

Those chain pickerel are some neat looking fish. I bet they are great fish for kids of all ages.

Tim

 

[Luke Berkey]

John, I trailer my boat but there is a launch about 5 minutes away that is never crowded. If I was to fish right now I could catch flounder, blue fish, maybe weakfish(sea trout), taug if they were in season, and there are probably some small stripped bass in the back bays still. I'm jealous of your garden. I'd like to put one in but have had more important home projects the last few years. I usually do some containers w/ tomatoes and peppers and a bunch of herbs. Luke

 

[Brad Bortner]

Been busy taking the three boys to lacrosse. Here's Ethan (#17) taking a shot yesterday.

John, tell him to get that shot on the ground....

Enjoy summer folks.

 

[John Fraser]

Thanks Tim. I haven't had a vegetable garden for about ten years. My wife wanted to have one again this year, so we did it. Learned some things from our pevious garden, so we did a few things different to make it a little easier and more productive. Tried some new things too. Like potatoes, it's cool how you can take an old bag of gnarly potatoes, stick them in the ground, and they make more potatoes. It's wild how you've got to keep burying the plants with soil. Also put in some strawberries this year. My dad had a patch when I was a kid and I've been wanting to grow my own strawberries for a while. I'm cutting off all the flowers this year to encourage more plant growth. They just started tillering out this week. And we planted red beets too. Beets are great in salad with spinach!

Post some pics of your garden. I'd like to see them.

 

[John Fraser]

Sounds like a nice launch Luke. My closest launch is 10 - 15 minutes away, but it's busy this time of year. All the other launches I use are 20 - 45 minutes away.

I grew up on Long Island and I miss those fish. Good eating!

 

[John Fraser]

Thanks Brad. The coaches stress that, especially with the older kids. At my oldest son's games a lot of the goals scored are bounced off the ground.

You have a good summer too!

 

[Brad Bortner]

I grew up playing lacrosse and played in high school and college. I still love the game although the only time I pick up the stick is to throw balls for the dogs. I hope your family enjoys it too, a bunch of good schools up your way.

Have a good summer also. Looks like you are having a good one.

Go Terps!

 

[TimJ]

Hey John,
Here are some pictures of my garden.

The onion patch next to some winter squash that I'm having a hard time keeping wet enough to grow well. I sure hope we get a good rain soon. All the weeds you see are because I'm not doing much to disturb the soil right now since it is so dry... that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The potatoes and cabbage. I have one of the rows of potatoes just about gone already. Love those new potatoes.

Beans and peas with rabbit protection.

Zucchini, cucumbers and a few tomatoes behind them.

The zucchini and cucumbers have really started to produce with the hot weather.

Some pole beans I just planted a couple weeks ago. They never seem to produce until late summer or early fall even if I plant them early.

Tried swiss chard this year and it does sooooo much better then spinach here. I'll be planting that again.

And what it's all for, new potatoes and snap peas. Mmmmmmm.....

Happy summer,
Tim

 

[John Fraser]

That's a BIG garden Tim! Very nice! I hear you about the water, it's extremely dry here too. We just got back from a week's vacation. Luckily my neighbor watered for me, but the bugs really got into my squash, cucumber, and carrots while I was gone. I hit them all with some BT this evening, that should help if they are being eaten by any caterpillars. I guess we'll see. Your cucumbers are way further along than mine. My cukes are just forming.

It looks like you've hilled all those rows of potatoes. Do you use a roto-tiller for that chore? It's my frst time messing with spuds and the rototiller is nice! Did you plant the cabbage between the potato rows for any reason? I like the white cabbage chopped up with a little mayo, salt, and pepper. If the white cabbage comes in well this year, I may try red cabbage next year. I really like to cook the red cabbage with red wine vinegar, bacon, apples, onion, and some raspberry jelly.

Thanks for sharing the pictures of your garden.

 

[John Fraser]

Thursday the family got back from a week's vacation in Maine. We spent five nights at the Bar Harbor Campground, it was nice. I've been to Maine a few times, but never got any further north than Booth Bay. The Bar Harbor Area is beautiful, well worth the trip. We spent the first few days in the National Park.

Did quite a bit of hiking. On Cadillac Mountain:

Through a wetland (the little guy was tired when we took this shot):

And along the shore:

Here we saw quite a few eider and guillemots. Someday I'll have to return for an eider hunt:

The kids also enjoyed swimming and playing at Sand Beach:

But the boys favorite activity was finding creatures in the pools during low tide:

They even found a lobster buoy that had drifted in:

We did eat dinner at in Bar Harbor one night. Ben and I had clams. Then we went for a walk around town and caught a small crab on the boat launch:

A few of the evenings we played putt-putt at the Pirates Cove. We won quite a few free games so it kept us coming back:

Our last day in Bar Harbor we took a tour of a lobster hatchery and a brewery.

After leaving Bar Harbor, we swung down through Freeport and Kittery where we did some shopping. In Portland we spent some time along the shore between the Portland Head and Two Lights:

On the way home we spent a night in Waterbury, Vermont. The route through the mountains was nice. Here's the kids checking out a bridge they had by the hotel:

Then went to Ben and Jerry's:

On the way home we rode the circa 1913 ferry Adirondack across Lake Champlain. That is an impressive lake. This shot was taken as we were leaving Burlington:

It was a great family vacation. No set schedule, just took it easy and had a good time in a beautiful part of the country.

Then today, I took Ben and Ethan to a trappers rendezvous in Fenner, NY. I enjoy talking to and learning from the other trappers there. We sat in on a mink demo, I'd like to start targeting them on my water line. I also spent some of my fur money on this gear:

Now the kids camp season starts. We'll be shuttling the kids to and from camps throughout the next few weeks. We will also be stopping up at the Clayton decoy show. Is anyone else going to Clayton?

It'll be September before you know it!