A letter to Me

Dear Fall Mr. Lukenbill,

I'm writing to you on this final day of school with hopes of helping your impending school year start smoothly and progress positively.  Like your students, you are prone to experience summer slide; many of the lessons you learn during each school year you tend to forget between May and September.  It's ok, happens to a lot of teachers.  So before I drift completely into my summer stupor.....which will begin sometime within the next 20 hours......I shall share with you some of the big lessons from these past nine months that I've been holding on to in preparation for this message.  No need to thank me.....by the time you read this I'll have completely forgotten writing it.

Here's your first, and most important, reminder:  The students you have now are not the students you'll have next spring.  They will mature.  They will learn to read.  They will stop interrupting you.  But, and this is the key, those things will occur only with your help.  You cannot make them happen, and they will not happen as soon as you'd like.  Remember, you chose to take on your current role because you believed you have what it takes to make a difference for the kids who need the biggest difference made.  The kids you worked with last year, this year, and next year are the kids who don't understand a thing about reading, don't listen, don't sit still, don't have a sense of humor, aren't very healthy, and pass gas all. the. time.  But they don't choose to come to you like that, either, which you have forgotten too often lately.  It's time you start remembering how to do your job better.  You are the guy who can teach a rock to read.  So start teaching on Day One and don't stop until those smelly little buggers can read.

Next lesson:  You're going to test kids in a couple of weeks.  Some of them, maybe even many of them, will have regressed to levels far below what they were when they left you three months ago.  You need to accept this!  You cannot change education's prehistoric calendar model, just like those kids who didn't read all summer cannot change the non-literary environment they live in.  So, be prepared for the big gut-punch when you see that Gwendoline can't read anymore, then refer back to the first lesson and get busy.

As you read this in early September you're going to be looking out at an entire school year ahead of you.  It's going to seem daunting, and probably kind of depressing coming off of three straight months of not having to wear pants.  In the blink of an eye, though, you'll be waking up on the last day of school.  Your daughter will be graduating.  Your youngest will be turning into a sixth-grader.  You have to, have to, savor each day more than you have for a long, long time.  Weeks will feel long, some days will try to bury you - savor!  Find the fun moments and laugh, recognize the special moments and drink them in.  Stop watching the clock so much and start watching each day unfold.  I guarantee you the time will pass at the same rate either way.

I want to let you know your efforts at balancing your work with your life have been needed and effective.  Two years ago you started coming to school a little later and leaving a little earlier.  You took a lot less work home, both physically and mentally.  You became a better dad. You got a lot more rest.  But this past year your balance went a little too far to the life side.  You owe it to your students and your teammates to swing back the other way, just a little.  You finally figured out how to put your family first, and yourself next....but you can't neglect your career as much as you did last year.  Get back on track this year, ok?

Oh, and one final thing:  About those teammates I just mentioned.....cherish them.  You are surrounded by teachers who love what they do, so let their enthusiasm rub off on you a little!  And, whether you like it or not, they love you, too.  Aaaaannnnndddd, whether you'll admit it or not, you love them.  So start acting like it.  You hardly talked to the grade level around you this year.  You missed opportunities to help teachers who needed your wisdom.  They look to you for leadership, so doggone it you need to lead them again!  Yes, they drive you bonkers sometimes - you aren't exactly a perfect plum either, you know!  As I write this I am filled with regret at how flippant and grumpy and not fun I was these last nine months.  You are not allowed to be like that!  They will test your patience and they will want to talk at all the wrong times and they will cry far more than any one man needs to see.....but they are your people.  Join them again.

Good luck, Sir!  Being a teacher is really hard.  Teaching is really hard.  But I think you...I...have made it harder than it needs to be sometimes.  Be prepared for really frustrating moments this year, 'cause after twenty years you know they always happen.  But they always pass, too.  So endure the frustration and then teach like crazy for those kids, lead like crazy for those teammates, and make your year the best it can be for you!

                                                                                            Very sincerely yours (literally),
                                                                                             Spring Mr. Lukenbill


p.s.  Hunting season will be here before you know it - request your days off NOW!

That's a wrap, part I

Track season for my oldest daughter, a junior in high school, ended today.  She competed at the section finals in both shot put and discus but didn't advance out of the preliminary rounds in either event.  Didn't have her worst day of throwing, but when surrounded by 15 other section finalists in each event anything less than a personal best isn't gonna cut it.  But, a year ago she set a goal to be in this meet, and today she was in it.  So, great job, Eldest Offspring, I'm proud of you!

And with the end of her track and field season so, too, ends the sports portion of our 2017-18 school year.  These last nine months of athletic activities have been.......valuable.  Memories made.  Lessons learned.  Goals reached.  Failure endured.  Character traits honed.  Character traits revealed.  Preparation rewarded.  Skills sharpened.  Friendships discovered.  Tears shed.  Successes celebrated.

Volleyball, basketball, track and field, figure skating.  Playing, coaching, spectating.  Varsity, junior high, and elementary levels.  Hot gyms and cold mornings, field houses and civic centers.  Home games and long commutes.  Scrimmages, conference battles, section tourneys, and spring performances.  Bleachers, bleachers, and more bleachers.

Here's why sports matter:  A senior shot put thrower (Shot thrower?  Shot putter?  Throwing shotter?  I don't know the best label here.) from a neighboring town was in a different throwing group than my daughter.  Before and after each of my daughter's throws Neighbor Girl was right there by my daughter's side, offering encouragement and even some technique tips that helped Daughter throw a little better on her final toss.  Neighbor Girl then took her turns and threw poorly, by her standards.  A senior, she came into today with high hopes of making the final round of throws after a terrific showing at sub-sections last week.  She was visibly devastated after she failed to do so.  Daughter offered a hug and slightly different encouraging words than received.  So right there, in less than a half-hour, a compassionate and empathetic experience in two extremes - encouragement to others and sympathy for others.  From two kids.  Daughter, when you read this, you were part of a powerful moment today - I'm just as proud of you for that as I am for your throwing.

A range of experiences.  Varied opportunities.  Moments that matter.  Schools have them.  Sports abound with them.  For nine months my daughters have been in school and sports; they've gained plenty of knowledge from school, but they've acquired life from sports.  In a few short months we start a whole new year of acquisitions.  And I can't wait, because.....

I love sports seasons!

All The Words I Hate

A week ago, while writing this entry about track season, I included one of my least favorite words as a descriptor.  I made mention of how strongly I disliked the word I chose to use, and I hinted at an upcoming post about all the words I hate.....so tonight I share with you, well, all the words I hate.  And yes, I know "hate" is probably a word most people would put on their own list of hated words, and there's too much hate in the world, and blah blahblah blah blah.  I hate 'em, ok?

They make a short list, these words I hate.  Overwhelmingly I love words.  Words on the page or screen have the power to create images in the mind; inversely, the images we carry in our thoughts can be transferred to other humans by connecting the correct words.  Words carry feelings, they inspire action, and they transport knowledge.  Except for the following words....all they do is annoy me because all we do - and by "we" I mean "you people" - is speak them over and over and over.  And over.

Let's start with everyone's favorite word, thereby automatically making it my least.  You've heard it at least a dozen times today, and probably said it more than you should have while never once using it accurately.  I'm leading my list with the overused, misused, and completely abused adjective - awesome.  Rather than go on and on...and on...with my thoughts about how badly this word gets used I'll provide you with this link to a short TEDTalk on how ridiculous people sound 95% of the time they say something is awesome.  You're welcome.  Now stop saying it.  Forever.

Next up, an adverb.  A word I hate because A) it's overused, but more so because B) it's insulting.  I'm talking about basically, a word we (I'm guilty on this one) use as a code for "you're too stupid to understand the real reason behind what I'm telling you so I'll just dumb it down about fifty notches to provide a glimmer of understanding in your diminutive mind."  Basically, we use it to talk down to others.  Or maybe we're using reverse stupidity......maybe it's code for "I don't have anything intelligent to say, so if I say 'basically' he will think I've got real thoughts.  Which I don't."  It's pretty awesome how that word works.  Wait, no it isn't.  Ugh.

OMG (and don't get me started on those stupid things....LOL!) here's another adverb that just drives. me. nuts.  Seriously.  No, seriously, that's the word.  By its very definition this word is used horribly nearly every single time it's uttered:  in a solemn, considered manner with earnest intent; not lightly or superficially.  Think of how you hear it used.  Seriously, think people!  Now, in that instance of usage I stopped and considered which word to write because I earnestly wanted you to earnestly think.  But the rest of the time?  Seriously?  Right there - RIGHT THERE!!  That's how it's used - it gets spit it out as a knee-jerk reaction to something that can't be believed.  The speakers don't consider, they aren't earnest, and quite frankly they're doubting my, or someone's, statement and that's just rude.  Or it gets thrown out as an exclamation of disgust: "The dog licked its butt again.  Seriously!"  Come on!  What's solemn about that?!?  It was light and superficial, and I won't tolerate it anymore!  Basically it would be awesome if you all would just completely stop saying it.  Seriously.

The noun form of dude.  It looks dumb.  It sounds dumb.  It feels dumb to speak it.  It oozes dumbness.  Appear more intelligent - just say no to dude.  Moving on.

This one's tricky - the adverb honestly.  Using honesty, good.  Living honestly, also good.  Adding "honestly" to the beginning of all your statements, bad.  Very, very bad.  Seriously, are you usually not honest, thereby alerting us to when you decide to speak the truth?  Or are you living a life surrounded by Doubting Thomases at every turn?  Either way, just say what you need to say and stop telling us it's honest.  We'll figure out your honesty as we peer into your beady little eyes while the words slide off your forked tongue.

And that's pretty much it.  There are overused phrases I can't stand, you know, and I may have to come back and update this list when one or two more hated words pop into my consciousness while I pretend to ignore the humans around me.  But basically, that's the group, dude.  Honestly, I seriously can't come up with any more words that awaken hatred inside me.  Words are my medium, the keyboard my palette, this screen my canvas for creating my version of art.  So, I generally have only one feeling towards words:

They're awesome.

Memoriae

Memorial Day.  Did you know...

...it officially became a federal holiday in 1971?

...that prior to 1971 America observed Decoration Day each year on May 30?  Decoration Day became Memorial Day as a result of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968.

...there is a National Moment of Remembrance at 3:00 p.m. local time on Memorial Day?  All citizens are encouraged to stop for a moment of silence and reflection on the sacrifices made in the past to provide our present.

Do any amount of reading on the origins, purpose, or rituals of Memorial Day and the one word that is sure to appear is honor, defined in verb form as "regard with great respect."  A fitting action to bestow on those who did what was necessary to protect the freedoms we have in our lives.  But have we used....do we use....those freedoms in a greatly respectful way?

When I think of military sacrifice I always, always focus on World War II veterans.  Not to belittle any veteran of any other war or conflict - they, you are all true heroes - but the years of WWII were perhaps the crescendo of national solidarity in our country.  Everyone fought in that war, whether they were overseas or stateside.  While our soldiers fought battles on multiple continents their families and friends here at home supported the war effort by mass producing, product rationing, and war bond buying.  As that generation of Americans slowly fades from our midst I wonder - are they pleased at the result of their efforts?

We kill each other in our homes, in our streets, and in our schools.  We are the fattest civilization in history.  We can't even sniff the list of ten happiest countries in the world.  Our freedom to peacefully protest is under attack.  The fourth estate has gone from politically neutral to political target, revered by few, trusted by fewer.  Our so-called leaders acquire positions of power due more to the depth of their bank accounts than the depth of their character.  We are lonely, we are tired, we are angry.  This is the result of letting freedom ring?

We have one day out of the year set aside to honor those who ensured our freedoms.  As feared by many in 1971, that one day has become less about honor and more about fun.  Ironic, isn't it, that a day created in reverence for solemn reflection and thankfulness has become nothing more than a party day.....in an unhappy country.  But really, even if we did spend today displaying solemn respect for those who were so much more courageous than any of us, would it truly matter in the midst of what our country has become every other day of the year?

Maybe it's time we end the charade that Memorial Day has become.  Let's just call it what it is - Opening Day of Summer - and stop pretending to show honor on one day while living without it on all the others.  Or maybe....

.....we can live better.  Start serving others.  Get some exercise.  Talk less and listen more.  Set the phones down and lift up our kids.  Vote intelligently.  Stop chasing happiness so we can enjoy what's in front of us.  Most importantly, study the past.  Learn about who we memorialize, why they fought and how they died.  Create a connection to the past that can inspire the present to create hope for the future.  Our freedom was paid forward with lost lives; are we using our lives to do the same?  Too often it feels like we're more interested in making withdrawals than deposits when it comes to saving freedom.  How about, on this Memorial Day, we start reversing that trend?

Habitat

Another couple of days in the north country, another bunch of trees in the ground.  Sunk about forty more juneberry and silver maple into the earth at my Fortress of Solitude, bringing the total trees planted to around 200 this spring.  Far fewer than the usual 500 trees my dad and I plant most springs, but this year's trees were free so we won't quibble about the lower tally.

After planting yesterday I spent a couple of hours this morning tending to some oak trees we planted over ten years ago.  Those oaks have been persistent if nothing else - they've suffered through a couple of drought years and many years of being eaten off by deer.  But they keep surviving, and finally some are starting to grow high enough to be out of the reach of a whitetail's teeth.  Today I moved cages from taller trees to shorter trees (we don't have many caged....we planted a couple thousand.....only have about 15 caged......who's got time to cage two thousand trees?!?) and pruned low branches off dozens of trees to promote vertical growth.  I'm finally starting to get slightly optimistic that our deer will someday feast on acorns.  Probably right around the time I die.

I have many "favorite" outdoor activities, but habitat development might now be at the top of the list. My dad and I have spent years building fences and planting trees to transform what was once pastureland into wildlife habitat, the intended wildlife being white-tailed deer.  It is often said the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago, and our property is living proof of the truth of that saying.  Take a look.....

A view of Armstrong River as you leave my folks' yard and head towards the fields to the north.  The hillside to the left used to be our sliding hill 25 years ago.  Now it's a beautiful mix of Norway pine, jack pine, white spruce, and various wild bushes.  Deer love moving, eating, and bedding in this stream-side cover.

What you see on the right side of the fence looked exactly like the pasture on the left until the fence was built fifteen years ago.  The planted trees are being joined by volunteer trees that have naturally grown outward from The Sanctuary woods.

Exact same spot, but looking north instead of south.

Barron, scrubby pastureland on one side of the fence...

...lush, natural habitat on the other side.  It's almost impossible to not see deer grazing along here anytime from mid-summer until mid-winter.

The land in those photos is a fraction of the habitat we have developed as a part of the Federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).  But we haven't stopped there - straight north off the end of The Sanctuary we've started creating a travel corridor for deer by planting rows of spruces along an old fence line that cuts through a hay field.  Deer move in and out of The Sanctuary from the north woods but usually at night.  We hope better cover will encourage more movement during shooting...ahem, I mean daylight hours.

This weekend I started creating a cover screen along the south edge of the field to the right of what you see above.  The deer love grazing this field, but again are leery of doing so in the daylight.  I planted a row of about twenty Juneberry bushes spaced with a half-dozen silver maple, with the intent of adding a couple of rows of spruce or pine next year.  Both of the pictures below are the same view; the top pic was taken this morning, the bottom two weeks ago.  Incredible difference in the grasses and trees, huh?

           

My other tree project this spring was to transplant ninety white spruce along the west edge of a food plot that sits above what we call the Sand Flat.  About a mile from my folks' house the ditches of the county road are thick with young spruce trees that are doomed to be mowed off.  I dug 'em up and hauled 'em to our field, where they will be allowed to live for years in exchange for providing cover and seclusion to grazing deer and the hunters that want to shoot them.

Trust me, I'm driving between two rows of young spruce trees that look like....

...this.  And someday I'll be able to ride through that same path and have it look like....

...this, my favorite section of trail.  After weaving through these spruces you enter a pine grove before coming out to the field where I planted the rows of trees you couldn't see.

The pictures up there don't begin to do justice to the beauty of the habitat that's been created on our land.  Habitat built with hundreds of hours of work and sweat and bug bites and sunburn, but worth every bit of the pain.  And the wait - habitat development is a process, a slow one, so patience has been as much an ingredient as the sweat and work.  But now, seeing what's come of the journey thus far provides the vision and energy to continue the work each spring and summer.  Like always, I'm already eager to get back up there....the focus on my next trip will be food plots.  The habitat we've developed has plenty of natural browse for the deer, but a few good food plots lets our deer know just how much we care about them.  Until we shoot them.

Thanks for reading.  Go plant some trees.

Lilac days and butterfly wings

It's been a long, hot Saturday.  A three hour drive this morning was followed by four hours of planting trees under a high, hot sun.  The black flies/gnats/sandflies...the tiny black things that leave blood stains on skin after feasting.....were nearly unbearable, their bites now barely visible under the sunburn and sweaty grime that cover my arms.  When the mosquitos saw how well the flies were eating they, too, began to feast.  Which was good, because swatting them off my legs made me aware of the wood ticks looking for a host.

But none of that matters now as I sit in a screen porch immersed in a natural symphony presented in surround sound.  While wood frogs chorus from the high ground Western Chorus Frogs harmonize from the lowlands along Armstrong River.  A blackbird stops by the bird feeder for a sunset snack, announcing her intentions with a series of cackling chirps.  From the east comes the faint cluck of Canadian Geese, perhaps a pair nesting on what's left of an ancient beaver dam.  The air is still, enough so to hear even the hum of the mosquitoes, which now are thankfully kept at bay by the dual purpose screen mesh - keeps the bugs out, lets the cool air in.  And carried on that refreshing air, like a layer of sweet icing on this perfect early summer evening, is the gentle fragrance of lilacs.

Nature serves her most perfect creations in short bursts - fall colors peak for a week in October, the first ice walleye bite lasts for two weeks in late December, wild blueberry bushes give us a week or so in late July to capture their bounty.  And in May the lilacs bloom, releasing a scent I could drink in on every breath without tire until the end of my days.  The lilacs opened late this year, but they were, like always, worth the wait.  All the blossoming trees, for that matter, opened late but with an intense explosiveness beyond that of most years.  Lilacs, though, are the flower I fancy.  The shape, the color, and that wonderful smell create a springtime delicacy for the senses that each year leaves far before its welcome is worn.  My luck is such, however, that I have received a couple of bonus lilac days; as the flowers falter and the scent subsides on the bushes where I live, the bushes here in the north country are at peak bloom.

For over fifty springs the bushes around this house have filled the yard with their fragrance, bushes that are the replanted offspring of those planted fifty years prior.  For a half-century the light purple flowers open first, followed closely by the bushes bearing the white lilacs.  I prefer the scent of the purple; the white's smell is a bit strong, maybe even pushy...perhaps an effort on its part to make up for its tardiness.  Or maybe the whites have, over the years, come to accept their fate as the less appealing member of the lilac clan, evolving to purposely arrive late and be noticed rather than arrive on time and be ignored.

Now, the bloom of the lilac would, by itself, be enough to warm my less-than-favorable feelings towards spring, but upon leaving the yard and descending the hill towards the river rock crossing I was greeted by my favorite insect - butterflies.  Tiger swallowtails to be exact.  Not many, but enough to remind me that summer does more than burn and bite my skin and drink my blood.  I used the word "gentle" to describe the scent of the lilac; the same word applies to the butterfly.  From the rhythmic open-close of its wings while at rest to even the flurried beating of those wings in flight, everything about the butterfly is gentle.  Its path of flight will appear chaotic, but it gently arrives at its destination without fail.  It gently sips nectar, gently carries pollen.  The only violence the butterfly knows (outside of being plastered to the grill of a car) is its initial burst out of a chrysalis and into this world.  A therapeutic activity, butterfly watching - it's awfully hard to be angry, annoyed, stressed, or any other negative emotion while observing the gentle dance of a butterfly on the breeze.

So yes, this day was brutally hot.  The bugs were unrelenting in their quest for my blood.  My skin glows red from the sun.  But a day spent in solitude is a day well lived.  My trees are in the ground, awaiting the rains of the week ahead while already absorbing the rains of the week passed.  And the grumbling I've done here the last two nights has been mellowed a bit, thanks to the fluttering of butterfly wings on a day filled with lilacs.

Weekend Avoidance

Why do people bother trying to go anywhere or do anything on holiday weekends?  Especially Memorial Day weekend?  The traffic on this Friday is always horrific, so the "holiday getaway" starts with stressful and inefficient traveling.  Any destination one person chooses will be chosen by dozens and dozens of other people.  The Citidiots streaming north in search of outdoor adventures will only find...more Citidiots.  "Are you going to the lake?" I get asked.  I reply with a look that says "Are you insane?" mixed with "Do I look insane?"  As much as I love to fish a lake would be the very last place I'd want to end up this weekend.

This Memorial weekend promises to be extra miserable, with temps in the high 80s and low 90s predicted through the middle of next week.  A coworker is going camping - sleeping in a tent would be like wrapping yourself in a huge burrito shell and crawling into your oven for eight hours.  Surrounded by oodles of other "outdoorsy" people doing the same.  I have to believe the sight and smell of campgrounds on Monday will rival a Walking Dead scene.

I actually am going to travel, but not until Saturday morning.  I'm heading to my Fortress of Solitude to plant more trees.  Hot days aren't exactly idea tree-planting conditions, but they need to get in the ground and it's supposed to rain a few days next week, so it needs to be done.  Amount of traffic on the roads on an early Saturday morning?  Very little.  Number of humans in my fields?  Zero.  Percentage of me that desires to be whooping it up with family and friends for the holiday?  Also zero.

The humans can have their campgrounds, their lakes, their beaches, their hiking trails, or whatever else they do en masse these next three days.  I'll take my stream, my fields, my trees, and my silence.

Stay safe everyone.

Bloggin' about nothin'

When last we connected here I was writing about my surge forward into the next fifty days of #The100DayProject.  The surge has stalled - a late night plus an early morning plus a long day plus intense heat has driven my ambition level just south of comatose.  Feels like a good night for writing about.....

**The heat!  Ugh, I am so ready for winter.  Temps soared into the 90s today with a humidity of roughly 126%, making the dew point....hideous.  Some folks thrive in this kind of weather; I have never been one of them.  Maybe it's psychological more than physiological, but as soon as the mercury gets into the 80s I start to slow down, and on a day like today I do nothing.  I'd take fifteen below zero over a heat wave every. single. time.  Oh, and just for funsies it's supposed to stay hotter than blazes for the next week.  I'm heading to the basement; somebody come get me when the first frost hits.  Opening with the heat was probably the wrong way to go here.  Let's try.....

**Retirement!  Up early today to prep for a retirement breakfast for the co-worker who interviewed me twenty years ago, became my mentor my first year, and has been my teaching teammate ever since.  In one week she will arrive at school as a teacher for the final time after......ummm......a lot of years of teaching.  I can't imagine retiring.  Check that - I imagine retiring all the time.  Rather, I can't see a setting in which I am able to retire.  Retirement procedures for teachers like me are far different than for teachers like her.  I joke that I will retire a few days before my funeral.....but it's probably true.  This has taken a sour turn....how about we move on to....

**Star Wars!  Not long ago in a galaxy very, very near, I wrote an entry about Star Wars.  Tonight the latest Star Wars movie, "Solo", opens.  My daughter worked at the theater and said the crowd was pretty sparse.  I knew I should have gone.  I hate to admit it, but my enthusiasm about this movie is pretty shallow.  The trailers look fine and, well, it's Star Wars for cryin' out loud, but Han Solo was never a favorite character of mine so why should I get fired up for an entire movie about him?  And now there's a movie being made about Boba Fett, too, which begs the question:  Huh?  A bounty hunter/villian that had maybe ten minutes of screen time in the first three movies now gets an entire movie, too?  Is our entertainment industry that desperate for ideas?  You know, this is taking a sour turn, too......let's get happy, shall we?  It's almost....

**Summer vacation!  Four days of school are left, four days of school are left, four days of school are left.  Not that I'm counting.  Really, I haven't been counting - but it's pretty tough not to now.  One week from today the student contact year will be over.  Then it's three straight months of summer.  Three months of bugs.  Three months of heat.  Three months of humidity.  Ugh.  I've gone full circle here.....and the circle seems to be spinning around the drain.

Over and out.  Tomorrow I'll make a better effort to suck down some happy pills before I start to write.

Halfway

Fifty days ago, on a whim, I began #The100DayProject with this post.  If my elementary math skills are functioning properly I believe tonight's post begins the second half of that #project.

Fifty blog entries in fifty days.  Some have been really good (find the one about prom) and some have been pretty short and lame (like this one will be!).  Some have been funny (my lawn grass is now twice as high as my neighbors'), some serious, and some indescribable (like the one about.....well, it's hard to describe).  I had a long series of coaching entries, have written quite a few about the outdoors,  at times have struggled to come up with a topic, other times have struggled to stay on topic.

Plenty of people don't "get" blogging.  I'm not completely sure I get it either.  Who am I writing to?  Why am I writing to them?  What, really, is the point in making myself do this every single day for fifty days?  For the first few weeks of this #project I was writing to almost nobody; I'm a stats guy, and the "views" stats for the posts in April are still pretty light (except for my dissertation on high school tennis).  During those weeks I struggled to find my voice, and my motivation, and asked myself the "why am I writing this?" question nearly every night.  But eventually I did find my voice along with the point of doing this every day: I like it.

Choosing topics is hard.  Finding a piece of time to use for this is hard.  Giving up other activities to do this activity every day is hard.  But the hard disappears once my fingers start tapping the keys, and after fifty days of doing this the only hard that's left is how hard it would be to break the habit of daily writing.  I have no plans of stopping when the next fifty days end, but.....

Soon I'll enter summer vacation; I want to shift my writing from late night to early morning, see if I can be more creative, maybe even more efficient, by writing in the a.m.  I wonder if I need a tighter focus on topics instead of the smorgasbord I've produced so far.  And if so, what might those fewer topics be?  The name of this blog, Natural Education, may need to change since I haven't written about education for a long, long time....and don't really want to anymore.  Most importantly, when do I make the move toward writing for a benefit other than personal pleasure?  As in, cash.  I've said it many times before - if I had a nickel for everyone who has told me I should write a book, I'd have a lot of nickels.  With each day, each entry, my writing habit grows stronger.....might I be propelling myself towards something bigger than late night ramblings about hosting house parties or morel mushrooms?

Probably not.

I know there's a slowly growing core group of faithful readers who take a look at what I write each day - thank you for that.  Here's hoping I can fill the next fifty days with something you'll enjoy reading....and that they don't fly by as fast as the first fifty!  Until tomorrow....thanks for reading.

I still love track season!

Exactly one year ago I wrote this post about my love of track and field.  The occasion for that post was the sub-section track meet my two oldest daughters competed in.  Tonight was that same meet, but whereas last year it marked the end of the season, this year my oldest daughter lives to throw again another day.

If you use the link above and read about last year's meet you'll know how and why her season ended. On that night she made up her mind she would advance beyond sub-sections next year, which is now this year, which was now tonight.....or something like that.  A year of physical and mental growth, a winter of lifting weights, and a spring of practices developing technique led to improved distance and consistency in throwing both the discus and shot put.  Tonight she put together enough solid throws in both events to place fourth in both and advance to next week's section finals.  I am so thrilled for her and proud of her, and happy to see her realize the rewards of perseverance and hard work.  A big "Hip hip hooray" for my Daughter One.

If you did as you were told and read my original track-loving post (would you just go read it already?) you may have noticed little mention of Daughter Two at last year's meet; she struggled, to say the least, her season ending in tears after some of the worst high jumps of her season.  She, too, has had a year to develop physically and spent many hours with her sister in the weight room.  However, muscles can only go as far as the brain will take them - the barriers facing Daughter Two are all mental.  She loses confidence easily and is quick to convince herself "I can't" or "I won't".  But she's starting to figure out how to believe in "I will".  This year's meet was held at a track she has, in the past, labeled as the place she does her worst jumping.  Tonight she cleared that mental hurdle and cleared the high jump bar as well, tying her PR and claiming fifth place in the meet after coming in ranked ninth in the sub-section.  How about a big "Hip hip hooray" for Daughter Two as well?

And I'd be remiss if I didn't ask for and belt out a couple more "Hip hip hoorays" for our girls and boys track teams, who each brought home a trophy for Sub-Section Team Champions.  Our track program is second to none - literally!

Track meets are awesome.....and I hate that word! (Look for that word, and more, in an upcoming feature called "All the Words I Hate").  By this time in the season teams and athletes are pretty familiar with each other, so it's common to see people from different teams cheering for each other and asking one another about results.....even saw several instances of coaches urging on runners from other teams who were competing against the coach's own athletes!  The hugs, the handshakes, the high fives, and the smiles are everywhere.  Winners are everywhere; finish second to last in a race but do it in your best time?  Winner!!

Track meets are also exhausting for spectators, and after five hours at today's meet, which turned into tonight's meet, this track fan, track parent, and writer has stumbled into rambling mode.  Time to wrap this entry up and get some shut-eye, but not before exclaiming once again:

I Love Track Season!!

Show up

The setting:  Mora High School

The event:  Fine Arts and Academic Awards Night

The attendees:  Students, staff, and families....and yours truly.

Many dozens of high school students were honored tonight for their achievements in band, choir, art, math league, knowledge bowl, drama, and probably a couple of other activities this past school year.  Many names were called, not quite as many bodies arrived on stage to receive their letters or trophies or pins for their level of success.  In fact, there were many, many names called tonight that were not in attendance.  So as I watched students take the stage and wondered about their school mates who were not around to join them, I noticed a similarity between all of the students who did indeed come to the awards night:  they showed up.

Now, before you spend too much time trying to find a way to politely tell me my observation took about as much thought as your average Hallmark TV special, hear me out.  I understand it seems quite obvious that the people on stage showed up tonight; my point refers to a quote I was disappointed to find out is attributed to Woody Allen:

80% of success is just showing up.

I really thought that quote belonged to someone cool like Albert Einstein or Luke Skywalker, not some washed up movie maker who never made a movie I'd ever actually watch.  Anyway, as I compared the kids who showed up tonight to the kids who did not, overwhelmingly the kids who made the effort to be at the awards event have enjoyed a higher level of success than those who were not in attendance.  There are exceptions to every rule, of course, but for the most part the truly elite scholars, musicians, actors, and athletes answered the call of their names tonight.  And while this was not at all an athletic event, I mention athletes because many of the recipients of the non-athletic awards also excel at athletics.  Because, as I've mentioned, they show up there, too.

So here's the example that started this blog.  The final name called on the night was for a senior male who is one of the finest athletes our school has ever had.  All-time leading scorer in basketball.  Will end his senior track season as the fastest, or one of the top five fastest, sprinters in the entire state in three different running events.  He was receiving a single award tonight for an academic letter, which he has probably received prior to this year and which will (sadly) receive far less fanfare than his athletic accomplishments.  His award category was the final one of the night, and as mentioned his name was the final name called.  And he was there.  Would have been very easy for him to blow off this awards program during a very busy time of year...but he was there.  Just like he's always showed up for practices, always showed up for weight training, always showed up for off-season workouts.  His habit of showing up has led him to an elite level of success, and it led him to our auditorium tonight.

Now, becoming elite by showing up requires more than just physically getting somewhere.  One must arrive with focus and give maximum effort and be coachable and teachable and settle for nothing less than peak performance.  But to do all those things one must first show up.  And if a soul can't muster the strength to get somewhere in the first place, there's a good chance the rest of the ingredients for elite performance won't be present even if the soul sometimes is.  Again there were exceptions I'm sure, but as I considered the list of kids who did not come tonight they, too, had a similarity - they were not the stand-outs, the top performers...the elites.  Maybe genetics, environment, and economics don't have as much power over performance as they are given credit for.....maybe it's the ability to show up that makes most of the difference between success and mediocrity.

Show up.  Success will be waiting for you.

Redemption

After the debacle that was last night's supper my daughters' faith in Dad's ability to prepare a meal was shaken.  I needed a strong effort for the Sunday evening supper, something that would make them forget the fish tacos and end our weekend on a high note.  I think we ended up stumbling into a keeper of a recipe.

For starters, we had a picture perfect gorgeous early summer day that morphed into an even more beautiful evening.  To this base ingredient we mixed in a team effort at preparing tonight's supper and tomorrow's breakfast; while a pizza crust dough rose in the bread machine two-thirds of my daughters and I prepped pizza toppings and an egg bake.  Next we added some efficiency by grilling the pizza (chicken bacon Alfredo) outside on the patio while cooking the egg bake in the oven that had been warmed to make the pizza dough rise.  Tossed in a splash of innovation when a daughter asked if we could eat outside, followed by another splash of pleasant surprise when one daughter cleaned the patio table while the other prepared the fixings for a fire in the fire pit.

With the base layer of the recipe finished we now began to add flavoring, starting with one of the best pizzas I've ever built...and I've built some dandies, I tell you!  With a crackling fire beside us my three daughters (Child One returned from her work shift) and I sat back and ate pizza, roasted marshmallows, passed around a tub of popcorn, crunched carrots, made s'mores, took pictures, made jokes....in short, we were present.  No place else we had to be, no jobs needed doing, no need to finish at all.  At the end of eating there was no move to clear the table, in fact for this hombre there was no move whatsoever!  The two youngest went to shoot some baskets while the two olders sat by the fire and enjoyed a serenade from Baltimore Orioles that were dancing around the branches of our oak tree.  The high blue sky that had been cloudless all day started settling towards it's evening grey, a crescent moon following the sun's journey west.  Not a wisp of breeze to disturb the rising smoke of the fire.....and only one mosquito!  The most delicious evening we've had in a long, long time.

We topped our evening delicacy with a team effort at cleaning up.  Nobody had to be asked, nobody argued about what needed done.  In nearly no time our meal was cleaned up and put away, and then it was off to bed for some, showers for others, the dishpan for Dad.  Which was where I began to write this, as I began to digest more than the food I'd consumed.

Sometimes what we eat isn't what makes the meal.  Sometimes the food isn't even the most flavorful part of a meal (I don't want to hear any fish taco jokes here).  Tonight I made one of the tastiest pizzas we've had....and it contributed very little to the burst of flavor we all got when the setting, companions, and activities created a slice of family time that we don't get to savor often enough.  A winning recipe indeed.

I'm not giving up on the fish tacos though.

Expect the worst

A few days ago I posted this entry about excellence and failure and restart buttons and probably some other wise, feel good stuff.  Tuesday I wrote it, today I had to live it.

It's daughter weekend at my house, which means I get to cook.  A lot.  Throughout the last few months I've been searching for, and trying, some new recipes, hoping to add a dish or two to my collection of tried and true meals.  This weekend's attempt:  fish tacos.  Twice I've had them at restaurants and loved them; seeing as how I can't help but catch fish in all seasons we eat fish quite often.  I thought fish tacos would be a win-win since they're A) delicious, and B) different than frying the fish like we do 99% of the time.

I've been talking up this tasty dish for weeks, especially this week as I gathered ingredients and figured out a weekend menu.  Totally went against one of my life mottos: Expect the worst, you'll rarely be disappointed.  Despite my best marketing attempts, my daughters were still skeptical, as if they had read this post about unusual foods.  Their skepticism was justified, however - the tacos fell short of my lofty predictions and expectations.  Expect the worst......always expect the worst.

They weren't that bad, but for the second time in the last month a recipe goes in the trash after its maiden creation.  And I hit the reset button on my search for the perfect fish taco recipe.  Tomorrow we go back to the can't-miss foods - waffles for breakfast, grilled burgers for lunch, grilled chicken/bacon/alfredo pizza for supper, along with a rhubarb/strawberry crisp for a dessert - to get my confidence back and regain my girls' trust in my cooking.

Tomorrow may also be the day I write something that isn't just a weak attempt at connecting a bunch of old posts to a new post.

Road Rage

I drove to Minneapolis and back today.  And lived to tell about it.  I absolutely, positively, without doubt, HATE driving in, around, near, or to the metropolitan area.  I would rather...

  ....trim my nose hairs with lit matches....

  ....listen to country music....

  ....eat slugs soaked in tabasco sauce....

  ....walk barefoot through the depths of Hell....

  ....go shoe shopping....

  ....wear sandpaper underwear....

....than drive in the Twin Cities.  Heck, I hate driving in city traffic so bad I'd even rather go to the dentist than head south to that cesspool of highway mayhem.

There are two speeds in city traffic:  way too fast and way too slow.  There are two kinds of drivers in city traffic:  me and idiots.  There are usually two lanes available:  the fast lane and the one I'm in.  There are almost always two choices of when to exit:  the correct choice and the choice I make.

I change lanes to the left only to discover my exit is on the right andthereitwas.  I successfully navigate into a lane with faster moving traffic only to have the entire line come to a screeching halt while the 52 cars that were behind me in my original lane go by.  The morning trip flows well enough to get me to my destination a full 45 minutes early.  The exact same route coming home takes nearly an hour longer than it did eight hours earlier.

I could continue.....haven't even touched on the awful drivers who clearly have mental deficits when it comes to understanding merges (I'm talkin' to you, black pickup guy towing a roofing trailer who was warned THREE TIMES that the right lane was ending!!) or the Murphy's law of driver in low car getting stuck behind driver in, well, I'm not sure what the 32-wheeled rig was built for, but the two-ton grappling hook that hung out its back and draped over the hood of my car looked deadly.  Yes, I could continue, but I can't.  The stress of today's journey has taken its toll; my nerves are shot, my eyes glazed, my knuckles a permanent shade of white.  I'm going to crawl into my bed, curl into the fetal position, and dream a little dream of terror on the highways.

Spring Stinks

I will follow up my rant from yesterday about lawn care with a very short burst of positivity towards my least favorite season of the year.  It's no secret, at least it won't be seven words from now, that I don't like spring very much.  I won't get into the reasons why.  In this entry I'd rather point out the one thing I actually do love about springtime - the smells.

In my lawn mowing tirade I neglected to mention how good a freshly mown lawn smells.  Especially when the lawn is bursting with young, new grass...springtime grass.  Better yet is that scent on a warm evening with little breeze, and some humidity to keep the smell hanging close in the heavy air.

Since Monday the flowering crabs and apple trees have begun to bloom, and the lilacs won't be far behind.  We are in the first few days of the best smelling two weeks of the year as these trees and bushes shower us with their perfume.  I might actually mow my lawn again before June just so I can drink in the scented cocktail of fresh grass and springtime blooms.

A less natural, but every bit as tantalizing, smell of spring is that of backyard grilling.  I'm not a grilling fanatic and don't cook outside very often, and really it's not the smell of my own grill that I love.  It's the smell of someone else's dinner that catches my olfactory attention the best.  Be it out for a walk or a bike ride or simply a perfect wind blowing by my house, the first few springtime chances I have to enjoy the scent of burning hunks of meat make all other thoughts drift away.  Getting a whiff of grilled burgers while sitting on a freshly mowed lawn under a blooming lilac would no doubt be the utopia of stink.

There is no more fragrant month in the year than May.  Sandwiched between the drab dullness of April and suddenly summery June, May rarely disappoints the senses.  The warmth, the colors, and those wonderful, wonderful smells.  Enjoy them while they last.

Lawn Boy

Any of you live near "that neighbor"?  You know, the one whose lawn doesn't quite cut the snuff...or the grass....in comparison to yours?  While you mow your lawn every four days on the dot, "that neighbor" gets "that lawn" looking good in time for the holidays - Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day.  You impeccably remove every last weed, including dropped seeds.  "That neighbor" takes pride in the 87 weed species calling "that lawn" home.  You diligently move the sprinklers to keep every square inch of grass emerald green all summer long.  "That neighbor's" sprinkler system only ever comes on when the line at the bathroom gets too long.  So do you?  Know of "that neighbor"?  You do?  Well then......Hi Neighbor!  For I am he.

Tonight I mowed my lawn for the first time this spring.  In the process I also mulched last fall's leaves that never got raked.  I take great pride in not giving even the slightest rip what my lawn looks like.  I have one hard and fast rule about when my grass gets cut:  if I don't feel like cutting it, it don't get cut.  I keep my gardens and flowers and landscaping looking respectable; my grass pretty much controls its own destiny.

I like mowing lawn.  Always have.  Before I became "that neighbor" I used to be one of "those neighbors", the kind I described above.  I cut the grass often, made criss-cross designs, fertilized (in a socially acceptable way), controlled weeds, reseeded bare spots.  I poured a ton of time into maintaining a lawn that measured up with the best on the block.  And then I woke up.

It wasn't just time being poured into the lawn, but chemicals.  I was polluting the air with exhaust and noise.  I was burning through gasoline like crazy.  And the investment of time started to add up.  And for what?  Grass??!?  You know, people, obsessing about keeping the grass cut short puts us on a pretty even plane with cows.  Only we use machines and avoid pooping all over.  Usually.

Aside from the colossal waste that is mowing the lawn, there's one other undeniable fact that makes lawn manicures utterly ridiculous.  I'm not sure this is original thinking on my part, bbuuuuttttt......the grass.  grows.  back.  Every time.  In fact, the more care you give it, the faster your grass will grow!  And you'll mow it more!  Ever stop to calculate how much cheaper our gasoline prices would be if you all mowed your lawns even half as much as you do now?  Well have you???  Or how much quieter your neighborhoods would be on what should be peaceful summertime evenings?  I'm talking to you, neighbor two houses down who is mowing right now!  Again!!!

I can only shake my head at "those neighbors" who are out mowing more than once a month, for I wonder two things:  1) Where do they find the time for such silliness?, and 2)  What void in their soul is that beautiful lawn compensating for?  And exactly what defines a beautiful lawn?  I happen to like tall grass.  The kind that's littered with wildflowers.  Grass that dances in the breeze with butterflies as partners in nature's waltz.  Grass that, if left undisturbed and uncut, begins to fill with trees and bushes.  Grass that reseeds itself and feeds birds naturally.  "Those neighbors" can have their golf course grass - I'll take my wild weed patch any day.

So, neighbor, feel free to drive by sometime and take a look at what a natural lawn looks like.  You probably won't see me, nor I you, because of, well, the grass.

Seek

It's hard to deal with results that fall short of expectations, isn't it?  That's the danger, of course, in setting expectations for ourselves or others - the risk that they might not be met.  Expect too little and success feels hollow; expect too much and falling short becomes routine and eventually feels like failure.  Thus, the fine line of setting the perfect expectation, and the finer line of how to feel about not quite reaching it.  Consider this:

"Seeking excellence".  Don't these words, this idea, at once set a rather lofty expectation while also providing the freedom to fall short without reproach or remorse?  Excellence can be a moving target; when nearly grasped it shifts a bit farther away, pulling the seeker farther than he/she was intending to go.  However, the seeker of excellence has the luxury of avoiding failure as long as the seeking doesn't stop.  And therein lies the beauty of seeking excellence: it cannot result in failure unless failure is the chosen result.

Seek excellence.  Failure cannot live where excellence is being sought.

Antimanic Monday

It's been the Monday-i-est of Mondays.

A fun and productive weekend filled with sunshine and constant activity slammed into an overcast start to a week that will be filled with monotonous tasks and too many scheduled events.  Add in the timing of this day - near enough the end of the school year to taste summer but not near enough to completely stop being professional - and the result was the slowest moving, most dull Monday in the history of documented lunaediesophobia cases.

Summer vacation is a wonderful, awful thing.  Tough to beat three months of no alarm clocks and setting my own schedule day after day after day.  But educationally those three summer months are destructive to students...and to everyone, really, on a gloomy Monday in mid-May.  End-of-year testing is wrapping up, field trips are starting, and days are now consistently warm......the lure of summer has already set in for students and for teachers.  Non-teachers comment on how much of a battle it must be to keep students focused on school in May; the true battle lies in keeping myself focused.  I did not battle valiantly today.

Even the weather couldn't figure out how to handle this day.  The forecast called for warm sunshine so I hung a load of laundry outside to dry.  It rained.  Several times.  Our primary classes did an evacuation drill first thing this morning under cloudy skies.  Later in the morning I helped supervise an early recess for several classes under steamy hot sunshine.  Less than an hour later all regular recesses were moved indoors due to rain.  Daughter Three and I went for a walk......in sprinkling rain....with sweatshirts on due to temps that had fallen ten degrees since noon.  C'mon Monday, make up your mind here!

Getting out of bed was a chore, getting ready for school was a chore, trying to pretend to want to be in school was a chore.....heck, even writing this entry has been a chore.  Time has moved at the pace of a slug.  Laughter has been brief and hollow.  Even the birthday cookie a student shared with me tasted bland....metaphorically speaking.  I think that was metaphorical.  I don't really care.  It was what it be.

The only thing that could make this unending Monday more Monday-i-er would be an evening event which required my attendance.  Well slap me silly and call me Bongo - there's a band concert tonight!  You are true evil, Monday....true evil indeed.

******************

Music to the rescue!

This day, this horribly bland unfocused lousy weathered slower than turtles marching through peanut butter day came to a rousing and uplifting end thanks to our high school band program.  Tonight was the Pop Concert, an annual event showcasing our grades 7-12 bands playing songs that are actually fun to listen to.  The theme of this year's concert was Mystery, with each band playing songs from movies or TV shows that had something to do with, you guessed it, solving mysteries.  The kids were dressed in costumes of their favorite heroes or detectives, the band directors were the Ghostbusters, and three senior band members wrote a mystery story that the concert was built around.

The programs may have said "Mystery", but the real theme of the night was "fun".  It's a treat to watch students have fun in a clean, safe, respectable, and enriching way.  A fun ending to a not-so-fun day.  A good reminder that, when given the structures to do so, kids do know how to have the right kind of fun.  Some of the jokes were lame, some of the songs got messy at times, but for ninety minutes an auditorium filled with all ages had a relaxing, enjoyable time.

And really, who cares about the quality of the jokes and music when bowls of free brownies and ice cream are doled out to the audience?  I've gave a big "encore" to that!!

In search of a morel

Yesterday I put meat in the freezer by catching a stringer of crappies on the opening day of fishing season.  Today was a different opening day, in that it was the first opportunity of the non-winter season to forage for food in the woods - today I hunted for morel mushrooms.

Like everything else this spring the morels are appearing late, about a week or two later than most years.  My parents walked a trail on Friday and found a few small ones - a limited number of warm days and, more importantly, too many cold nights seem to have held back growth for the 'shrooms that have already pushed through last fall's leaf litter.  We were hopeful that a warm Saturday, a less cold Saturday night, and a warmer Sunday morning would spur growth in an organism that sometimes seems to appear in an instant.

After finishing some tree planting I headed to my go-to spot for morels, The Slaughterhouse Shortcut trail:

If you've read my deer hunting entries you're already familiar with The Slaughterhouse, one of my favorite, and most productive, hunting spots.  A few years ago I discovered the trail to The Slaughterhouse is a very productive mushrooming location as well.

It didn't take long to start finding signs that morels should be growing.  Fiddlehead ferns were growing on and along the trail:

Wild ginger was wildly abundant:

Bloodroot flowers were in bloom....and prettier than this awful picture.  Not sure why I didn't give a better effort on this one:

And these mushrooms were here and there along the trail.  My dad has always called them "inky pots" but that's not their real name.  Anyone know what they're called?

It took me years to find my first morels....not literally years - that would be ridiculous - but many trips through the woods over many springs.  I used to never be terribly enthused about searching for them nor did I have any idea what they looked like prior to being picked.  I knew their shape and color and size, of course, from seeing them after being picked by my parents.  But seeing a mushroom in a pail is a whole different ballgame than seeing one on the forest floor.

Luckily, I've got two habits that have helped me become adept at finding these tasty spring treats.  One, I'm a noticer - I see what is there to be seen.  I take my time, both by moving slowly and by stopping often, and absorb what's in front of me as opposed to just taking a look.  And two, I'm really, really good at walking with my head down and eyes on the ground....which is vitally helpful for spotting mushrooms but an Achille's heel of mine when I'm deer hunting.

Eventually I was able to start finding some morels on my own, and over time those two habits have helped me hone my ability to spot even the smallest morels peeking out of the leaves.  Not really sure how to describe what to look for....and not really sure that I want to.  Morel secrets are about as sacred as blueberry patches and fishing holes.

I wasn't too far down the path when I noticed the first morel of the season, unfortunately a false morel.  Lighter in color, the false morels are not edible and will cause anything from sickness and dizziness to, in some cases, death.  The key in knowing the difference between a false and real morel is in the taste.  If you eat one and tastes like death, you probably shouldn't have eaten it.  Sorry, 'shroom humor is dark.  No, the real key lies on the bottom of the frilly head of the mushroom; on a false morel the frill (pretty sure that's not the scientific term for it) is not attached to the stem.  A real morel's frilly stuff is fully attached.

One of my tenets in morel hunting is if there's one, there are two.  And if there are two there are probably three.  And so on, meaning if one is found it's best to search the immediate area for more before moving to pick the spotted 'shroom.  False morels especially like to grow with friends nearby:

Poisonous false morels aren't the only danger to the mushroom hunter - one must always be on the lookout for snakes:

Snakes freak me out.  Trust me, there's a snake sitting just this side of the log's shadow.  It was tough to get a better picture because A) I sure as heck wasn't gonna move closer, B) it was hard to control the shivers and shakes, more commonly known as "the willies", I believe, and 3) it's tough to take good pictures in one direction when your body is running in the opposite direction.

I was going to crop the picture to zoom in on the snake, but while studying the picture I noticed something.  Near the bottom right corner, next to a four-leafed green plant, is what would have been the first real morel of the day!  In my terror at seeing the snake I never noticed it.

After recovering from the snake encounter of the worst kind I continued down the trail, and within a few feet of the last picture I spotted my first morel:

Heeding my own advice I stood in place, scanning the area for another.  Sure enough:

Not heeding my own advice I moved to pick the second mushroom I spotted before grabbing the first, and then noticed this one, which I had obviously stepped on:

I thought about cropping those photos to make the morels stand out a little more....but these images are much more realistic.  They don't exactly leap out from their surroundings, do they?

My Slaughterhouse spot turned out to be a dud today.  I found one more small morel and many, many more false morels.  Knowing my parents had not picked all the morels they spotted I wandered through that trail and did find another dozen or so that were big enough to pick and probably 15-20 more that were still tiny.  My dad had mentioned a clump of morels that were as tiny as any he'd ever seen, and I found that clump.  Didn't get a very good picture of it, though:

Oh, and one more discovery of the day was the amount of work I have ahead of me this summer.  The two trails I was on today were a fraction of the length of trails we have cleared on our property.  And if the other trails have as much blow-down litter as these two did......

As I came back to the four-wheeler at the end of the looped trail I'd been walking my stomach was telling me it was time to head in for a Mother's Day lunch.  I've been lucky with my timing the last few years, being able to visit my north woods while the morels were plentiful.  This year I was about three days too early.  Win some, lose some.

Last tidbit:  I use old orange (the fruit, not the color) bags for carrying morels.  I've been told this allows their spores to fall out and to the ground, effectively "planting" new 'shrooms.  I have no idea if this is true or not.....7th grade biology was so long ago.  Seems like sound advice, and I like reusing stuff, so why not?  The bags constantly get hooked on brush though, so spores or no spores I'm not sure if I'll continue to use them.

All done.  Never thought there could be so much to say about looking for a mushroom, did you?

First Day Fishing

It happened.  I fished from a boat on open water on the opening day of fishing season.  A gorgeous day.  No disasters.......well, nearly one disaster.  Caught some fish.  Not sure what else I could ask for from this day.  Quite a contrast to last November's opening day of deer season.

Timed my three hour drive just right and met my dad at Secret Lake #3 right at 10:00.  Every lake and river I drove by, and there were many, had boats full of fishermen enjoying a sunny, but chilly, opening morning.  By the time Dad and I began moving the canoe through the woods towards the lake the temp was nudging sixty degrees with a very light breeze and high blue skies.

There's a lake through them there woods.

The first victory of the day was getting the canoe through the woods and into the lake without any slips, trips, or falls.  Victory number two was getting the two of us into the canoe without any slips, trips, or falls.  We paddled across the lake to one of my favorite late March ice fishing spots.  I have now classified it as one of my least favorite spots for open water fishing in early May.  Along with most of the rest of the shoreline we paddled along for the first hour of our adventure - fishing was extremely slow, with the only bites I had coming from a birch tree, two different submerged pines, some variety of bog shrub, and a mystery object that was too deep to identify.  I got lots of practice on knot tying when replacing the jigs I kept having to break off to get loose from those hungry inanimate objects.  So for a while it looked as if this opening day excursion was going to be as productive as the the few other opening days I could remember.  But at least the scenery was delightful.

We fished in shallow water to start our day, thinking a dark-water lake that had an earlier ice-out might have warmer water making the fish head to the shallows to begin preparations for spawning.  We thought wrong.  After breaking my line for the however-many-times-it-was I decided to tie on a bit larger jig and cast towards deeper water.  A few casts later I had a bite, and a couple of casts after that I had a crappie.  Then another, and another.  My dad switched to a deeper water set up and soon was catching crappies, too.  It wasn't fish after fish and they weren't very big, but we were catching something often enough to make the day more interesting.

We weren't catching what we really hoped to catch, the big bluegills we so often find under the late ice on this lake.  I did catch a couple of small 'gills, but other than those it was just a crappie catching day.  Nearly every other fish went on the stringer, none of them "big" but sizable enough to give up a couple of friable fillets.  We were having our best luck in an area south of a beaver lodge that was nestled alongside the line where lake met bog; we would drift through, catch a few fish, then paddle back to do it again.  Our lone near-disaster of the day occurred on one of those paddle-backs - as I was paddling on the left side of the canoe our stringer tied on the right side of the canoe came loose, letting our ten fish drift free in the lake.  Luckily for us we were able to reverse course and get back to before the fish could organize their movements and dive to the bottom.  No comment on whose job it was to tie the stringer securely in the first place.

At about 2:00 we decided it was time to leave; four hours in a canoe is plenty regardless of how nice the day is or how good the fishing is.  Once again, in reverse, we were able to exit the canoe, unload our stuff, and get everything and everyone up the hill and back to the truck without incident.  The quality of the fishing wasn't terrific but it easily could have been worse.  The quality of the day could not have been better.  I know there's an opening day somewhere in my future when I'll slide a canoe into Secret Lake #3 with one of my kids, or maybe a grandkid, to catch some small crappies while hoping for a big bluegill.  With a little luck that coming day will be as enjoyable as this one was.