Word of the Day

FIDDLER CRABS - Grumpy string players

Laundry. Fresh water lobster. Gardening. Shampoo hair. Fish Fry.

No time to go out and pick more gooseberries today. Laundry, don'tcha know. Then I had to go check my crayfish traps (fresh water lobster) and rebait them. While I got the water boiling, I cleaned the crayfish that I'd already boiled up a couple of days ago. After the "fresh" crayfish had been boiled up, I cleaned them too. I now have a cup of fresh water lobster meat. I grant that this isn't that much but I didn't have to dig any holes to bury my fish guts. The crayfish picked the remains clean. Recycling. I gave them a free meal and they in turn give me a nice future appetizer. I'm saving the remains of the bass that I caught last night as fertilizer for the rhubarb plants that I'm going to plant next week. I decided that I didn't have nearly enough rhubarb if I want to make rhubarb wine AND rhubarb jam AND rhubarb pie. So...I actually purchased rhubarb plants that will be coming via USPS next week sometime. I froze the fertilizer. The rhubarb plants that I have growing in my yard right now are heirloom rhubarb plants. My Mom gave them to me. I'm not sure but I think they came from some that my Grandmother had...and I have no idea where my Grandmother got them. Her Mom? I'm afraid I might be the first to break from tradition and actually purchase rhubarb plants. Oh well...today's new purchase is tomorrow's heirloom. There's always a slim possibility that my children could develop the urge to grow rhubarb and then I can give them a root to get started.

My hair is now washed. I expect that now every deerfly in the vicinity will decide to circle my head. The thing is that bugs, flies, mosquitoes, and every biting insect that I know of, they love perfumes. And most soaps and shampoos and deodorants use perfumes. They smell nice. They also attract bugs. What I really need is a shampoo and conditioner that doesn't have any smell....or a lemon-scented shampoo. I noticed that mosquitoes aren't fond of the smell of citrus. When I was at DD Daughter's graduation from Parris Island, I was the only person in our group that wasn't attacked by the sandfleas. I was wearing a lotion that had lemon oil in it which I also wear here at The Lake. I wonder if the mosquitoes pucker up when they bite? It's not fool proof but it works if you aren't the only one out there for the bugs to feed on. HTP and #1 son and GI Joe made wonderful distractions (attractions) and kept me bug free. I offered the lotion to them but they were too manly to take me up on the offer. Manly men don't wear lemony smelling lotions. Now...having said all that...I will not go out berry picking without the armor of a mosquito repellent with Deet. My lemon trick works where there are mosquitoes but it doesn't work where there are MOSQUITOES. This is Wisconsin. I have no desire to end up in some hospital emergency room with West Nile Virus or every hopeful that a Deet repellent works to repel woodticks, I don't end up at the same place with Lyme's Disease. Unfortunately, deerfly don't give a crap. Nasty things.

I caught a nice bass off the dock last night. I'm not sure how it will taste. Here's hoping that it's still early enough in the Spring for bass to taste good. Come summer, it's catch and release only here. No mandate on that. It's just that bass taste awful during the hazy days of summer. There's no getting around it. And I'm not into trophy stuffed fish on my mantle. If I can't eat the fish, they go back into the lake. Anyway, added to the rest of the fish that I caught, I'm planning on having a fish fry tonight for supper. Beer-battered fish. I'm hoping the side salad will make up for the grease my body will be ingesting. The thing is...they taste so good that way. I can't bring myself to eat them any other way. OK...I do like my Great-Grandmother's recipe for fish soup but nothing compares to real beer-batter fish. Fresh beer-battered fish.

Murphyism of the Day

Cannon's Canon

Experience is what causes you to make new mistakes instead of old ones.