The Dog That Bit Me - July 3, 2008


Sweet Justice - July 3, 2008


Cleaning Fish Can Be a Messy Business - Cleaning Fish at Sis' House: Summer 2007

Word of the Day

Infinition - An infinite process of defining something that cannot be fully or precisely defined; an endless list of possible definitions.

Woodtick Count - 35 (After I picked the gooseberries this afternoon.)


Happy


4th of July


Everyone!


We didn't eat supper last night until a fashionably late hour. 9 PM? Wow! Actually, it makes sense when you consider that we all went out in the boat...fishing. MC Daughter caught an ENORMOUS Dogfish. HUGE! Over two feet long. Heavy! Actually, dogfish are kind of fun to catch. The really fight! She had a hard time reeling him in close to the boat so I could net him. And then.... OK. I know better than to stick my fingers into a fish's mouth. I really do. I've been fishing since I was two years old. Only, I stuck my thumb into this dogfish's mouth and CHOMP! Wow! Who knew that dogfish can bite so hard? Pike bite! Even bluegill bite...a little. Bass bite, but not too bad. I wouldn't put my finger into a walleye's mouth. I guess the issue of putting my finger into a dogfish's mouth never came up before. It took constant pressure and a goodly amount of time to stop the bleeding. We remained out in the boat, despite my injury but eventually stopped at the dock so I could run up and bandage my poor thumb. What about the dogfish? I called my Mom and asked her if she wanted it. She did. The dogfish was the first fish I cleaned last night. I felt a certain amount of justice was done when I decapitated the dang thing. Mom plans to make Pickled Dogfish.

Aside from the dogfish, we caught a goodly amount of bluegill...and I caught two nice bass. A largemouth bass and a smallmouth bass. Poor D Buddy ended up having to dig a hole in our rocky soil so I could bury the remains. Normally, I freeze the remains and dispose of them on garbage night but I just don't have much freezer space right now. The remains of the dogfish and the bass had to be buried. I used the remains of the bluegill to re-bait my crayfish traps.

I boiled up a mess of crayfish yesterday that I'd caught in my crayfish traps which I'd baited a few days ago. I suspect I'll find even more of the little mudbugs in my traps when I go down to the dock after breakfast. Over the years, I've found that my shoreline here at The Lake has an abundant supply of crayfish. This is probably why we have so many bass on this shore. LOTS of bass. I figure that if I can keep down the population a bit, maybe we'd get a few more panfish moving in. I normally use the cooked crayfish that I've cleaned as an appetizer. Taste just like shrimp. Cocktail shrimp. They may be small but they're tasty.

Anyway, it took a while to get all the fish cleaned, my finger re-bandaged (cleaning fish and bandages don't mix) and then I had to get the kitchen cleaned up before we could sit down for supper. MC Daughter refused to even enter the kitchen before I removed every bit of evidence from the my fish cleaning...hence the 9 PM supper time. HTP turned on some soothing background music and we all sat down to some wonderful BBQ pork sandwiches with a Tator Tot side. I know that I should have made coleslaw but....I forgot. I'll make it for tonight's supper. Hamburgers on the grill.

Murphyism of the Day

Abourezk's Laws of Politics

1. Don't worry about your enemies. It's your allies who will do you in.

2. The bigger the appropriations bill, the shorter the debate.

3. If you want to curry favor with a politician, give him credit for something that someone else did.

Noteworthy Quote of the Day

If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.

- Carl Schurz (1829 - 1906)