1st harvest of the year

this year has been a struggle with the garden. the first time i planted most of my seeds they either didn't work or after they sprouted a creature pulled them up. i have planted peas three times, corn/radishes/carrots twice. the flowers that i tried to plant didn't come up at all. if they did come up then they looked just like the million elm tree sprouts and i might have pulled them thinking it was a weed. the plants that i bought are doing well. most of the leeks had been cut down by a bird, but they have all grown back. i am trying peanuts this year as well, i hope it works.

with all the rain and cool weather the lettuce has gone crazy. i put in a generic head lettuce and romaine this year. it will be interesting to see how this all plays out since i have a total of 15 lettuce plants. anybody want some? after doing some weeding yesterday i noticed that the radishes needed to have some dirt pushed up so that the roots aren't exposed. as i was doing this i saw that i had a really good sized radish ready to pick!! i have tried radishes before, but never really gotten anything to write home about. in the past they have been small and rather woody tasting. maybe the cool weather helped, or maybe it was the fact that it has rained for 15 days this month. whatever the reason i am hoping that the rest of the veggies look as nice as my first radish of the year.

ice waiting

two weekends ago i had the opportunity to go ice fishing with "the guys". there was originally going to be six of us going, but it got trimmed down to three. we had a great time. there were no clocks, no alarms to wake us, and best of all no kids to demand attention. (i must thank gianna, my wife, for this mini vay-cay.) the fishing was awful, and the hike across the lake was grueling, but it didn't really matter too much. the weather was perfect and it was really nice to get out. we really lucked out with being able to drive down to the lake. gianna's uncle had used his bobcat to plow the drive down to the lake. if he had not done that, who knows if we would have gone fishing for very long. a 1/2 mile hike in two feet of snow was out of the question. but the icing on the cake was being able to land a very nice northern. granted it really was the only fish of size that we caught, but who cares.

up, up, and away

even super heroes have their beginnings.

bruise free area

okay peoples! sing with me. . .

"one of these things is not like the other, one of these things doesn't belong. can you tell which thing is not like the other, before i finish my song."

mmm, puffball anyone?

every year a crop of giant puffballs crop up in our back yard. some years are better growing years than others. cool temps, lots of rain at the right time and voila! you get puffballs!! when we first bought out home we had a few very large puffballs grow. they were bigger than gianna's head. literally not figuratively. this year in order to get a good perspective i had the girls pose next to some of the puffballs. as and added bonus - they are edible. simply slice them like bread and saute in butter. make sure that they are completely white with no brown beginning to show. i personally do not like them, but it is considered a delicacy.

mommy! i caught three crappies!!

yesterday i took maya fishing. with a little help from phil, and a disney princess fishing pole, we had a great time and it was a perfect night to be out on the lake.

here kitty, kitty, kitty

fish: flat head catfish

caught: June 20, 2009

weight: approx. 25 lb

location: mississippi river in st. paul, mn