October 22, 2012

Hello All,

Thought I would give an update about our goings on.  Last week we canned salmon and smoked 1 batch in our new smoker.  The last rain showed the smoke shack roof continues to leak, so I did some more caulking   and hopes that fixes the problem.  I still want to put a door on the shack, but otherwise an happy with it.

We spent much of Friday cleaning and winterizing the trailer, I still need to put anti-freeze in the lines and we would like to wash the outside, at least the bugs off the front and then it should be ready for storage.

Yesterday the weather presented us with a great day for an ATV ride with our old time friend David Boehmke.  We used Davids trailer to take 3 machines up to Clark County.  Our original plans were to ride the Millston trails, but they closed the 15th so we continued northeast to Clark County.  The trails were in good shape and we had a great 35.4 miles ride.  We started our ride around 11:30 a.m. and ended about 3:30 pm, stopping for lunch along the trail.  we saw some fresh beaver activity where they dragged branches across the trail to a feed bed and 4 grouse.  The fall colors were still enjoyable and the temperatures were nice for riding.  On our way home David treated us to supper in Wisconsin Rapids and ice cream in Westfield.  We dropped David off at home about 8:00 pm, so it was a long, but enjoyable day.

This week we plan to finish winterizing and store the trailer, can and smoke some more salmon, run some errands, go to appointments in Madison and maybe fit in some hunting and wood cutting.

Sorry, no pictures this time, but now you know what we have been up to.

October 12, 2012 - What Have We Been Doing?

Since we got back to Wisconsin we have kept busy visiting family & friends, hunting, doing some farm work,  remodeling a smoke shack and moving.  Our push to make it from Sterling to Pardeeville in eight days was about as short of time we could do especially with 2 dogs and pulling the trailer.  It was an uneventful trip and the fall colors were at their peak.  The truck now has over 14,000 miles on it and is running good, but needs a good cleaning.

It has been good to spend time with family and friends and getting caught up on what we missed since we left in May.  We still have many friends and co-workers that we want to meet with as time allows.  Ken has made it out duck hunting a few times and had some success.  He has not made it out deer or turkey hunting yet, but maybe in the future.  Ken also did some brush hogging around two ponds and some trails on The Farm and tore down the old horse shed and remodeled part of it for a smoke shack.  He hopes to try smoking some salmon next week.

Our biggest project was packing up the trailer, storing some stuff at The Farm and moving the rest to our rental on Big Green Lake, it is the same place we stayed at last year.  The house and view hasn't changed much and it nice to be settled in.  Rebecca & Dad helped us load the Trailblazer and truck Sunday night and we took our first 2 loads to the Lake on Monday.  After unloading we headed back to The Farm for the last 2 loads.  We spent Tuesday getting things put away and set up and put the finishing touches on things Wednesday.

As mentioned before we will ad posts to the blog, but probably not as frequently as we did when in Alaska.

Thanks for looking

The view from our deck looking north/east on Big Green Lake