Mike #2 pulling out a northern on Monday afternoon

January 20, 2015 - Tuesday
17 degrees/cloudy/calm
Pentoga Road

I awakened a couple of hours ago with a headache that made me think my heart had moved to my eyes. No matter how I lay, the throbbing continued, so I finally got up. 

I slept sound through the night, foregoing my usual 2 AM trek downstairs to fill the wood stove. Maybe I slept too hard. At least the migraine pill I took is beginning to work it's magic and I think I'll live to see the sun rise. 

After cleaning the coals from the wood stove, I put the metal pail, half-filled, outside on a snowbank.

I went to retrieve the pail Monday morning and it had disappeared. Assuming the Gremlins carted it away during the night, I finally gave up. 
Brutus actually found it. The pail had melted the snow and sunk four feet straight down to bare ground.

The past two days have been fairly busy. Yooper Brother Mark and Sheri came over Sunday to watch the Packer's playoff game. I'm not even going to comment other than to say the 2015 preseason will start in roughly six months. Live by the Packers/die by the Packers and the conclusion to Sunday's game was a slow death.

Earlier in the day found me in the barn working on the eight northern pike to process. 

I'm grateful I was wearing these leather gloves as I inadvertantly sliced the tip off the end of the little finger. Better the glove than my pinkie.

I discovered those that were frozen solid were the easiest to clean. 



They could be cut lengthwise, down the middle, and have their insides removed in one big frozen piece. No smell, no mess, no slime. After, I could bring them in the house to peel off the skin after running a bit of water to loosen it from the frozen body.

Monday was processing day with two-and-a-half quarts canned. 



For all the work involved, it doesn't sound like much until one considers how many cans of tuna would be the equivalent. Another three quarts or so should see Sargie and I through the year. We enjoy our canned fish which we make into "tuna" salad.

Pressure cooking not only seals the jars, it's dissolves all the bones.

At the halfway mark in the heating season, it appears we're not going to have to resort to living in cardboard boxes over the steam grates in inner-city Alpha this winter. Actually, with the temporary warming trend, I'm beginning to burn some "junk wood," that which is too good to leave in the woods, but doesn't really generate that many btu's. Mostly, it's white birch or dead maple that had become somewhat pithy. I've got a stack of the stuff that I generally use when boiling maple syrup, but it's in my way, so I'll use it now. Unless a glacier comes barreling down on top of us, we should be in good shape for the rest of the winter.

I went ice fishing with Neighbor Mike, and his friend, Mike, yesterday afternoon. The Mikes and I put out a few tip ups and then sat together in a row, jigging and talking like three junior-high boys. The guys each caught a nice pike. I missed one and managed to snag a decent bass. It was a good time.

Sargie was home early last night and we had a pleasant, quiet, evening. 

Sargie's off today and I have no idea what we'll end up doing. She told me if I wanted to go ice fishing this morning, to go ahead, so I take that as a strong indication she wants to sleep late. According to the UPS tracking, my new sonar is supposed to arrive today sometime between 9 AM and 1 PM. I'll probably spend the afternoon rigging it for ice fishing.

I found an old unit like the one that quit working on Ebay yesterday for $20. It's just the head without the transducer, exactly what I need. If I am the winning bidder, I'll use that one for ice fishing in the future and keep the new one to use in the boat for open water fishing. 

So, with all the high-tech talk, I think I'll get this uploaded, grab another cup of coffee, grade a paper or two, write this week's quiz for class, and possibly, solve world peace. It's what I do.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...