Sargie's getting ready for a meal of fresh crappie and bluegill fillets with sweet potato fries.

January 25, 2015 - Sunday

10 degrees/cloudy/calm

Pentoga Road

The past three days have been mostly about going fishing. As Dad used to say, you have to make hay while the sun shines. The moderate temperatures have seemed almost springlike and sitting out on the lake has been a pure pleasure. I consider anything I pull through a hole in the ice a bonus.

As the wind was howling Friday morning, I decided to make use of the time by cleaning and sorting one section of the basement. I pitched, packed, moved, stacked stuff, and even carried a few boxes to the storage unit. 

Finally, the basement is becoming more than a storage space. It's been full of possessions I'd acquired in my former life. Added to that was what I brought in from Alaska, plus anything attained since purchasing the house on Pentoga Road. Now, double that with everything Sargie brought in and we've had a basement where there was just enough room to walk down an aisle of stacked boxes. The addition of the new storage unit last summer has really helped and made our basement situation quite manageable.  

With the winds dying down Friday afternoon, I headed out to the lake where I caught several nice crappies and bluegill. Fishing wasn't great, but it's been a lot worse.

Saturday dawned cloudy and warm. Sargie had the day off and wanted to sleep in. I decided to get up early to head back to the lake and found myself downstairs sipping coffee well before daylight. As soon as it was light enough to drive, I putted down the road and was fishing shortly after first light.

Crappies, bluegills, and several bass were pulled through the hole over the next couple of hours and I lost several larger fish, probably northern pike. The small panfish jig I use makes it difficult for a hook to stay lodged in anything very big. 

There's a sink full of fish... all in preparation to be cleaned.

I'd caught enough. It was only 9:30 AM when I began the journey back across the lake. 

Sargie was up and rarin' to do something by the time I arrived home. While she did her morning thing, I cleaned fish. 



Between Friday and Saturday's catches, we had two large mixing bowls of fillets. We put some back for Saturday night's supper and placed the rest into gallon freezer bags filled with water to save for our Mighty Milligan Family fish fry this coming spring.  



It was a fairly nice day, Sargie was off, and I was suffering from a severe case of wintertime Pentoga Roaditis. I wanted to go somewhere... anywhere. A meeting was conducted of family corporate holders and it was unanimous that we take a road trip to Rhinelander, Wisconsin. What for? Who cared! No excuse needed.

Trails often parallel the highways in northern Wisconsin. We must have seen snowmobiles numbering into the hundreds if not more.

Snowmobile riders stopping at a restaurant along the trail.

While in Rhinelander, I purchased a pair of sunglasses that fit over my prescription glasses; you know, the type that old people wear who are sensitive to the sun. My old ones have become scratched and the lenses are somewhat hazy.

I try to convince myself that these new glasses look like normal wrap around, cool-guy, shades, but I think they are what they are. Trouble is, if I don't wear them, my eyes feel as though they are going to burn out of my head. After too many years of looking into bright sunshine bouncing off the snow, much of that in the arctic, coupled with whatever other problems there are with my eyes, sunglasses have become mandatory, even on cloudy days.

We arrived home towards late afternoon and I fired up the propane cooker in the garage. Sargie mixed the secret ingredients to ensure the fish had just the right amount of flavor, crust, and texture, and I began frying. 



The fish were fresh and delicious. They'd been swimming beneath the ice a mere eight hours earlier and we purposely fried too many so there would be leftovers. Warmed-up fillets don't last too long in this house. It's one of our favorite food groups.

Crappie, bluegill, and sweet 'tater fries

Saturday night was spent grading assignments while Sargie read the weekend paper. Both of us had an ear listening the television. There's not much worth watching or listening to on a Saturday night.

I'm not sure what today will bring. No doubt, we'll take our usual ride into town, but otherwise, it should be a fairly mellow day.

It's time to pour a cup of coffee and think some deep thoughts. 

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

No wonder we were all freezing last winter, spring, summer, and fall. It was the coldest year on record; also the third snowiest.