May 11 - what did I do ?

It's one of those mornings. I open up the blog and look back on the day before and see nothing. My mind is blank. My coffee hasn't kicked in yet. What did I do yesterday anyway ?

Let's see ...

Well, starting late in the day, I went into town to pickup the mail. I did that just after Sandy arrived home from her day in Sudbury for a physio appointment and food shopping. That didn't take long, there were no detours.

Before that I finished cleaning up my bike from the ride on Saturday. I'd pulled the cranks the day before to clean out all the fine dirt and let the bottom bracket dry out. At some point I should also pull the fork and check the headset bearings since I have not done that for two years, but that's not an area that's prone to catastrophic failure that would ruin a ride, however long.

Ah yes, it's coming back to me now ...

I brought down several wheelbarrows full of wood to fill up the inside woodbox and also leave some in the woodbox by the back door. That's just one of the standard chores around here when it's cold. I need a conveyor belt to make this easier :).

I fiddled and diddled with my minnow keeper blue barrel, getting the pump working the way that I want it and putting a timer on the pump. It's now setup to pump water for 30 minutes out of every 90, which should provide enough water change to satisfy any number of minnows, plus the aerator is going.

Abby and I went over to caribou creak and I went up the creek a ways to see the suckers making their way up to spawn. I left a minnow trap at the mouth of the creek and will go over this morning to see if I've caught anything. I also left a minnow trap in the little bay across from where I catch crappie. There are usually many minnows in that area but it could be early season for that. I was intending to do some fishing too -- for crappie since that's all that is in season -- but was chilled from driving on the water and hungry for lunch.

There are a few black flies around but it hasn't been warm enough consistently for them to come out in clouds yet. By the look of the weather this week that will be the case all week. I'm hoping that the very cold winter means that we'll have a stunted or abbreviated black fly season ... I can only hope.

So that was pretty well it, as far as I can remember. Oh -- it's time to feed Abby ... I'll be back ...

Ok, Abby is now fed and I have my bowl of cereal in front of me. It's cold outside -- the internet says 4C but it's closer to 0C. The sun is up and a mist is drifting across the water because at this point the water is warmer than the air. My depth finder was reading a water temperature of 54F yesterday, which is about 12C. That's why it was cold boating !

It is supposed to get up to 17C today so I'll get out for a bike ride. Bev and Bruce and Paco are supposed to arrive at some point and they're staying until Thursday a.m. when they head back south to Sebastian FL.

That's about it -- before I go out for a bike ride I'll boat out to those minnow traps and see what I've caught, if anything. I'm sure that Sandy will be cleaning and cooking all day. I asked her if she wanted a newspaper from the General Store when I went in for the mail yesterday but she said that she wouldn't have time to read it.

Onward ...