Jul 5 - thank goodness no twitter

I'd drive myself crazy. By the time I do my blog I've usually forgotten a few of the things that I did in a day -- good thing, or I'd spend all of my time recording and less time doing.

On the 4th, for instance:

1) I also took the spare electric heaters up to the garage and bungeed them to the rafters.
2) I got out the snake and cleaned out the Master Bath shower drain, which was starting to pool. I was fully expecting it to be plugged with hair, but the drain was actually narrowing (perhaps some hair down there too). It was narrowing due to calcified soap, I'm guessing, right at the top of the drain which chipped out easily with the tip of the snake, but is something that I've never seen before. Although our water is quite soft, we don't have a softener up here any more and it could be that the pure glycerin soap (Clearly Natural is the brand; I order from the iternet) has an affinity for any minerals in the water ? I don't know. It could simply be dried hardened soap too.
3) I put some pieces of cotton batten at the small entrance holes to where the bats have been going in/out over the front door to see if my screen worked ... I'll have to check those shortly

While there is probably more from the 4th, I'm not remembering it ... luckily there's no Twitter !

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A memorable bike ride got off to a slow start ... I had to wait in the car at the ESS Narrows for the bear to clear out. It was likely the same 1-year old that was blocking the road the other day. He meandered off, eventually, into the woods towards the dump. I saw cars stop on the road, so I think that he was taking the paved way to the dump, rather than having to put up with walking through the bush.

The ride was memorable for another reason -- my right calf still stings from the wasp that got me along 522 on the way back. At least I think that it was a wasp -- it some sort of bee anyway and it stings. It was busy on 522 -- I had 5 or 6 drafting behind me all the time -- horseflies that is. The weather was great, albeit a bit of a struggle against the west-southwest wind, until the trip back and then the wind was wonderful.

The wind of course made me think about the LOL 1000. I'm treating this ride too lightly -- after all, the only difference between it and the Shenandoah in terms of length is that there is no last, short day. In fact, this could be a more difficult ride. I need to mentally prepare myself for a tough ride otherwise I could crash out.

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We had catfish for dinner, along with a couple of crappie to make up enough fish. They were good, slightly different texture than the crappie but a very mild fish that takes on the flavour of whatever it's cooked with.

Then I went fishing again, and it was almost as memorable as the bike ride. Two large catfish, four crappie and a 17.5" pickerel (measured it once we were back). I need more practice filleting pickerel since I sort of butchered it. I need to see Bob clean catfish again, because I wasn't able to do his skinning thing.

It's worth noting that this is probably the first pickerel that I've caught in almost 40 years. I haven't fished this lake for pickerel since Jason and I used to fish as teenagers.

Out of curiosity I timed my trip back from Smiths Bay Landing -- 10 minutes. That got me home at 9:20. By 9:30 I was working at the fish. I wasn't finished until 10:30. I have crappie down pat -- pike too -- but not pickerel or catfish. The large catfish -- and he was about 14" long -- stunk. It's not a fishy smell, rather a blood smell ... hard to describe.

Naturally at that point I took the garbage up to the garage and put away the bird feeders. The bird feeders go back out after 6am and at that point the birds are waiting for me, sitting on the stand. Within a minute of me re-hanging the feeders, they're packed with birds. If there was a tree overhead in that area I'd hang the feeder from the tree higher than a bear can reach ... but there's no tree.

Today, right now, we're having "light showers" according to the internet and that aptly describes it. Depending on the weather I'll go fishing again tonight and tomorrow night but no biking until Thursday morning. I should probably get on the trainer for a bit tomorrow.

That's it.