Jul 2 - a tale of two crappy (ie)

I finally got around to a crappy job that I'd been postponing forever. When we were building the house, Steve Roberts, who installed most of the doors, had not put the little screw-in knobs in place on the top and bottom and bottom of the hinges. Once the main level was complete, we realized that said knobs are very, very hard to install once the door is hung and the door trim in place, because they come up against the trim. He put the little knobs on before installing the hinges upstairs.

Well, eventually the pins work their way out, either moving up or down in the hinge and then drop on the floor. That's not a problem -- but that hinge is then not really functional. If a couple went unnoticed a door could fall down. That obviously hasn't happened in three years, but I've replaced the pins a few times in the three doors in question -- my den, the master bedroom and master bath toilet. The rest of the doors on the main floor are bi-fold, not an issue.

Anyway, I finally spent the time and installed these knobs. That sounds easy, but it took a couple of hours of fiddly work. Three doors, three hinges per door, two knobs per hinge -- only eighteen of these little suckers but each one took a while. I finally wrapped the tips of some needle-nosed pliers with tape and was able to get at some of these with the pliers to turn them.

I went over to my minnow trap in the morning and found that I only had a couple of minnows, 3 catfish and a tadpole. Jack ... don't know his last name ... Gavin's friend from Sherar's ... said that they were catching many more at a culvert a little ways down the road. I'll try that this morning after going over to check my current setup.

Sandy went into town and I decided to go for a bike ride in spite of the many black clouds on the doppler (actually they are green on the doppler, indicating that they're raining). I was lucky, only catching a few rain drops at one point.

Since Jason was leaving, we ate early so that I could go fishing. I went over to say farewell and found that they'd changed their minds ... but I went fishing anyway. I went down by Smiths Bay landing, finding Bob Simms there trolling back and forth. The 40hp Merc on the Whaler doesn't troll very well so I just found a spot and dropped the anchor. It's a huge area, all 5-7 feet deep and weeded, so I didn't have high hopes that any one spot would be a good one.

After a while I had one strike, then two, then three -- two crappie on the stringer. During the long ensuing pause, Bob came by and asked how I was doing, told him that I had two and he gave me his four saying that he would not have to clean fish that night. Prior nights he'd gotten upwards of twenty, so this was a slow night. Bob headed off, but I still had more action, catching two more crappie, a catfish and a small pike. The pike was about eight inches long -- call it a large minnow ? I think that I'd been pestered by a few of these during the time I was there because I would get these strikes that pulled the tip of the rod into the water, taking the minnow. I don't think that those were crappy ... could have been those small pike. With only 4 feet of line out, there isn't any line length to absorb a strike -- wham, bamm and it's gone.

Back home at dark, Sandy said that Jason and Lorraine had come over to the gazebo and they'd all had a glass of wine and that Lorraine had desert planned. I did my fish cleaning first, yielding 1 lb, 4 oz of filets -- good for a meal plus -- and then went over with a glass of wine for desert.

Today ... now ... I'm about to head over to the minnow trap. I need to catch some today because I'm just about out of minnows. The action last night took a lot of minnows, since I lost 6-8 on those strikes where I never saw the fish and 2-3 crappie catches that dropped off before I could get the fish into the boat.

Oh -- I also, with Sandy's help, hung a small glass shelf unit in the basement bathroom. With the small sink and no vanity per se, there was no place for people to put toiletries. We're now open for business !

Oh -- another thing -- I am trying once again to rid the place of bats. I hung a couple of small pieces of screen on the entrance holes over the front door to see if I can get it setup for them to be able to leave (without coming into the house) and not come back. I'll check those holes by putting some cotton batten in place later to day to see if there is any in-out activity after this point. If none after a couple of days, I'll plug those holes and move to another spot, gradually working my around to all of the potential roosting spots.

The forecast is showers again ... I'd better get moving.