Monthly Archives: May 2010

Carpe the carp

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My fishing expedition with the nephew on Saturday was anything but calm, as you may have read in my last blog. But there’s another story from the day worth telling. (Well, there are several more actually, but I want to have some time to spend with the kids!)

For whatever reason, my nephew Blake has set a goal to catch a carp during his three-day weekend at the farm. Yes, I explained that a carp is a roughfish, and yes, I explained what roughfish are, but he still wanted to catch one.

Well, I’ve caught a carp or two in my life and, though the fight was fun, I didn’t appreciate having to take them off my hook. Nope, this was one fishing expedition where my rods and reels stayed in the car. It was Grandpa’s turn to take the boy fishing!

They didn’t need to go far. In fact, they loaded up the old Dodge Saturday night and drove out to the back pasture, where the Ocheyedan Creek winds along our property line on its way from Lake Ocheda to Lake Bella. It’s a carp haven.

Curiosity eventually got the best of me, so I grabbed my camera and headed out back on the four-wheeler to watch. As they reeled in a few bullheads, I sat on the four-wheeler, daydreaming about being on a real lake, where the water is crystal clear and the fish can be seen swimming around my fish hook.

A holler from Dad shook me from my trance.

"Julie, I got one (meaning a carp)! Get the camera." (photo above)

"It’s in my hand."

"Come over here and help!"

"What am I supposed to do? Blake, get the net and help your Grandpa!" (photo below)

(I wasn’t about to crawl through two layers of barbed wire to get to where they were standing!)

The next minute or so was pure chaos, and I was glad I wasn’t embroiled in it! A wide-eyed Blake had grabbed the net, his excited little brother was told to stand back behind Grandpa (easier said than done!) and Grandpa (my dad) held the line as the carp fought fiercely in the water. I had the best job of the night – standing back and taking the pictures!

What you won’t see is a picture of the carp, however. After two or three attempts by Blake to get it in the net, the megafish yanked his way free from what is now an unrecognizable fish hook.

Grandpa was disappointed and I think Blake was stunned. I should have asked him if he still wanted to catch a carp, but I’m pretty sure I know his answer. He’s going to keep trying for the elusive roughfish, and I’m going to spend the rest of my weekend doing something other than fishing!

Hook, line and sinkers

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I took the eight-year-old nephew fishing this morning.

I’m not sure who lost patience first – me or the boy.

The day started out with me losing two fish hooks within the first 10 minutes at the lake, and grew worse when he snagged his line and not only lost the hook, a pair of pinch-on sinkers and a bobber, but also broke the line at a point inside the reel.

Needless to say, we moved to a new spot on the lake and he took another rod and reel from the back of my car.

Our second fishing spot was better in that we didn’t have any snags, except it was apparently a little too boring for him. He proceeded to lay down on the dock and dip nearly his (my) entire fishing pole in the lake.

Then it was, "How long have we been fishing?" and "How much longer are we going to fish?" and "I want to go bullhead fishing with Grandpa!"

At that last comment, I told him to pack up.

We didn’t go straight to the farm, however. I took a little detour to a creek where I used to catch northerns, and decided to cast my line out a few times.

It wasn’t long before the nephew went to get his pole – he’d seen some carp jumping and thought it would be cool to catch one.

Maybe so, but he should have been watching what was next to him when he tried to cast out his line. Those long poles that hold up signs are great for wrapping up with fishing line. Though he asked auntie Julie to help him untangle the mess, I told him the one thing my dad always told me: "You gotta learn how to do it yourself."

Yeah, today was a day for Problem Solving 101 and he had to master it often. He managed to unravel the line from the sign post, only to reel it in and then promptly cast it into a clump of tall grass.

At this point I was out of patience, but so was he. He pulled on the line, poked the rod in the water and then pulled some more. Finally the line snapped and the pink jighead was lost to the water trolls.

Yep, it was definitely time to go to the farm in search of a bottle of headache medicine!

At the end of the day, I don’t know if my little nephew learned to be any more patient – I know I certainly didn’t. In fact, I think I’ve come to realize that fishing alone can’t be all that bad.

A giggle a day

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There was a point in the newsroom on Monday when our normally quiet work area turned into an array of barnyard noises – and yes, it was probably all my fault!

It all started when co-worker Kari and I were on our way back to the office after lunch. We were stranded at the red light at the corner of Oxford Street and Humiston Avenue, right next to a semi-trailer loaded with hogs, when Kari made the most real-like sow snort that I’d ever heard (there’s really no way to make that sound glamorous – sorry Kari!)

While that alone was funny, hearing a hog respond with a snort of his own had me laughing so hard I was crying. Somehow through the giggles, I managed to ask, "Would you like me to roll down the window so you two can have a conversation?"

I’m sure the people in the car to the right of us were wondering what in the world was going on, because there Kari and I sat, laughing and looking at those piggies destined for the processing facility on the east side of town.

By the time we arrived back at the newsroom, we had calmed down considerably – or at least until I told a couple of other newsroom cohorts about Kari’s uncanny ability to communicate with pigs.

"Let’s hear it!" requested Justine, and Kari obliged to several more bouts of laughter.

So, now we have our resident pig communicator, who joins our resident turkey gobbler (managing editor Ryan can compete with any tom turkey I’ve met!)

I asked if there was a cow caller in the group, and I think that nod will have to go to our city gal, Laura. She managed a fairly good rendition.

I don’t know what Justine decided on, but you can about imagine which animal I get to be in the barnyard. While I am quite rusty (this I know because I tried to practice in the solitude of my home Monday night), I can still communicate with a herd of goats. Of course, when I had my own goat herd I had no idea what I was saying to them, but they’d always answer back.

Hmm, maybe they were saying, "Just amuse her – she looks awfully ridiculous trying to talk like a goat!"

The goat sound was the one voice that was silent in the newsroom on Monday, not for a lack of coaxing. Let’s just say Ryan needs to make the request when there isn’t a customer waiting for a photo to be scanned! Sounding off for my co-workers is one thing, but there shall be no other audience to hear my out-of-practice, perhaps almost sickly, bellow of a dairy goat.

A message to our graduates

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I spent quite a bit of time this past weekend looking for inspiration to write a message to this year’s graduating class.

First I turned to my country music favorites and found my top picks — Kenny Chesney’s “Don’t Blink,” Leanne Womak’s “I Hope You Dance” and Rascal Flatts’ “My Wish.”

The country music group croons:

“My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,

Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,

You never need to carry more than you can hold,

And while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,

I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,

Yeah, this, is my wish.”

Thank goodness for music that says what I want to say!

Well graduates, the time has come. In just a few days you will be walking across the stage, accepting your diploma and getting sent out in the world to make your mark.

What will life bring? Only you hold the key. You are the driver on the road map of life.

Your teachers, families, mentors and peers have helped to bring you this far. They have hopefully given you a strong foundation — the thirst for knowledge, the confidence to accomplish much, the importance of compassion and just enough strife to be able to deal with whatever comes your way.

You have probably all heard Forrest Gump say that life is like a box of chocolates — you just never know what you’re going to get.

You have also likely heard before that life is what you make it. Indeed, that is so.

But as John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

That seems to be my mantra.

Whether you are going on to college, entering the workforce or planning to raise a family of your own, don’t forget to slow down once in a while and take it all in.

Everything happens so fast.

Your parents are probably thinking that very thing this week. I know I am, and I’m just an aunt to one of the Class of 2010 graduates.

How can it be that 18 years have passed since you were brought home in the loving arms of your family?

I couldn’t wait until my nephew was crawling, walking and then graduating out of diapers. Finally, he was old enough to go fishing. Then there came our trips to Valleyfair, standing in line for hours at the Twins Autograph parties and sitting in the stands to watch him play basketball.

I eagerly anticipated Matt getting his driver’s license so I didn’t always have to be the shuttle, but I failed to imagine that when he reached his 16th birthday his car would take the path to his friends’ homes instead of to my door.

I’ve known enough parents to realize this happens to them too.

That driver’s license allows our kids to take that first big step toward independence.This weekend, graduates, you will take an even bigger step — perhaps a leap.

Whatever path you choose to take in life, my wish for you is that you learn to appreciate the speed bumps, handle the S-curves, have the energy to climb the mountain and, most of all, enjoy the scenery along the way.

Dandelion whine and lilacs in bloom

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I was sitting at my dining room table and working on scrapbook pages the other day when I noticed a couple of little neighbor girls traipsing across my lawn. I was a little curious, so I watched as they knelt down and plucked a few of those bright and beautiful yellow flowers … you know, those things we adults call weeds.

I thought about opening the window and encouraging them to take as many as they wanted. After all, don’t all moms love to receive dandelion bouquets in the spring? Well, maybe not.

When I was young, my mom was gracious enough to accept my dandelion bouquets, put them in a glass of water and place the collection prominently on the kitchen table. For this reason, it wasn’t until I was in kindergarten that I learned those pretty yellow blossoms weren’t flowers to be cherished by adults.

As I recall the incident, a friend and I had picked bouquets of dandelions just before the school van arrived to take us to kindergarten. (Back in the good old days kindergarten was just half a day, and my best friend and I were in the afternoon class at Worthington’s West Elementary.)

It seems to me, Lori and I were the only girls on the van. There were at least three other boys, though I can’t remember anymore who they were.

Perhaps I blocked their names from my mind for good reason – those three boys ridiculed our bouquets of dandelions. They taunted and teased us and, in the end, the dandelions lay squashed and ruined on the floor of the van. It was just as well, I suppose, considering the boys told us they were weeds and certainly would not make quality gifts for our teacher as the school year neared its end.

I do remember that Mr. Kempema (I think it was Neil, but it could have been Ted) made the boys clean up the mess, so it was obviously their fault.

After that, I never picked another dandelion bouquet for my mom. Oh, I’m pretty sure she commented about the lack of colorful flowers for her table, because I can remember her encouraging me to go out to the lilac bush and pick some of its fragrant blossoms to fill up her vase, or a coffee mug or a water glass – whatever worked best for the amount of blooms I was able to yank from the tree.

That lilac bush still stands in the front yard down on the family farm. I haven’t been out there for a few days, so I can’t say for sure if it’s filled with fragrant blooms.

Maybe I’ll get to the farm at some point this weekend and check out the lilac bush. For old time’s sake, I may just have to yank off some blooms and put them in a jar on Mom’s table. If I do, I think I’ll take a few extra blooms and bring them to my house in town.

Perhaps I should just plant a lilac bush in my treeless backyard – now that would give the little neighbor girls a real nice bouquet for their mom.