Today was an easy day for me. I put away a lot of dry rugs, did a load of laundry, cleaned a 3 bedroom cabin by myself for a late arrival this week and sold a lot of kiddy cocktails and ice cream cones. This morning I felt the need to take a 2 mile fast walk. This is mostly because last night was pot luck, but also because I have been enjoying many pot lucks. On my walk I saw two customers and we greeted each other. It was a beautiful morning and fun to see them out so early after being up so late with me the night before having fun. Later in the day they went golfing at the local Tahoe Lynx course and saw a bear on the way home. They had a great day.
John had a busy day. He took some customers kayaking up stream, got rained on twice in two hours too, but they all enjoyed it. He also went swimming and snorkeling, as he does every day. He said the water was wonderfully warm. I am ashamed to say I haven't even been in swimming yet. When I was a kid I would go every day. Now that the lake is right here, I don't.
Tomorrow the garbage dumpster gets picked up so John did a garbage run. He picks up all the bags from around our house/lodge, picks up the stinky garbage from the fish cleaning house and takes it all up to the dumpster. Then he had to put a steel cover over the dumpster, secure it with a cable so no bears get in, and all this while swatting mosquitoes.
Later John and I went down to the campfire area to visit with customers. They had a very nice fire going. Some were roasting kielbasa, but mostly they were talking and drinking, which is a lot of fun. The campfire is a great place to gather and talk. We only have one campfire pit for the entire resort, which is for several reasons. One being that people get a little carried away sometimes with what they throw in the fire; two so our resort doesn't get burnt to the ground; three it would be 9 campfires to watch over and clean up after; and the obvious - we don't want to supply all that firewood for 9 campfires! We have a few people on our lake who will bring over their junk wood - pine, etc. that they don't want to burn in their fireplaces. We are more than happy for them to do this. If it weren't for these wonderful volunteers on our lake, we would run out of wood real fast. Its just too much hard work to keep up with the resort's regular duties and get cords of firewood. I had to get firewood all my childhood because our house was heated with wood, and I swore I would never do that when I grew up. Its hard work and a waste of beautiful days to be hauling wood, cutting wood, stacking wood, etc. I could rant and rave about this in detail, but my anger about firewood will burn out now. The campfire pit is next to our shore and boat landing area. So as we sit around the fire, we can hear the loons and watch the lights on the lake. Sometimes we even see the northern lights to the north. When that happens, its the greatest thing we can offer our customers - to see the northern lights. One time years ago, the lights were so amazing at 11:00 p.m. that I went around and woke up those who were sleeping to tell them they had to see the northern lights. When they saw them, they didn't mind at all. They haven't been as amazing since, but we keep looking because we have seen them quite often.
We got two e-mails today of customers and their fish. One was of a huge small mouth bass, another a musky. The musky was the first one the young man ever caught. It was Kendrick's 32 inch long musky and what a beauty. I had asked him to send the picture so I could put it on the bulletin board in the lodge. So it was nice to receive it. I printed it up and before I could even get to the bulletin board, I had two other young men anxious to see. They have been fishing a lot since their arrival on Saturday. One caught a 14 inch large mouth off our main pier this morning, which was very exciting for everyone to see. Yesterday one of the kids saw a huge snapping turtle in our lagoon. They look so prehistoric! It was scary enough for them to leave it alone - smart kids. The size of the thing is scary because it could probably have bitten off a toe or finger if it so desired. Mostly though those turtles are very skittish and will swim away quickly from anyone.
When John snorkels around our lake shore, he sees a lot of fish. The muskies just look at him and don't move. All the other fish and turtles scamper away right away. He said one time he saw a snapper and it couldn't get away fast enough, which was great.
Back in 2000 and 2001, we worked very hard with our Lake Association to get the pan fish to rally on our lake. Because there are so many predator fish in here: musky, walleye, northern, bass, it is difficult to keep a large population of pan fish. So knowing this, the Lake Association contacted the DNR and together we put together over 60 fish cribs and planted over 10,000 fingerling fish (small) in our lake. As the guys, John included, worked their butts off in the snow covered yard, I made a warm stew to serve them. They had a bunch of logs delivered (hard cores from a panelling company), drilled holes on each end, stacked the logs like Lincoln log cabins, put a cable through each hole to strap them together, put piles of branches into the structure, attached cement blocks with rope, dragged them onto the ice of the lake and let them go until Spring time. Some stayed on our shoreline until they became water logged (around July) and then they dragged them to their spots. The fish lay their eggs in these structures, they hatch into fish, are protected in the structure for awhile and this gives them a much better chance at survival. Our pan fish have rallied because of this and finally the past couple years people have been able to keep some of good size for filets.
Tomorrow we meet with our financial advisor at 9 a.m. It is also the big day of the Manitowish Waters Fleazar sale. I hate to not be there when the doors open at 8 a.m., but I have to wait. That just means we might not get the sofa sleeper of my dreams or the unbreakable kitchen chairs I know are out there waiting. Oh well, I'll just go after the advisor leaves.
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