Walking On Water

First of all I need to tell you that Daisy is getting better. We speculated at one point that her tummy troubles were caused by stress from Beau being so sick. Her world just wasn't right, and after a time the wrongness of it all caused her to react. Well, some of that might be true, but I think we found the cause of Daisy's issues this morning. After having been up with her three times during the night, Lars let her out once more early this morning. When she came back up on the deck she was carrying a frozen half-chewed up bunny rabbit. And knowing that Daisy doesn't chew her food very well, it's very possible that fur and bunny bones have done a number on her insides. She's probably been working on this frozen bunny for several days and has been paying the price all along. Her "bodily functions" are almost back to normal this morning, so we've avoided another vet bill for the time being.

When Lovely Daughter dropped Daisy off this morning for Doggy Day Care, she told us she gagged and nearly lost her breakfast when she saw the half eaten bunny on the deck. She begged her Dad to please go dispose of the rabbit before she got home tonight. And of course Ole did just that - not wanting Daisy to be munching and crunching on it anymore.

So - have I grossed you out enough for one day? Sorry.

Anyway, what I was really planning on writing about to day was fun stuff. My father was BIG into fishing, summer and winter, but especially in the winter. At least one day every weekend he would spend out on the ice in his fish house with his spear and bring home some big walleyes and northerns for my mom to clean and fry up for supper. It didn't matter to him how cold the temperatures were, he and a buddy or two would gather up their gear and head out. If there wasn't a lot of snow on the lake they were able to drive right out to the fish house, otherwise the trip entailed loading their gear on a sled and walking from the edge of the lake out.

When you drive by a lake in the winter here in the Nort'land, it's not uncommon to see entire villages of ice houses situated in groups out on the ice. When you fish from inside of a fish house it's called dark house fishing. Otherwise you fish out in the open, called angling, by chopping a hole in the ice and dropping a line down. It's a lot colder doing it that way - the protection of a little house is mighty fine when the wind is blowing across the lake picking up the snow crystals and sanding your face or freezing your eyeballs.

Some of the fish houses are really elaborate. Not only do they have heat, but some of the fancier ones have bunk beds built in, TVs, arm chairs beside the hole in the ice; they are built for spending the weekend or several days at a time. My father's wasn't that fancy. He went to the local piano company and bought a used piano crate, put a substantial floor in it with a 3x3 hole in the floor and a door in the side. It served the purpose. Then he installed a little propane heater, put in a couple of small stools and a shelf to hold his lunch box and coffee thermos. He was in his glory.

I remember times that I would go fishing with him. He'd open up the door and the inside walls would be covered with frost from being vacant for the week. He would hurry and light the propane heater, and then start chopping a hole in the ice. Remember, this hole was 3 x 3 and sometimes the ice was several feet thick. Needless to say, by the time he got the hole chopped he had shed his big heavy parka and was down to his flannel shirt and striped bib overalls. (Striped bib overalls were my Father's trademark.)

It was really erie sitting in this dark little house. He had painted the walls inside black to make it even darker appearing so that it was easier to see down into the lake. It was almost like going to the movies but you had to look down to see the screen instead of up and in front of you. On good days you could see the bottom very clearly, remnants of junk laying on the bottom of the lake, smidgens of the plant life that had gone dormant for the winter and on certain days a lot of fish activity.

My Dad had a number of handmade wooden decoys that he used. I remember one in particular - it was red and white - didn't look like a real fish at all, but the real fish sure seemed to like it and were lured in out of curiosity. He could make that decoy swim in circles or straight lines and then let it stand still several feet off the bottom of the lake and sure enough. some curious fish would come swimming in to check out the situation. Then, swish, into the water my Dad's spear would go and sometimes he'd pull it up with a fish on the end and sometimes not. But he always enjoyed himself either way.

My Dad died in the summer of 1975, and of course in months following my Mother gradually got rid of his things. I often wonder what she did with all his wooden fishing decoys as I would have loved to have had that red and white one that I remember so vividly.

If the weather was reasonably warm he would let me bring a girlfriend along, and we would spend the day ice skating. That is of course if there wasn't a lot of snow on the ice. Sometimes we'd bring a shovel and clear off a big rink and skate until our legs and ankles wouldn't work anymore. We had to be careful to stay far enough away from the fish houses though, because the noise the skates made on the ice would scare the fish.

Then there was always the problem of where to go to the bathroom if you were a girl and out in the boondocks all day. After all, men have it made you know - the whole world is THEIR toilet. I remember one day my girlfriend and I - her name was Mary Ann - had to go so bad I think our eyeballs had turned yellow. We had our skates on, skated to the edge of the lake, which was about a half mile, climbed up on shore and looked for a big bush. But of course the bush didn't have any leaves on it and you could see right through it. By that time we didn't care - we just backed our bare butts up to the bush, frost bite or not, and watered that bush in real good. When I checked the next spring - it was the one that was growing REAL good (snicker).

You also had to watch out for cracks in the ice when you were skating. Sometimes there were pressure ridges that created cracks that were big enough to swallow small animals, and could break your leg if you got caught in one. The scariest thing though was when the ice would crack. You could hear the crack start at the edge of the lake and ripple all the way across, sometimes coming right under where you were standing.

When I started dating Ole he was driving a 1949 Ford, dark blue - hot car. Of course this was a rear wheel drive car. I'm sure a lot of you haven't a clue as to how stuck you can get in snow or even just on ice in a rear-wheel drive car. One of Ole's things was to drive his car out on the lake if there was no snow on it, pedal to the metal, then slam on the brakes and cramp the steering wheel. Boy, could you do doughnuts then. Of course there was always the danger of coming across some thin ice - then you better hope you either get across it really fast or be prepared to jump and get wet. Fortunately that never happened to Ole. He was kind of a wild one in his younger days, that Ole.

Ole is also a certified ice diver (brrrr). I thought he was absolutely nuts when he told me he was going for this certification and refused to go watch him do it. Lovely daughter went along and watched, and she was old enough to take pictures, so the event is documented. He used to go at least once a year - but in his later years has come to his senses and decided it's no longer a necessity. He didn't even wear a dry suit when he was doing this. He wore a very thick wet suit and poured warm water down the neck. He said the only place he got cold was his face. One time when he was ice diving he brought up a pair of jaws from a horse that still had teeth in them. He wanted to put them on the shelf that held his collection of underwater "things" but I refused to let him. The story was that back in the 1920s they used to haul timber on a bid sledge pulled by horses from one side of the lake to the other. I guess they tried to haul too late in the spring and the sledge and horses went down. I don't know what happened to the driver. Poor horses.

Well, this has gotten really long again - sorry - I guess I must be making up for lost time for that week I didn't post anything.

Anyway, here's a little montage I put together. Some of the pictures are mine and some are not. Enjoy.

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