Flukin' and Friends

We had a wonderful time fishing and visiting with Jack and Eileen. They have a showplace home down the shore with their boat in the water alongside. We caught about 60 fluke in the bay! There were quite a few keepers, too. The fish bit extremely well on Gulps, a scented artificial bait which looks like a white shrimp. It's the first time I've ever used just artificials for fluke and wow, it was great. It was warm, mostly sunny and breezy, a fantastic day all around.
John cleaned the fish, Jack cleaned the boat and Eileen and I had lunch :-)
Thanks, Jack and Eileen, for a memorable day. Maybe the most memorable part of the entire day came after John caught a fluke that had a big white spot on the top, along its side, clearly an abnormality. It was unusual looking, that's for sure. Jack said, "You'd know if you caught this fluke again." Amazingly, shortly thereafter, Jack caught the same fluke!!!! We laughed and laughed!!!!
It was fun again, of course, babysitting Trenton on Monday afternoon/evening. Look how tall he's getting.

The Woods and The Beach

We went to Howell on Monday to be with Trenton while Sheryl was at school and Jim was teaching. The weather was perfect on Tuesday for a beach morning. Trenton has a cute little tent that he can sit in. The beach is quiet at 9:00 AM!
Then it was time for fun in the cool surf. Jim went body surfing and I went in up to my waist. The water was chilly but refreshing and amazingly clear.
Jim dug out lots of sand crabs. Trenton had fun holding them and tossing them into the sand and surf and watching them dig their way back in.

We are so proud and pleased that Jim successfully completed the 40 mile Highlands Sky Race in West Virginia on June 14th. He has now run marathons in 10 states and is one-fifth of the way toward his goal of running one in all 50 states by the time he's 50 years old.
Here's a big one!

This hen visits every day with her chicks. She has a nest in the woods behind our house.
You can see the chick to her left in this pic.
Trenton has a new scooter.
He has fun with it on the sidwalk in front of their house.

Trenton's Visit

The temperature climbed beyond belief but we had a great deal of fun babysitting Trenton from Monday afternoon through Wednesday morning. We played indoors Monday after Trenton's nap, with fans going in every room.
After dinner we went out to dig worms for fishing on Tuesday morning. He held this toad so gently. You can just see the toad's eyes sticking up in his hand.
Then it was time to cool off. He enjoyed sitting in some cool well water.
The sprinkler water was quite cool.
It was a refreshing time.
Trenton watered lots of stuff - even Grandma!
Trenton saw deer out back, in the front yard and in the street. He even saw a gobbler and hen out back. He can name all of the birds that come to our feeder - cardinal, goldfinch, woodpecker, blue jay and many more - and he loved watching the squirrel come for peanuts and corn.
Trenton got a real kick out of jumping into Grampack's chair when Grampack was in another room.
Tuesday morning we went to Round Valley Reservoir to fish for sunnies. Trenton caught about 6!
Look at that intensity, that technique.

He's a pro. With 2 grandfathers who love to fish it's to be expected that Trenton will enjoy this hobby, too.
It's almost in.
The water was so clear you could see the fish easily.
Maybe a little hard to see - the fish is up by his face.
Ahhhh, next it was time to cool off. Trenton had fun chasing minnows.
This area next to the boat launch was the perfect place for us to play. Just behind where they're standing we saw an outstanding male Baltimore oriole!!! Thanks for coming to visit us, Trenton. It was memorable.

Work AND Play

We had fun fishing with our neighbors Linda and Tony on their boat on Friday. It started out as a chilly, cloudy day with the sun coming out at noon. We caught some fluke but no keepers and we caught many sea robins. The one I'm holding is one of the biggest ones caught.
Thanks for a fun day!
The gnats have not been horrible yet this year but something keeps biting me and giving me huge, extremely itchy, swollen bumps that last for 3 days. John surprised me by taking my picture while I tackled the grape ivy growing in the forsythia. The net really helped as did the insect repellant that I doused myself with. Luckily I chose to do yardwork before this heat spell began.
The fawns were born a couple of weeks ago. We saw one out back that may have been only an hour or so old! Now a doe and her 2 fawns regularly pass through the back yard. The fawns aren't drinking out of the bird baths yet or licking the salt lick but they will be soon.
Now you can see why we don't plant anything - it would only be a deer delicacy and there's so much shade.
Here's John starting our biggest project for the year - staining the shingles and painting the trim all along the back. It took a few days of hard work and it looks great now.
I stained and painted the house that's accessible from the deck. This before pic above shows how marked up the shingles got from deck furniture.
Wow, this windowsill certainly needed painting.
Aaaahhhh, now that looks good.

Aaahhh, now that looks great!