Thursday, September 02, 2010

tales from the river

It was an interesting day at work, so interesting I would rather post it here than on Facebook...where I already have an interesting status for the day...let's just say my daughter and I will be testing our wings in local musical theater...

Anyway, rain was predicted, so we headed to the closest electrofishing sampling station, which happened to be full of fifteen pound carp. I absolutely refuse to suffer a work related injury bringing these things into the boat; I'm too old for heroics. So I did more of a graceful dance with them, and somehow it all worked out.

We decided we had enough time to go down river and sample another station. The access for this one was barely a dirt track down to the riverbank, which was not sloped for convenience. We got in okay, and actually saw some amazing fish, including several 18" smallmouth bass, before rain shut us out.

Perhaps we should have exercised some judgment in launching. After all, there had been a half inch of rain in the area the night before, and the ground was kind of soggy. But since this is not really my project, I went along with the decisions of the crew leader. In this case, that led us to backing a heavy boat and trailer down into a place where it was not immediately possible to get the whole rig up over the river bank and out of the water again. Not to mention, there were mosquitoes. Lots of them.

After an hour and a half, and lots of ideas, and lots of mosquitoes, we got the trailer and boat out of the water with minimal damage. We arrived at work about ten minutes after quitting time. I was about seven miles away from home when I got the cell phone call: "Mom, are you going to pick me up at Kenna's house? We have sixth grade orientation tonight!" So I turned around, so close to home but yet so far and still reeking of fish slime, and brought Starflower to her orientation and taught her how to open her locker and all that. We arrived at home, long enough for me to cook a quick spaghetti dinner, before I had to drive back to school to pick up Calvin from his day at the Minnesota State Fair with the marching band. Whew.

Tomorrow is school clothes shopping. The adventure never ends!

5 comments:

R.Powers said...

Gosh this sounds familiar ... the phone call on that is ...it's a whirlwind, isn't it.

I am now safely on the other side and am having so much fun watching other parents dash hither and yon.

Hang in there! LOL

Deb said...

Ah, the downside of the country life. If I kept a dollar total of the gas I have burned running to and from kids' stuff, I would go crazy. Better just write it off as the cost of life.

Deb said...

School clothes shopping reminded me of how much I hate Wal Mart. We went there for socks and underwear, though we could strike a deal, but it ended up being nothing but a bad decision. There's some serious negative energy swirling around that place. And what's with the people following me???

webb said...

I'd rather have a root canal than got to Walmart! But, they are open 24/7, so when I get in a huge bind timewise, I do go there.

Am glad you survived your Friday fish survey. Nothing like a lot of rain and mud to make life difficult.

amarkonmywall said...

Whew is right! I really don't much miss those rat race days...Still, I read Rich a couple of your posts and he would like to trade jobs with you. Don't suppose you would like to work for ESPN?

Me? Coming here makes me want to get out my fly-tying kit. I think I will...