4th of July

We missed the CF Parade and all the local festivities this year, and instead spent a working holiday in Two Harbors as we painted, cut grass, pruned shrubs, and did general upkeep at Chuck's mom's house. Jenna and Andy joined us for all of the "fun," and it really helped to have some extra hands!

I had the fun job of hosing down the front of the house and cleaning out 10 years of spider webs, then scraping and sanding before Andy and Chuck started painting.

I also had to buy some pruning shears - that shrub behind Chuck was huge before I gave it a haircut.

We also took down the shutters and gave them a fresh coat of paint.

We had to be quite creative with our saw-horses. The backs of those chairs were kind of curvy, so the shutters weren't too stable as we painted them. Oh well, it worked....

Late in the afternoon, after the work was mostly done, we took the boat and went off exploring some new fishing lakes. This was a little pond called Indian Lake. It was smooth as glass, but we didn't even get a nibble from a fish. However, the mosquitoes got quite a few nibbles off of us when we came in around 7:30. I, of course, made the mistake of leaving the car door open for a few minutes while we were loading up, so we were still being eaten alive as we drove back to Two Harbors. We went to the Two Harbors fireworks display at night, and it was awesome! I left my camera in the car, so no photos of that.

On Saturday, we checked out Seloh Lake. It was a little bigger, and at least a few fish were biting. No mosquitoes, either! Chuck got several small perch, Andy missed a big northern, and then Jenna gave up her book and cast out a line, too. I just kept reading the whole time.

Maybe these t-shirts were actually scaring the fish away -

"FISH tremble at the mention of my name."

The Tilley hats are cute, though, aren't they?

Jenna finally caught a bass. It doesn't look like much, but it sure put up a good fight! They started reeling in some sunnies after that, and the total catch for the day was around 11-12 fish, at least enough to clean and make a meal.

Jenna, Andy, and I headed home Saturday night, and Chuck stayed until Sunday to finish up some painting. Thanks, guys, for your help, and hopefully , more fish will be biting next time!