November 10, 2008

A few days ago Kathleen and I decided to pull up the thick green carpet that was in the bathroom at the cabin. When we did, we discovered that like the rest of the cabin, the floor in the bathroom was made from beautiful wood planks. The problem, however, was that whoever installed the carpet decided to use double-sided tape in addition to tack strips. Getting the carpet and tack strips out wasn't too hard, but getting the decades old tape off the floor without damaging the wood proved more challenging.

Kathleen worked very hard during the past several days to get the tape off the bathroom floor, and today, she completed the project.

While Kathleen was working on the bathroom floor at the cabin, I was helping Tom Malay take his 14-foot aluminum boat out of the lake. It has simply become too cold to leave the boat outside any longer.

It took some doing, but Tom and I chopped the ice off the boat lift and lowered the lift and boat into the water. Tom must have pulled the starter cord 20 times before the motor finally sputtered and started.

Tom then motored the boat next door to the cabin, where we had put the trailer in the water at the bottom of my boat ramp. We got Tom's boat out of the water, and took it back to Tom's cabin where he was going to winterize it. I guess this is really it, no more open-water fishing on Leech Lake this year. The last boat I was using to fish in is now out of the water for the winter.

After getting Tom's boat out of the lake, I dismantled the hammock and put it away until next Spring. The ritual of putting the hammock together in the Spring, and then taking it apart in the Fall, is something I've done every year since we've owned our property on Leech Lake.

The high temperature today was 24 degrees. The winds were calm and it was a day or two before a full moon.

This evening for dinner Kathleen and I had home-made soup and fish sandwiches from the leftover perch fillets from last night's dinner. We got a roaring fire going in the fireplace, listened to music and played dominoes and cribbage. We had another wonderful day at Leech Lake.


A view of Leech Lake from our living room.