Saturday, September 26th, 2020

Today Nolan and Maxwell were able to take turns riding in the combine with grandpa Eben while we combined about 50 acres of corn.  I was running the grain cart and hauling corn from the field just west of Eben's house up to the grain bins.  It was kind of a long day for the kids to be riding in tractors / combines.  Nolan did pretty well, but Maxwell got bored with it after about an hour.  It's always good for the boys though to get an idea for how life on the farm is.

We were also able to take the boys up to Ruthven to visit great grandma Natalie.  Since they are not allowing visiters at the care center, we had to sit outside and talk to her through the window.  After our visit with her, we stopped by Lakeland to get the boys some soft serve ice cream.

  

We had a grain vac sucking up corn that was emptying into a hopper.  The boys thought it was fun to play in the "corn waterfall".

Wednesday, August 19th, 2020

I just got back from a fun long weekend up at Cass Lake with the boys.  Friday night after work I took Nolan and Maxwell up to grandma Becky's place in Mason City for a quick visit, and then on Saturday we drove the rest of the way up to Cass Lake, where we met up with Amy, Logan, and Eben.  Amy's friend Emily, her husband Kelly, her dad Steve, and Emily & Kelly's daughter Nora were also up there in a different cabin.  We stayed in Condo #9.  Overall the fishing was slower than in past years, which I will detail below:

On Saturday evening I went out trolling for northern with Eben and Maxwell.  I managed to catch a nice 24 inch northern, but I had to throw it back (the state fishing regulations for that area are to release any northern between 22 and 26 inches).  I was using a green dardevle lure with yellow/black spots on it.  Eben also caught two northerns (14 and 17.5 inches).  We kept the 17.5 inch one of his.

Sunday morning we took our whole gang out fishing for perch.  All combined, we kept 9 perch.  I had 5 keepers (and I caught one other small one that I tossed back).  Maxwell did manage to catch one perch all by himself!  That was his first ever perch.  Nolan was not able to catch anything besides crawfish, which had him a little bummed.  That night I went trolling with Kelly and Steve, but we had no luck.

On Monday morning we caught 7 keeper perch, and I actually caught one Northern while using a minnow while jigging for perch. I had 3 keeper perch.  Most of the luck we had fishing this day (including the Northern) was in Buck Lake.  Of those 7 keeper perch, Nolan, Maxwell, and Logan each managed to catch one all by themselves.  Amy and Eben went trolling for Northern that night.

Tuesday morning our whole crew went out for quite a while but came back with no fish at all (I had caught one small one that I tossed back, and nobody else really even had a nibble).  Eben said that was the first time he could remember during his time up there that he was completely skunked on a fishing outing.  Later on that afternoon I went back out with Eben, and we did a little perch, walleye, and northern fishing.  I managed to catch one perch was all.

So overall, we ended up keeping only 17 perch and two northern.  Personally I kept 9 perch and 1 Northern.  That's quite a big difference from my last trip up there in 2017, when I caught total 39 perch and kept 22 of them.  

Although the fishing was not great for this trip, we did have a lot of fun.  On one of the days I bought passes for my boys and I to use the indoor pool, which they really enjoyed.  On other days the boys played with Amy and Logan on the beach by Stony Point resort.  There was even a trampoline in the water that they played on.  Each night we built a campfire and enjoyed making smores.  We also got the boys some soft serve ice cream, which was really tasty.  Nolan had vanilla, and Maxwell chose cotton candy.

Here I am with my 24 inch Northern before I released him back into the water.

Maxwell, Logan, and Nolan in Condo #9.

Here Maxwell is with one of the perch that he caught all by himself!

 

Tuesday, August 11th, 2020

 Well, it's been a strange couple of days.  Yesterday around 11:00 in the morning the city of Ames completely lost power.  There was a big storm that moved through with straight line winds over 80 mph, and it knocked down tons of trees and power lines.  This actually affected much of central Iowa.  I was at work when this all happened, and after a couple of hours of standing around in the dark our clinic was finally closed.  After I got home I could see that limbs from our neighbor's willow trees were blown everywhere in our yard and theirs.  There were a couple of other neighbors down the street that had entire large trees fall down.  So Elizabeth and I spent a couple of hours helping them pick up branches and move them onto piles.  We spent the rest of the evening at home with candles lighting up the house.  

Today our power did not come back on until 3:35 in the afternoon, so we went over a day without power.  McFarland clinic was still closed due to the power outage, so I did not go to work today... very strange to have a Tuesday off.  I had put a couple of large bags of ice in our deep freezer, and luckily that all stayed frozen enough.  We did have to throw away a few things from our refrigerator (milk, cheese, yogurt, mayo, sour cream), but it wasn't too bad.  

I might as well update the coronavirus numbers, for comparison to my earlier blog posts this year.  So far in the United States there have been 5.15 million confirmed cases and 164 thousand deaths.  In Iowa, there has been 49,339 cases and 940 deaths.  This has been a pretty shitty year.

On a happier note, I am looking forward to taking the boys up to Cass Lake this coming weekend.  We are leaving this Saturday and will come home on Wednesday.  

Tuesday, July 14th, 2020

HAPPY SEVENTH BIRTHDAY NOLAN!!!

I can't believe that our big kid is now 7 years old.  Elizabeth was able to take the day off with the kids today.  Just for fun we rented a hotel room last night at the Hilton Garden Inn, so we were all able to go swimming in their pool yesterday evening, and Elizabeth and the boys swam some more there today.  Nolan's buddy Nico was able to stop by and go swimming as well, which was fun. 

Nolan got a skateboard and a scooter for his birthday, along with some knee & elbow pads for safety.  He was a little frustrated with them today, and it will take some practice to get better at using them. 

The most memorable thing about today was the fact that right after Nolan blew out his birthday candles on his cake, the tornado siren went off!  We grabbed the cake and headed to the basement, where our whole family ate birthday cake while hiding from a potential tornado!  It was quite the peculiar moment.  Anyways, the tornado warning for Ames only lasted about 15 minutes, and we were safe. 

Here I am getting ready to measure Nolan's growth on our tall wall.  He is just under 4 feet tall as of today.

Sunday, June 21st, 2020

Happy Father's Day 2020

I've had a good father's day, although this weekend has been relatively lazy for us.  Mostly we have been hanging out around the house with the boys.  This morning I played battleship with Nolan, we made tacos for lunch, played some basketball in the driveway with the boys, took a short nap, called Eben, and made BLTs for supper.  

One fun thing that we were able to get figured out while talking with Eben was a fishing trip to Cass Lake from August 15th through the 19th.  Amy and Logan should be able to go as well, so it will be fun having the three boys together at the lake.  

Sunday, May 31st, 2020

Well, it has been over a month since my last blog, and unfortunately once again things in this country seem to keep getting worse. 

Coronavirus update: As of today there have been 19,484 Iowans that have officially tested positive for the virus, including 533 deaths.  Back when I last blogged on 4-18-20, those numbers were 2,513 positive cases and 74 deaths.  As a nation, there has now been over 1.8 million positive cases and 106 thousand deaths. 

If you could believe it, that is not what has had this nation in distress over the last few days.  There have been widespread riots in almost every major city in the country for a few days now following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police officers.  It's tragic how racist people in this country are and how evil police brutality can be.  The riots have been terrible as well, with immense property damage and additional loss of life / injuries. 

To focus on the more happy news, we did have a good weekend at home with the boys.  Friday night I camped out with the boys in our tent in the back yard.  Today we ordered Hickory Park takeout for lunch, and then the whole family went for a walk around campus.  It was a very nice day to be outside.   

Saturday, April 18th, 2020

I might as well start today's post focusing on the fun news.  This afternoon I was able to take Nolan fishing at a small pond in Somerset.  We only stayed for around 30 to 40 minutes (because someone gets bored quickly), but in that time we did manage to catch and release 4 bluegill.  Nolan even helped reel each of the fish in!  It was nice just to get out of the house a little, since we've been cooped up quite a bit recently. 

Our family has also been trying our best to support local businesses.  Yesterday we got takeout from Brick City Grill, and we also bought a few beers from Torrent Brewing Company. 

I thought I would also give an update on the number of COVID-19 cases in the state, since it's surprising how much they have changed in the last week since my previous blog post.  As of today, there have been 2,513 people test positive in Iowa, including 74 deaths.  There were 181 new cases just today in the state.  A week ago there were 1,510 cases in Iowa, with 34 deaths.  So in a week the total cases in the state has increased by over 1,000, and the death total has more than doubled.  Crazy.

As for the country as a whole, 701,610 people have been confirmed to have COVID-19, while 37,055 people in the USA have died from it.