Dirt Tank Morning

 Last week we loaded up Skeet

Although it's really the other way around because he's always the first one in the rig, waiting for us to load up - this is one of my favorite pictures of him from a few years ago because it looks like he's saying: But I want to go fishing NOWWWW. 😂

And we spent a couple of hours casting a line

The tanks were pretty weedy on the edges

And there's just bare dirt right now because the county flood control fella has been working this area for about a year and he's moved a lot of dirt:

We met up with him a few days ago and he and DH made more plans - he and Jim Bob get along so well:

We have always caught loads of fish

and have thrown loads back, only keeping enough to eat for one meal but this time we only caught small ones and went home empty handed although we tossed about 10 back

We'll come back and catch a bunch of small ones again and relocate them to some of the other dirt tanks now that they are full

Spending a cool morning on the side of a dirt tank is a pretty good way to begin the day

Something about listening to the whir of a fishing line being cast into the water and watching the fish splash across the quiet, glassy surface in the middle of nowhere just makes the noise of the world fade away and then you begin to treasure the details

and you can soak in the things that really matter.

Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing it is not really fish they are after

-Henry David Thoreau

The Great Fish Relocation

I really never know what the day will hold around here. On Tuesday I cooked breakfast, tended to morning chores, took out ground beef for dinner, followed DH to town so he could drop his rig off at Mark's (our mechanic and super nice guy), drove back home, turned towards the house to start dinner when DH asked for help cleaning out a water trough.

A few years ago I brought home some tiny goldfish - we put 2 in each trough to help keep it clean. We still have to clean them out, but definitely not as often as before we added the fish. DH added the hose and started draining the tank and saw a lot of tiny fish.

Well the water was running through the horse pens and my job was to pick up all the baby fish being washed along the way. I wanted to take all kind of pictures, but I was too busy stooping to scoop up slippery fishies and trying to keep them from wriggling out of my hands. We ended up with 2 buckets and about 60 fish

Then we proceeded to 7 water troughs fairly close to the house to distribute fish:

We REALLY need to clean some of these troughs out too, but one thing at a time.

We'll carry the bucket of fish around for a couple of days and add a few to each trough as we make mineral runs and check things. In the meantime, these two are enjoying their clean trough

It just reminded me of another fish relocation story I wanted to share if you would humor me as I take a walk down memory lane. When we lived in Texas, we lived in the Davis Mountains, on a ranch called Timber Mountain. We never took vacations. Heck, we had lots of picnics

and went exploring:

and fished

and camped

and swam

and hunted

 and were horseback

...all without ever leaving the ranch. And we fished a lot:

The dirt tanks and stream up Madera Canyon were filled with fish:

But when we hit a looong, multi-year dry spell and fell into a serious drought, almost all the dirt tanks dried up. So one day we set out on a rescue mission.

The bottoms of those dirt tanks get BOGGY and on order to reach the fish, DH set out pallets and everyone tottered out

to catch

what they could

, set them in empty mineral tubs and relocate them to the 2 dirt tanks that still had water. I wish I had more photos

but I treasure the ones I DO have

as well as the memories.

These photos were taken before digital cameras so the quality isn't the best as I just took pictures of the pictures.

I was a camera bug even 20 years ago

and I'm so glad:

Oh, my goodness, that was a fun day!

Surely, they aren't scarred from never having visited Disneyland:

And I hope our chiddlers' recall their childhood as fondly as I do.

How We Unwind

Most folks escape to other destinations on weekends or holidays for vacation. We rarely do. It's just hard to leave a ranch when you've got thousands of critters depending on you. Plus, most places are overflowing with people during typical holidays, summers, and weekends and being hermits, we tend to avoid crowds. :)

No crowds here:

Or here:

We need rain for many reasons, but one of the reasons we pray for rain is so our dirt tanks don't dry up. We need the water for cattle, but we don't want to lose our fishing hole either! Skeet would be so disappointed

He enjoys fishing as much as we do:

And the fish were biting on Sunday. Every time we threw in a line, we'd reel one in. We'd throw the little ones back and add the rest to our stringers. There's anther stringer of fish in the water. We chose the 5 largest fish to keep and we had grilled fish for dinner twice.

And lest you think we're completely anti-social, we're having friends over for supper tomorrow evening. It's too stinking hot to do much in the kitchen. Fajitas - homemade salsa - guacamole - chips - Summer Berry Pie for dessert.

Cheering Up Skeet

Our girl came home on Wednesday afternoon for a short visit and to pick up Harvey. She is back from Hawaii where she presented a job seminar and had a job interview so she had lots to share and enjoyed her adventure. She had to go back to begin her final semester of grad school on Thursday and now we are left with one sad and lonely puppy.

                                

So we took him fishing to lift his spirits. :)

I miss Harvey and I want to go fishing NOWWW!!!

                                

And he went SWIMMMING...

                                 

In my last puppy post, I said he doesn't swim, although he loves the water, but this time he jumped in without any prompting from us:

                                   

We can't get over how green we are. When our girl arrived, I told her, "It's not Hawaii, but welcome home." and she replied, Are you KIDDING? It's as green as Hawaii. It looks amazing!"

                                    

It was a glorious way to spend the morning:

                                                

I love to fish, but ya'll know I also love to take pictures so I spent the morning juggling my fishing rod and my camera

                                   

I think Skeet feels better now

                                 
Fishing has a way of doing that. :)