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A bucket full of bullheads? How does that relate to the things people do?
Well, among the kinds of fish that are in our pond are bullheads. When Dot feeds the koi, the bullheads bully the koi and devour the koi food. So this Summer, Dot declared war on the bullheads.
These fish tend to swarm in a pack (definitely not going to school), so Dot would wait until they came near enough to shore, and then snatch them out with a net. Usually, it was one-to-three at a time. But once, with Lee as a witness, she netted 29, all at the same time!
Although there are still many more to catch next year, there are 79 fewer bullheads in the pond now than there were last Spring.
In addition to the bullheads now swimming freely in the river, 3 dozen chipmunks, 6 raccoons and two dozen moles have new addresses. We have evicted no squirrels, deer, fox, or birds this year.
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| Much entertainment and merriment centers around Lee's player piano. A milestone birthday (70) was reached this year, and to celebrate, our friend John brought Lee an inflatable walker. So besides enjoyng birthday songs and treats, much mirth was had reading all the messages on the walker, and making appropriate accompanying noises. |
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| Hard to believe, but we both enjoyed baby-sitting our great grand niece, Lauren Placzek. Lauren had great fun pulling whiskers and, we decided, with her interest in the piano, practicing to become a virtuoto pianist. |
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| Our yearly tradition of hosting Thanksgiving has continued, though this year without the UP McKenzies, the New Hampshire Husseys, The Slovenia McKenzies and the (now) Minnesota Placzeks.
No snow this year, but back-yard antics prevailed anyway. Proving his ability to kick a football high, Vachon landed the pigskin perfectly placed to refuse to come down -- until after the Abedians left for home!
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| Speaking of trees, our power company sent crews all around our neighborhood this Summer to trim the trees around their power lines. While we were worried that the result would be trees that were "butchered", we were pleased that the crew was quite solicitous to our concerns, while following their instructions to protect their lines. With the heavy wet snow that fell this fall, and the resulting breaking of branches and felling of trees all over mid-Michigan, we were grateful for their work: we were among those NOT losing power because of the storm. |
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| In the Spring, before the leaves come out on the trees, and before the grass and perennials start growing, we perform a little trimming of the left-overs from the previous year by burning the perennial beds around the pond. |
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| Looking back on this year, it really was the year of tree cutting and pruning. Lee was at home one day, when he heard a loud THUMP. Investigating, he found that the neighbor's large willow had fallen over, half of it in our yard -- barly missing two newly planted trees of our own, but slicing off the branches on one side of one of our larger trees. The trunk was huge -- we were glad that was not in our yard! |
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| Since we had the arborists on hand, we decided to clear our little woods of the dead ash trees, all victims of the emerald ash borer. |
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Besides all this, Lee was busy keeping the pond clean: he removed at least 30 wheelbarrows full of "pond snot" -- his term for the debris and vegetative growth he rakes out of the pond.
He also wrote a dozen articles for various Michigan history publications.
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