Backyard Fishing on the Farm

The girls will be on a float in the parade at our local fair in a couple of weeks. One of the things we needed for the float was a water trough. Stay tuned for fair pictures next month and hopefully it will make sense then. I went out yesterday to drain the trough. I couldn't see any fish but it did occur to me that we had recently put goldfish/feeder fish in it. The other tank of the same size was also inhabited by fish. This one needed to be reset so I elected to take the girls out for fishing adventure today. Our mission was to capture all of the fish and transplant them to the other tank.

I don't know if you can tell but they each have a little pink fishing pole with bobbers on them. Hannah is thrilled to be "fishing." Shhhh....don't tell her you have to have a hook and bait too, to catch fish. After I got hit countless times by the bobber while she was "casting" it into the trough, I was thankful there wasn't a hook on it.


Oh look Mommy netted one!



And Hannah petted one!


Helena is just happy to stand back and watch today. I think she thought it was a little cold to be dipping fish out of the water.

Mr. Bull wonders what in the world we are doing.

Her attention span was not long and she ended up kicking through the puddles. This meant that she got cold and got to spend the remainder of the time in the warm pickup. Poor kiddo!

We would have been done rather quickly but we had some of these guys in there too. I didn't know how many there were and they were the color of the nasty water. The only way to find them was to watch where they swam and stirred up the junk at the bottom of the tank. We were all loaded up to go and Hannah kept telling me that there was another one in there. I kept waiting and looking but never could find it. Finally right before we left I checked again and there was another one. Man, she's right an awful lot!

Loaded, "secure", and ready to be transplanted into the other trough. We caught 15 in all, 10 orange and 5 brown ones. They were added to a tank with four other fish about three times their size. It's probably a bit overpopulated but they will have to wait until after the fair to move back home.

My Quest

I have been trying to get some decent pictures of both of the girls. This has proved to be a little bit challenging. My aunt and uncle had some pictures taken of my cousins at about this age in a grain field and I have always loved them. I thought I would give it a shot last night. We are going to have to go back out because I'm not sure what I was thinking putting Helena in a yellow shirt. She sort of disappears into the grain. Oh, well it was good practice. There are definitely things I could do different next time.

I was happy to finally get a picture of Hannah smiling. I guess the key is to feed her sugar and then have Mommy make kitty sounds while frantically snapping pictures. What ever it takes to get a real smile.

"Camping"

We received a tent and sleeping bags when we got married. I think we have used the tent once and definitely not since having kids. I haven't been brave enough to take the girls camping yet. Call me a wimp if you want, but it just doesn't sound the least bit relaxing. I would like to enjoy my vacations if at all possible. So, an improvised "camping trip" was in order.

Hannah's cousin was up at their Grandparent's house enjoying a camp fire and was planning to sleep under the stars. I thought, we could probably manage a little camping in the back yard.

So, the plan was to set up the tent, go up and roast marshmallows, and then come back down and sleep in the tent. Helena was ready for bed so I put her to bed in the house. Hannah, Ben and I set up the tent and got it all ready.








We roasted our marshmallows and returned home to sleep in the tent. After laying next to Hannah and repeatedly reminding her to close her eyes, she finally fell asleep. It was about this time the neighbor's dog started barking. At some point I managed to get to sleep, that is until I heard Helena over the baby monitor. I raced from the tent to her room to find her Daddy with her, and she was crying "Mama, Mama...." I got her back to sleep, but then I couldn't get back to sleep because of the darn dog barking. About midnight I called for a retreat to the house. I carried a sleeping Hannah to her bed and fell asleep myself. About 5:00 am I woke up to the sound of the spray planes firing up for the morning. This is when I realized I would not have gotten much sleep out there anyway. Hannah woke up the next morning in tears because we weren't in the tent. Next year my dear, next year......