Just A Nice Week at Gunflint

Today’s picture is another one of Sheryl’s.  She sent it to me for identification.  Of course, I didn’t know what it was.  Bruce and I worked with our Roger Tory Peterson book and found out it was a Yellow Headed Blackbird.  What made it difficult is that the picture shows a real yellow head but the description talks about it being a yellow-orange.  Also the white markings are matched in the picture.

Had our first hummingbird in today.  Bruce says it was a male but can’t tell me why.  At any rate it is nice to see it back.

Jon Schei has been doing really well fishing on Gunflint and Seagull.  Even with the ice not completely out he has managed to get trout, walleyes, and northern in the last few days.  The biggest northern was 43 ½ inches long and the trout ran up to 8 lb.  We got one fillet from the trout and could not eat it all for dinner the other night.

The west end of Gunflint is clear of ice but not the east end.  We were out today exploring.  When you get down to the east end of Gunflint there are broken pieces of ice floating everywhere.  It is amazing how noisy they are as they bang and grind against each other.  All we need is a northwest wind.

Our morning adventure was called exploring.  Before we left it was called fishing.  We each found the bottom numerous times and I lost a spinner but there will be no fresh fish for dinner in the Kerfoot house tonight.  It was wonderful just to be on the lake after a long winter.  When we have open water, it is hard to imagine what an iced over lake is like.  When we have ice, it is equally hard to imagine what open water is like.

The new staff housing is finally ready to be occupied.  Everyone on the staff helped in the end but Sheryl is the one who kept us moving along.  It has been a long pull but these 16 rooms were badly needed.  One of the first buildings we can get rid of now is the OD (Outfitters Dorm).  Bruce thinks it is over 50 years old so we really have gotten our money out of it.  Bonnie already has plans for the space it sits on.  She is going to turn it into a place to wash canoes after trips.  We always do this but it was at one end of the building and always in the way.

Bruce and I are getting into gardening.  He has cleaned up the raspberries and strawberries.  We started some plants in the house.  Today the green beans and zucchini went into the garden.  The tomatoes are not quite ready.  Yesterday the seed potatoes were buried.  I worked on the flowers by the front of the house.  My day lilies and peonys are coming up nicely.  Bruce protected them all winter with a mound of snow.