Solving the Memorial Day quandary

Brad and I are facing quite a quandary for this, the first holiday of the summer.

There's always work to be done in the yard. We've decided to redo our fish pond, we need to get the bricks, mortar and broken up cement that's been in the back yard for the last thirty years picked up and moved away and we've talked about doing some landscaping and getting some mulch laid down in order to cut down on the mowing time.

With three lots to take care of, it's a neverending process. Or we can go fishing.

It's true, the lakes around the area are low. But I have a philosophy -- if there's less water in the lakes, the fish will find it harder to hide.

Eventually one of them will make a stupid mistake and jump on the end of my line.

We had our first fishing trip of the year last weekend. We grabbed my youngest son Jeremy, the tackle boxes, the fishing poles, several bottles of water and the tick spray and headed out.

We went to one area, where the sunfish we're practically jumping up on the bank. But if you know anything about sunfish, you know it takes about 75 of them to make a decent meal.

We finally decided to move on.

On the way up the hill, I removed about 10 ticks from my clothes -- obviously, we needed a stronger tick spray.

We headed for the next area. My weak ankles and lack of grace make the rocks one of my least favorite places to fish, but I braved the uneven surfaces, knowing that out there somewhere was a fish with my name on it.

The first cast I made, as I stood on what appeared to be a fairly stable slab of concrete, sent me crashing firmly to my derriere.

I tried several different lures with no luck before settling on a live minnow and settling myself on a very hard rock and using my spare time to pick ticks off my clothes.

Finally after three years of waiting to catch a fish, (I've never had much luck) something struck the line and I was able to pull in a walleye. Nothing huge mind you, but certainly a keeper.

Our fishing journey ended about an hour later and we headed back across the rocks, I with my walleye and Jeremy with his large mouth bass, and Brad with the tackle box.

(I will get into trouble if I mention to anyone that Brad went home with no fish -- that's right! Nothing, nada, zip, zilch ... And the only reason I bring this up is that he's so good at pointing out every time I come home skunked.) Anyway, the two guys quickly made their way back to the pickup. I picked my way across the rocks, gingerly testing each one to make sure there wasn't a repeat of the earlier incident.

By the time I got back to the truck, Brad and Jeremy had built a small shack to make themselves comfortable.

We headed for Norton to drop Jer off at his house. The drive was absolutely gorgeous. With all the recent rainfall, the pastures were the greenest green I've seen in a long time and the small calves were barely visible above the tall grasses their mothers were feeding on.

We dropped Jeremy off and headed back for McCook. Again the drive was a pleasant one. We saw a flock of turkeys with the tom in full plumage. We noticed a deer and her fawn in the valley of a beautiful pasture. We saw a big buck drinking from a farm pond.

And I found another tick.

I didn't explain earlier, but bugs bother me. They don't just bug me, they send me into a complete panic. And this little critter was attached.

I worked up the nerve to pull him out of my skin, pushed the electric window button to roll the window down just enough to send him flying and stuck my hand out the window, making sure he wouldn't fly back in.

At the same time all this was happening, Brad was driving over a set of rough railroad tracks.

My finger, which was hovering over the electric window button waiting to roll the window back up and block the cool air coming in, jumped down and pressed the window button -- up.

Not realizing exactly what was going on I began to yell at Brad -- after all it's always the guy's fault. "Stop it! You're rolling up my arm."

Brad, also not realizing what was going on, looked over -- noticed what was going on -- and burst out laughing.

The rest of the night passed without incident, and there are no visible marks left from my ordeal.

This is the way I see it -- I can either risk ending up under one of the 150- to 200-pound cement blocks in my back yard or I can risk walking across rocks of the same size.

I'm thinking I might be better off walking on them.

The decision is made. This weekend Brad and I are going fishin' -- and we're taking a stronger tick spray.