Spring Management Marathon

Been working the boys 12-15 hour days for the last 2 weeks. Here is just bits and pieces. Its 4:02 pm Saturday afternoon and I just woke up from a nap. Yep, its been a busy 2 weeks and I was running on fumes.....

Last friday morning I stocked over 1,000,000 golden shiners out at Otter Creek Preserve. Mike and I stepped into the woods at our last dump and found 30 nice morels! Then I headed over past Bloomington to Saybrook, IL and electrofished an awesome 8 acre rock quarry in the evening. Here are some pics:

Then I headed to Canton and dropped off some fish to Calvary Baptist Church for their Outdoor Expo on Saturday. Here is there website link: http://www.midwestoutdoorexpo.com/ They set up our portable fishing pond and the kids had a blast, I heard the event was great, so look for that one next year! Got finished at 9 pm and went to sleep at our place in Norris. Saturday I was up at 5 am and loaded up a truckload of catfish for the Outdoor Expo and dropped them off on my way to a consultation past Canton. Spent 4 hours talking about fish and deer and then headed back to Norris to get a bunch of grass seeded. We worked ground till dark.

Then Sunday we all headed out to Otter Creek to spend the day mushroom hunting and crappie fishing. WOW, what a day! We actually all skipped church (mom, dad, justin, katy, and my clan) which doesnt happen too much, but was a much needed day to spend outside at one of the most amazing places on the planet. Walking miles up and down hills wasnt exactly relaxing, but surprisingly very rejuvenating! Just what the doctor ordered after a crazy busy last month.

We found 191 morels and dad caught 70 crappies while we were out in the woods. Dinner Sunday evening was just simply amazing!

Monday morning early, I went out to a big project we are coordinating in Fulton County. It is the ultimate outdoorsmans lodge! I will have more pictures, blueprints, and descriptions of this lodge we are building coming up as time permits, but here are just a couple pics:




Then we loaded up a mobile cabin home for a client and hauled it up to the fox chain of lakes. Not an easy thing hauling a cabin through Chicago!

When we finally made it up to the chain we set the trailer level, hooked up the utilities, and then went out to eat with Joe at a local bar and devoured 'extreme' burgers at 10 pm. We just slept in the trailer and started working on building the deck and screen room at 5 am. We worked till about 4 pm and headed home cause we had to deliver fish wednesday morning.

So wednesday we were again up before the sun and delivered jumbo yellow perch and golden shiners to 17 different lakes from Goodfield, Congreville, Morton, East Peoria, to the other side of the river near Canton, Elmwood, Middlegrove, Yates City, and Victoria. Very full day.

Back on the road up to the Chain of lakes at 4 am Thursday morning and we worked on the deck until about 8 pm we headed in town to celebrate Cinco de Mayo at an authentic mexican joint. Boy do I feel sorry for the plumbing system at the RV park the next day, everyone that went down to the restroom came back with some sort of burning on the other end story.........

Friday morning we slept in till 6 and actually took some pics of our progress:

We took our dimensions for our screened opening and the trailer skirting and will be back up in a couple weeks to finish er off. Then we had some very pleasant chicago traffic on our way home which at one point we drove 4 miles in one hour. By the time we finally made it to the scene of the accident we had no sympathy for the people who collided into each other.

Saturday morning I picked up Noah at 6 am from Norris. He was camping out at the lake with his grandma. We loaded up a whole bunch of jumbo yellow perch and took them up to Victoria, Il to a fishing club. Then we dropped off a couple hundred lbs of fish food to another fishing club in the area and also dropped off a fish feeder to a different guy in that area. Here are some pics of Noah helping me today.

Then we headed into Peoria to load up again and headed out to El Paso, IL to drop off another load of fish food and some lake supplies to a client. Thats when I made it home about 2 pm and both Noah and I crashed together for a couple hours....Now Brook and I are headed to a MercyMe concert at the Civic Center.

Monday we will be heading to Lincoln, Nebraska with a full crew of 5 guys to build two big docks, then heading down I-80 we will be stopping in at Cedar Rapids, Iowa on our way back to electrofish 5 ponds on Thursday and Friday. Saturday we will stop in Bloomfield, IA and finally will be home late Saturday night. When we get back to work locally on May 16th we have a list a mile long to get accomplished.

Gonna be an exciting next few months.....