Fire, Apples, and Trophy Trout

Saturday was by far the best outdoor day of the year! The wind was calm, the sun was shining, and and we got er done....had a big list to chew off so I spent Friday night laying it out as best as humanly possible.

So I guess I'll back up to Friday night late and this guy was riding shotgun with me. We were delivering a couple deer heads and a bunch of trout fishing gear and supplies to a client out in the country...


Saturday morning I started out at a prescribed burn clinic with the Peoria County SWCD. Here are some pics:





From there I made it out to help the guys plant 70 apple trees at our hunting farm near Ellisville:


Actually it was many varieties of apples, pears and persimmon trees. Each tree gets caged individually for protection from the deer and the white tree guards will stay on for about another month for protection from rabbits and mice.


So then I had to fly to Brimfield for some trophy trout fishing for an awesome fishing/eating event. En Route I stopped at ACE hardware in Farmington to grab some last minute fishing supplies and right next door is a grocery store so I picked up some corn and chicken liver and some last minute grocery items....

At 4 pm I made it to Brimfield and kicked off the trout fishing party! Our goal was to catch enough trout to feed 30 people....its a good thing the trout were biting, cause there were more like 40 people or more showing up for dinner:

Trent started off by landing this monster:


Rand followed it up with a beast of his own:


Pretty much everyone got in on the fish catching action:





Chef Todd was busy, so instead of pulling this off by myself, I just put all the guests to work cleaning the fish, prepping the veggies, mixing the trout chowder, wrapping the fish stuffed with veggies and bacon with aluminum foil and even grilling too... Assembly line delegation at its finest:




So every speck of food was gobbled up! Right there is a perfect example of enjoying a 1/3 acre fishing pond for fishing, food, fun, and fellowship! Everyone had a blast from start to finish and many kids caught there first fish and definitely cleaned and prepped their first fish...There will be many more fun fish fry's from this little pond throughout the year...next one will be during mushroom season......bluegills and mushrooms....

So I packed about as much as humanly possibly can be packed into one day in the great outdoors! Was just an awesome day that was topped off with some late night NCAA basketball. I was pretty tired during that last game....

Actually Saturday capped off a pretty awesome week in general. We picked up a load of Apple and Pear trees on Tuesday down in Missouri.


Allen and I installed a bunch down in Southern Illinois Wed and Thurs while Justin and Jared were installing orchards in Henry, IL and Canton, IL:


I have some real good clients down in Southern Illinois who have become really good friends! They have a little guesthouse tucked in the woods that we stay at every chance we get. Which is really convenient cause we go through their zone several times each year. Anyhow what I am getting at is we stop in every chance we get, cause Connie is literally one of the best cooks on the planet. Seriously no one compares to a full course Connie dinner.

Chef Todd is tops when it comes to wild game and fish, but he admittingly lacks in the dessert category. I turned off my diet for Wednesday evening! After Chicken Cordon Blue, almond bacon green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy, and glazed carrots, we had to decide between cherry or peanut butter pie....Im not good with such decisions, how can you choose just one?


Despite my little feast on Wednesday, I have been working out with my fam 3 days a week and am down 21 lbs in exactly 30 days....I am feeling stronger than ever and the extra energy is definitely an added bonus to eating all those fruits and veggies....

The snow today is definitely a downer, but I've already rerouted our early week plans and will be rockin full throttle once this stuff melts off!