The Schweitzer’s Place

Yesterday was my first day of fishing for the year. I took a quick trip to the Assabet river with the fly rod and took several “practice” casts. I was out there less than an hour, but it was still a good time.

I tied on gree wooly bugger and a small grey nymph. I didn’t catch or see a thing. I think I’ll do a little research over the next couple days to find some alternatives. There were definitely a lot of small grey flying creatures all over the place. Maybe I should learn more about bugs.

Boys grow up with a fascination with bugs…then they must study them to fish later in life. It is amazing how life is a big circle…isn’t it!

The weather today is looking like a great day. I can’t seem to get the fish off the brain. I think I’ll go again when I get home tonight…and go again Saturday…and maybe again Sunday.

Comparing New England to AZ

Another Nor’easter is blasting New England today. I had to dig my car out to get to work. I’ll need to dig myself out again to leave for home and I’ll probably need to dig back in when I get home.

Ya, I probably should have just stayed home like most of the rest of the office, but I had some stuff I needed to get out. It is a little fun to drive in the snow since there are not too many other cars out.

Look at this weather report from my iGoogle home page. That snowman there is just wrong! And to think it is a smiling snowman. I am going to go home today and build a snowman, with all the snow I have to move from my driveway. Then I am going to smack it with my snow shovel. That’ll show it!

OK, so it isn’t that bad, but I did laugh when I saw a snowman on the weather page describing “heavy snow”.

I hope you Tucson folks are enjoying the day. Let me know how long your bike ride was after you soak in the sun this afternoon.

Only two more months till spring…..

Here is our list of places to go and things to do in New England. There are so many fun things to do and we want to accomplish as many as we can. So, this is the list setting our goals. If you think we are missing something important, please let us know! As we work through the list we will provide an update.

We changed our website to a WordPress site. Joomla is awesome and I still use it a lot, but WordPress fits what we do on our personal site much better. What do you think? Now you can comment on our site :)

We are working on migrating our photo gallery now. Check back to see all our super cool photos.

This past weekend was the most beautiful I have experienced since being here in New England. The weather was perfect and the scenery was picturesque. Brad and I decided to take advantage of the weather and go for a little hike. I was excited about the idea until he said those words that I thought were of days long ago…

Every now and again, usually at the onset of a new season, I feel like changing the look of the site. I wanted something simple, yet would reflect the time of year we are in. A season of change. My favorite, especially here in New England. Autumn is the most beautiful time of year. The picture for the banner on the site was actually taken right near our house. The road you see is the road leading to our little neighborhood. It is like many other roads here-reminding us of the beauty of each new season and how living simply doesn’t have to be a thing of the past.

I guess it is time to get the wood working photos back online. Some of these are pretty old, and some are brand new. I have them in an online catalog at my new woodworking site. I’ll see if I can keep them updated and add better descriptions so you can tell what each item is. Of course, that will just take away from my wood working time so I’ll need to find a balance in there some where.

I have a pile of wood in my garage that has been sitting there for over 2 years. It is time for me to turn it into saw dust and see what comes out of it!

It is bright and early as I sit writing this. I am taking a break from moving a bunch of items from upstairs to the downstairs. So, I sit here in a total mess. It is an overwhelming mess. I found the computer where Brad had the site open. I didn’t realize it has been so long since I have written an article or even been to the site. I see Brad added some “fishing reports” section. Whatever. That’s all I can say about his ability to fish and actually catch something.

Today is a day with much going on. The first of which is new flooring is going in upstairs. I am pretty excited because this has been long awaited. When we bought the house, we had decided we would eventually change out the carpet that currently resides. So, today is the day. Brazilian Redwood. Sounds pretty, huh? I will load some pics once it is all finished.

The other big deal about today is it is Brad’s last day at his current job. More on that to come. It is amazing all of the friends he has made and the support he has been given on his way out. We talked just yesterday about how in the teaching profession, those things are far-fetched. In a profession that is under-paid and under-appreciated, one is lucky to get a wave “good-bye” as they leave the school building. I can’t even fathom why the teaching profession is the way it is. How t.v. personalities can get paid as much as they do, but the person who is helping to raise 10-30 of our country’s future EVERYDAY of the week is paid merely peanuts. I guess it is a reflection of what a majority of our country really values-”entertainment”. That is another issue I am feeling annoyed with this morning. Just in the past week, I have seen a television movement taking over my community. T.V’s in automobiles is nothing new, but now they are in the check-out lines in the grocery store and get this-the gas station as I am pumping my gas. Are people really that addicted to t.v? I want to encourage all of you to turn the idiot box off and do any of the infinite amount of things you could be doing that are productive instead of watching and buying into the “entertainment” industry.

I finally found this “hidden” little pond. I was really looking for a new launch point for the Sudbury River, but I figured I’d try this small pond out and see if it connects to the river. I arrived around 12:35 and left at 15:45. It was warm outside and the wind was blowing about 10 MPH. Wind like that is a challenge on a kayak, but I managed. I used the pumpkinseed worm and a black sinking rubber frog. I was skunked on the worms, but had several hits on the frog. I did actually catch a fish this time. I caught a nice little bass, but he swallowed my hook so I had to cut off and pray for him. I caught the bass near the boat ramp around 15:35. I tossed the frog near the shore under some trees and had a few hits. Finally one decided to stick on!

While paddling around I was looking for a way to connect to the Sudbury River. I am sure you can do it, but I didn’t want to bush whack in the kayak. I know I was close because I could hear some guys talking on the river, but I just couldn’t break through. Oh well….I guess I need to go out there with a person that knows or wait till winter to see how close they really are. 

Today I woke up at 5:30 and arrived at Rocky Pond in Boylston, MA at 6:20. Rocky pond has a floating island and tons of weeds for fish to hang around in. I used my trusty old rubber worms and paddled around in the pond in the kayak. I started off with a black curly tail worm, changed to a pumpkin seed straight tail worm and also tried a 9″ green paddle tail worm. I was skunked again. I did have one really nice hit and the fish tied itself up in a bunch of weeds. After a couple minutes of working my way over to untie the mess, the fish shook loose. Looks like I’ll need to take some Fishing 101 courses to see if I can remember how to fish. I stayed around there until about 8:55.

The weather was very nice and the water was clear. A slight breeze (maybe 8 or 10 MPH) picked up just before I started leaving.