Coloring Eggs

I hope you all have a blessed and Happy Easter.

Every year the grand kids who are local get together to color eggs. It has turned into a tradition to do it on the Thursday Family Night get together before Easter. The youngest was really getting into the spirit of the coloring the eggs. Note the black eye. He and his older brother were throwing a marker at each other during Spring break and the left eye is the result. Luckily it wasn't serious but could have been. I guess she forgot I was snapping the picture as she colored the egg. I said show me the egg not look at the camera.
Everyone was getting into the act. This is the oldest grand son and Fishing Guy's Wife.
We had a good start on the work at hand.

We started out with six dozen eggs and a few cracked in cooking and a few more in coloring. Do you think we had a variety of colors?
Everyone was having a good time.
Sometime things start to tickle the funny bone during the process.
Can you tell this is Mother and Daughter?
Yes, Fishing Guy took a break from coloring and pictures and and also had his photo taken.

Go Ohio State.

Spring Surprise

Oh, how I long for the waters of Spring. The chirping of Robins, the honking of Geese, the squawking of the Blue Heron, all are in my yearnings. I love it when we get the bloom of the Dogwood Tree because I know the Crappie can't be far behind. Instead this is what I'm seeing.

We have had flooding in the area but we are safely away from the rivers and streams.

Two days before Spring started I snapped this bush because the last of Winter had decorated it with strings of ice. At least I thought it was the last of Winter.
So now we have Spring coming in with a vengeance in the form of a snow storm. Spring is telling me don't put your boat in the water now. Winter is going to stay around a little longer. Winter told me it wasn't ready to give up it's grip on NE Ohio. The snow was almost melted except for a couple of places I had stacked it to four foot high. These are the results of 6" of snow this morning. I went out this morning at 6 AM to start another clean-up.
The little bush got the brunt of the snow fall since the ice never melted from Tuesday.
Since it was early morning I was out with my shovel so as not to disturb the neighbors. My wife snapped me as I was just starting the front walk.
The plastic snow shovel can be a friend in these situations. It has some nice reinforcements so it's strong and light. This is a wet heavy snow so was a load even though it was only 6" this time. It kept coming down the whole time I shoveled.
Well, I'm done. The snow was still coming down but I'm ahead in the battle of the remnants of Winter.
Oh, how I long for the waters of Spring, a rod in my hand and a boat in which to stand. I know it's slowly coming but I feel the need to see more positive signs of Spring.

Sky Watch Friday 3-21

We had a week of grey skies all week. There was a break in clouds on Tuesday and I thought this may be the only time to get a picture. There was a little blue as the sun worked hard to shine through in my front yard.
Today after a winter storm last night and more to come over the weekend the sun came out in some nice cloud formations from the back yard. See other Sky Watch pictures links at Wiggers World.

The Vernal Equinox

The Vernal Equinox occurred at 5:48 AM on GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) this morning March 20th. The Vernal Equinox occurs when the Sun crosses the line of the Equator, which splits the Northern and Southern hemispheres of the earth. That means for my time zone EST (Eastern Standard Time in the USA), which is -5 hours from GMT, it would have been 12:48 AM. We are now using EDT (Easter Daylight Time where we set the clocks ahead to get more daylight) so the Vernal Equinox actually occurred at 1:48 AM. That means it is the first day of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The reason the date is one day earlier this year is because it is a leap year which moved the happening forward by one day.

Vernal Equinox - This word comes from the Latin meaning Equal + Nights. This means the length of the day and the night are 12 hours long. This will slowly increase as the days progress so we will have more daylight in the Northern hemisphere until the first day of Summer in June. Conversely the Southern Hemisphere will have less daylight until their first day of winter. I made a post in December, The Change of Seasons, telling you the reason the tilt of the Earth causes the seasons to change. You can read my explanation of the happenings.

I hope this helps with the understanding of the changing seasons. Does this mean we will have no more snow in NE Ohio. Absolutely not, the seasons change slowly as the Sun males its way North. We sometime have a snow in April but the snow doesn't stay long. It will continue to get warmer each week as the days go by. Spring has sprung, can fishing be far behind?

Remembering a Fishing Trip

A friend asked when I was going to post a fishing post. I pulled this out of a couple of trips from last Fall.

I've always said I like to catch Crappie. Mister Crappie enjoys a lively minnow. He will go out of his way to wrap those lips around a minnow. I use a presentation that does give me an advantage over Mr. Crappie. I use light line and only a split shot and a hook. Depending on the situation, I have a bobber above the split shot and hook to keep the minnow at the depth I want it. Other times I just depend on myself to locate the bait.

I am ready to fillet these Crappies.

Here is Fishing Guy with a nice catch from another day.

Here is my youngest Grandson after a trip to the lake. It is a mixed bag of 2 - 12" Crappies, 3 - 8" Bluegill and 1 - 16" Walleye. There were a lot more in the cooler but these were the biggest. He has been fishing 3 years and has a lot of luck on his side. He caught a couple of nice Crappie the first time he went out. My oldest Grandson has been on the boat with me for 9 Years. He started when he was four.
This is another trip and the Crappie and one 12" Perch that took a minnow. The nice thing about fishing minnows is you don't catch small Bluegill or small Perch. I don't keep Crappie unless they are 8" long and have nice fillets.

NE Ohio Weather

It is so much fun to be in a NE Ohio winter. Our roller coaster weather continue. This is a shot from a week ago Saturday when we got blasted with 25" of snow. By last Friday, we started to get rain and clouds and melting all week. I took this shot to show you the snow had almost melted away in the front of the house. Our house faces North so that side of the house is the last to melt. The snow tends to pile up pretty high when you clean the driveway and sidewalks. This was all the snow that remand. It started out in the 40's F today and the temperature fell into freezing range today.
So guess what happened this evening. The snow started to fall again as the evening approached. I took a shot looking out at the deck. I think you can see the size of the flakes. Click it to see a enlarged view if you like. We are getting so close to Spring I can feel it but not see it right now.
Oh how I long to be out on my boat on Lake Hodgson. It is three weeks to early for this feeling. The boat is still bundled up for the winter.