Eric and I took our trek to Madison County Soil Water Conservation District (SWCD) to pick up our minnows, large mouth bass and catfish for stocking our ponds this morning. It is about an hour drive from our house to Route 12B just north of Hamilton. I know the route well as my hip operation was in Hamilton. We arrived about 9:40; there were only 3 trucks getting fish. The supplier was Hicklings Fish Hatchery from Edmenston.

Eric had a good time watching them net the fish and had to look at each bucket before I dumped them into our trash bag lined garbage cans. It started to rain as we finished up loading our fish and we encountered heavy downpours on our drive back. The ride home seemed much quicker. When we got home it was raining lightly. We dumped as much water out of the cans as possible and transported the 500 minnows, 100 bass and 50 catfish to the ponds. The minnows and bass were distributed between both ponds and the catfish all went into the larger, lower pond. All fished survived the trip. Eric and I ended up so wet and muddy we shed our shoes, socks and jeans in the basement and had to completely change our clothes to get dry.

Yesterday I called Oneida County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) to get a recommendation for local fish hatcheries that would supply minnows for my ponds.  They were at a loss, as they no longer supplied fish and could only recommend Gander Mtn (!?!).  I asked if adjoining county SWCDs still sold fish and they said that Madison County might, but they were uncertain if one had to be a resident of the county.

I called Madison County SWCD and they couldn’t have been more helpful.  By luck they were calling in their fish order this week and took my order for 500 fathead minnows, 100 large mouth bass fingerlings, and 50 catfish fingerlings to be picked up this Friday.  I need to bring 30+ gallon containers 2/3rds full of the pond water.  I am pumped.  Only a few years from fishing now.

This past weekend was rainy and cold. I had to take care of Eric so he and I spent 2 hours to organize our “camping room”. We have a small ex-bedroom upstairs designated as “The Camping Room”. In it is a closet of clothes, a hutch with medical supplies and three western saddles, but the rest of the room has camping gear. Over the past 35 years Kathryn & have accumulated a lot of camping gear.

• 6 sleeping bags & 6 thermarests
• 5 tents and a couple of tarps
• assorted winter camping clothes
• Crazy Creek chairs, space blankets, and ponchos
• 4 backpacks & 5 daypacks
• 4 stoves, cooking kits, pots, Outback Oven, cups, plates, etc.
• lots of duffel bags, dry bags and stuff sacks