The one that got away on Walter Lake ~ May 22, 1997

David Heiller

Paul, Dave, Jim and I had a chilly five days in the Boundary Waters last week. It froze most of the nights, and snowed most of the days.

But we didn’t mind, because the fish were biting.

Jim caught the first one a few hours after we set up camp on the Walter Lake. It was a 27-inch lake trout. We figured its weight, using a DNR formula, at 13 pounds.

Jim and a northern in the snow.

Later that afternoon, Paul landed a 42-inch northern. It weighed 21 pounds. The next day it was Jim with a 39-inch northern and Paul with a 38-inch one, 17 and 16 pounds respectively. Then Dave pulled in a 30-inch, eight pound northern.

It’s funny how a person can put up with crummy weather when he is catching fish like that.

Well, technically, I didn’t catch a fish like that. I caught a few smaller ones that fit nicely into the frying pan. It’s all luck anyway, right?

The fish I’ll remember most is the one that got away.

It took my cisco and bobber and ran with incredible power toward the shore of the bay where we were camped. Then it veered left, toward the center of the bay.

It stopped for a few seconds to swallow the cisco. Then it started swimming again. That’s when I set the hook. Wow. It was the biggest fish I ever felt. It was almost scary, thinking what was at the end of my line.

I started reeling in. The fish and my line went back toward shore. Then it stopped. I couldn’t budge the fish.

With a sickening feeling, I realized the fish was snagged on something. Paul came over with a canoe. I hopped in the front, and we paddled to the spot. He saw a flash of the fish amidst the branches of a dead tree under the water. The fish had taken a side trip through the snag when it ran with my minnow, and was now wrapped around a branch.

I gave one more tug, the line broke, and the big fish was gone.

How big was it? A 25-pounder, at least.

I moped about the lost fish a time or two. Dave tried to console me. “It’s just a fish. It’s just life,” he said in the canoe later that day. I knew he was right. But I couldn’t help feeling sad. I couldn’t help wondering how big that fish was. Thirty pounds, easy.

I lamented the loss the next night around the campfire. Dave said, “Well, at least you can beat it in cribbage.” We all laughed, and that was the last I mentioned it. No use crying over lost lunkers.

FISHING WAS only part of our trip’s highlights. We saw a cow moose and her calf one morning. The calf was sucking milk, while the mother eyed us warily from behind white cedar branches.

Seeing a mamma and baby moose in the wild is worth at least one big fish. It’s always amazing how big they are. The cow was six feet high at her hips.

ONE afternoon two forest service employees came across the lake and checked our latrine to see if a new one would have to be dug. They were clearing portages, using axes and saws.

We were glad they followed us in. It made the trip out much easier. On the trip in, we had to climb over several trees that had blown over the portages. That’s not easy to do with a pack and canoe on your shoulders.

The rangers were both young women, fresh out of Northland College. We told them about some of our past 11 trips together. They listened politely. That impressed me. It’s nice when people know how to listen. We felt like old-timers compared to them. But they looked very competent, and no doubt they were.

“They pay you to do this job?” Jim asked them. That summed up our feelings as they paddled off to the next campsite.

ANOTHER memory: We were crossing the first portage on our way to Walter Lake. Paul was walking ahead of me. He was carrying two packs, one in front and one in back; three paddles, two life jackets, and a minnow bucket. We pride ourselves on making portages in one trip, and Paul wasn’t going to break that tradition.

Paul is not a small man. He says he weighs 300 pounds. As my daughter would say, “Yeah right, Dad.”

Paul, on an easier portage,
during a different year's trip.

We came to a spot on the portage where water from snow melt was rushing across. A half-rotten log lay on one side of the trail. Paul didn’t want to get his feet wet, so he tried walking across the log. The log cracked and sagged. Paul jolted from one side and the other, like a cement truck on a high wire. He couldn’t see his feet because of the pack in front.

We stood and watched and tried very, very hard not to laugh, the way you do when you see someone slip on a patch of ice.

As usual, Paul made it across. He always does. He is surprisingly nimble for a mountain. A few well chosen words always seem to help him. He provided a humorous moment for the rest of us insensitive louts.

The four of us plan on returning to our fishing hot spot again next year. I want to take another stab at that 35-pounder that I lost.

By the way, Walter Lake isn’t the real name of the lake. If I mentioned the real name, I might not live long enough to return there with my three fine friends.

Spring: a cure for all ills ~ May 13, 1993

David Heiller

Nature has a way of healing people, both their bodies and their minds. I’m reminded of that every year about this time. I get down on my hands and knees, and you could say I’m praying in a primitive way, though mostly I’m pulling weeds.

There was a lot of healing to be done last weekend. Cindy took sick on Thursday, and could barely get out of bed for two days. She couldn’t talk, couldn’t eat with us and help with homework and add that un-definable magic that mothers bring to a home. A cloud fell over the house.

Out of commission...

But the sun shone on Friday. Rain fell in warm spurts on Saturday, a good rain, gentle and full of life. The rhubarb grew about three inches each day. By Sunday Cindy was able to stand and talk and say thank you for her Mother’s Day cards and flowers, and the cloud was gone.

In another time and place that plague might have killed her. But not this time of year. Not with weeds being pulled from the garden by the wheelbarrow-full, and orioles singing at 6 a.m.

More proof? Noah took sick on Sunday, and had the same symptoms as Cindy. He lay on the couch all day Monday, even missed school, something he hates. He’s only nine.

I came home from work on Monday afternoon to spell Cindy. Noah and I sat on the couch, and spied a rose breasted grosbeak in the maple tree, 15 feet away. He was staring at the double-sided, Alvin Jensen deluxe bird feeder, which was filled with black sunflower seeds next to the window. He looked uncertain, like maybe he had never sat on an Alvin Jensen bird feeder before. If so, he’s one of the few birds that hadn’t.

Birds cured Noah!

After 10 seconds, he flew over, hovered in the air for five seconds, then made a gentle landing. He seemed to stare through the window at Noah and me. I couldn’t see him smile, but he probably did. His rose breast filled us with joy. What a beauty.

An hour later, Noah was playing outside with the dog. He was better, and that was no coincidence. You can’t bottle rose-breasted grosbeaks and take them like medicine three times a day. They’re much more powerful than that.

How powerful is the earth in spring? Pearl S. Buck had a character in The Good Earth who worked in the fields while she was pregnant, right up until she gave birth. Then she strapped the baby to her back, and kept working, her milk dripping onto the black soil.

It was like that last weekend. There was Sue Landwehr, crouching over her flower beds, pulling weeds. She had that contented look on her face, and you could see that she wouldn’t have traded places with anyone anywhere right then.

There was Frank Magdziarz, straight as a bean pole at age 76, looking over the 20 acres of oats that he had planted that morning, a field as spotless as a new brown carpet.

There was Steve Hillbrand, stretching in the morning sun like a cat, feeling the warmth in the air and saying in an almost surprised voice, yes, by golly, spring IS here.

There was Donna Cronin with an excited grin and an armful of trees that she had received from the Finlayson Sportsmen’s Club. She couldn’t wait to plant them on her farm.

And there was Cindy, on her feet, the flu driven back like a lifting fog, on her hands and knees, helping me pull weeds.

Ah spring. It’ll cure what ails you.

Now if only the Twins would start winning.

It was raining cats and dogs and ‘crawlers ~ May 3, 2006

David Heiller

For the first few days my eye hurt, and the vision was cloudy. It was like looking through a dirty window.

But now, wow.

It’s hard to convey what is happening.

I woke up the other morning and looked out the window and saw a squirrel on a tree branch outside the window. Without putting my glasses on. That hasn’t happened since we bought this house in 1981.

This was probably a good nightcrawler day,
but not maybe the best nightcrawler spot.

So at 6:30 a.m., when the darkness left the sky enough for me to see the ground well, I slipped on a cap and jacket and headed out. A light rain was still falling, and I knew I would get soaked, but that was just fine on a Sunday morning. No rush to get to work, no deadlines. Just a walk down the road.

And it was a good one. The driveway and township road were covered with worms. You couldn’t lay down without touching one. Not that I tried that—I don’t like them that much. But they were everywhere.

Not all the worms were full-grown, mind you. That would he asking too much. But every couple minutes, sometimes more often, I would spy a huge, healthy crawler.

Walking down the road on a Sunday morning, no traffic, serenaded by a cardinal, that’s getting close to heaven for me.

If you aren’t a fisherman, you maybe puzzled by this. What’s the big deal? Well, last summer a dozen crawlers cost $2.25, so there’s the practical side of things.

There’s another thing too though. Getting your own bait, beating the system, is fun. It adds to the adventure, and the fish seem to taste better with home-grown nightcrawlers.

Gathering nightcrawlers was a big part of my youth. We didn’t seem to get nightcrawler rains back then, at least that I was aware of. We did it the old fashioned way, with a flashlight at night in the backyards of Brownsville.

It wasn’t easy. My brother, Danny, and I would take the one flashlight that Mom owned. The batteries always seemed about half dead too. We would go into the backyard, walking as quietly as possible, then we’d carefully shine the light on the grass. The trick was to not shine the light directly on the crawler, because that would send it collapsing back into its hole. If that happened, you had to make a quick reach to get it before it disappeared. Sometimes we would get a good hold, and carefully tug it out. That took some finesse, because you didn’t want to break it or squeeze too hard and damage it.

Our yard was always pretty good pickings, but it wasn’t enough, so Danny and I would venture through the town. First we’d go to Burfields next door. We had to be careful though, because they had a houseful of fishermen too, and Billy protected his turf like a Doberman. There was a sink hole below their house where they would throw the kitchen waste, and it was full of worms and crawlers, but Billy did everything short of erecting a guard tower and 50 caliber machine gun to keep us out of that prime spot.

Everett Nelson’s garden was also a ‘crawler haven, but we had to be desperate to venture there. He seemed to have a sixth sense of when the crawlers and the little boys would be out. He always seemed to be looking out his window on the south side of the house on the best nightcrawler nights. We’d hear a yell from him and scramble off to another spot.

But there were plenty of good spots and friendly yards. Mrs. Bulman’s. The Collerans. Hansens. Bill Miller’s. Brownsville seemed to have a lot more open territory then.

One night I gathered such a windfall that I counted out 100 crawlers and took them to Serres’ Marina the next morning. Uncle Joe gave me a penny a piece for them. He sold nightcrawlers at his bait store at the marina for 25 cents a dozen, I recall. I don’t know if Joe really needed them or if he was just doing his good deed.

Last Sunday wasn’t quite that good: I picked up 80 in just under an hour. Still it was a lot of fun. Putting them to use will be even better.

Dad will enjoy building swingsets, if it kills him ~ May 8, 1986

David Heiller

Getting a swingset is a milestone in a child’s life. Assembling one is a milestone in an adult’s life.

The brand new swingset! They loved it!

I started assembling our Flexible-Flyer swingset—or “play gym” as they are now called—at 6:30 p.m. Friday night. I finished at 1:30 Sunday afternoon. In between working, I ate and slept. That’s all. The swingset cost $139.00, at the store, but counting my labor at minimum wage, it cost $203.10. No one who watched me put it together would pay minimum wage though. A sheltered workshop could have done better.

I suspected trouble when I opened the box, and found the owner’s manual. It was 13 pages long. KEEP THIS MANUAL, it warned in stern bold face letters. “It contains assembly instructions, anchoring tips, maintenance and safety tips, and ordering information.” There was even a CAUTION on the front. I read it nervously, suspecting something from the surgeon general: Assembling swingsets may be hazardous to your mental health. No, it warned that kids heavier than 75 pounds had better find another place to play.

Noah enjoying the swingset,
Malika enjoying Noah

On the second page was the line that adorns the front of every owner’s manual, from pyramids to space shuttles: “Read the entire manual completely before assembly to familiarize yourself with all parts.” I have never met anyone who has done this. On this introductory page, it also told about safety, pre-assembly instructions, and tools required. I was relieved to see the only tools needed were a screwdriver, adjustable wrench, and pliers.

The next page told how to anchor the swingset—oops, the “gym set.” I learned that it could be anchored in concrete; or with ground anchors or augers. Why were they telling me how to anchor it when I hadn’t even taken out the parts yet? To build confidence, I would bet.

Page four got into the nitty-gritty: Assembling the A-frame. I removed the two plain chin bars, the slide chin bar, the end and center legs, the two top bars, and a whole pile of bolts, lock washers, and nuts. Here was the first good piece of advice on the nuts and bolts: “Place the contents in one end of shipping carton to prevent loss.” I discovered why soon enough, as I dumped them onto a plastic bag in the grass. It was about this time that my wife turned our son loose from the house. He streaked to my side, and began hefting the chin bars like a weight lifter about to celebrate his third birthday. He carried them to various parts of the lawn. Then he rearranged the center poles to the end, and put the end poles in the middle. While I straightened them, he discovered the pile of nuts and bolts, and dumped them into the grass. I returned to pick them up, yelling at Noah to not touch anything. By this time, he had found the screwdriver and pliers, and had carried them a safe distance from his crabby father.

The work was totally worth it!

“Noah,” I said in a voice bordering a scream, “give me my tools. These are not toys. And don’t touch those bolts and poles. I’m working.” How can you be working when you are making me a swingset, he must have thought.

Noah went to bed shortly after that. I got the A-frame assembled just as darkness fell. I had to substitute two of the ¼ inch from my own rusty collection and I ended up with four 5/16 inch bolts left over. But the frame was standing, and I slept a little better for it.

The next morning I tackled the air-glide assembly. A neighbor came over with his two kids. They played with Noah, but our daughter motored her 11-month frame toward the pile of bolts and nuts. As the three adults struggled with the air glide, Mollie counted the bolts and nuts out into the grass. We caught her half way through, then took turns holding her while the others worked through the assembly.

I asked my friend if he had ever assembled a swingset before. “Oh sure, a couple,” he said nonchalantly, But I could see his hands start to shake with the memory, and his eyes glazed over for a second. “I never read the directions either.”

He stuck with us till the lawn swing was assembled, then bolted for home. That left me with the slide, trapeze bar and swings. I finished them up by the following morning. I had to resort to one more tool not mentioned in the owner’s manual—a hammer. Some of the bolts—the ones we could find—just didn’t seem to fit.

The swingset is now up. I still have those four extra bolts, plus two nuts and nine lock washers. Noah announced as I finished the slide that he wanted to play with his sled. But he will get over that. I’m going to try to steer him into engineering as a career. Then he can be a professional gym set assembler, or at least put one up for his own family easier than I did.

The bluebird made it official ~ May 3, 2003

David Heiller 

Tree swallows were weaving a net over us last Saturday morning. They seemed to perch on every Al Jensen bluebird house in sight.

Bluebird

Tree swallow

I have nothing against tree swallows. They are confident and beautiful, and they eat a lot of mosquitoes. All great traits in a bird.

But we needed a bluebird. They are on the top of my list in the bird world. They always remind me of my Grandma Schnick, for some reason, of the good old days. Their red breast and soft blue color almost take my breath away.

I had staked a claim on the bench in the backyard, with muffins, coffee, and a banjo. Cindy joined me. That’s when we started looking for bluebirds.

“We usually see them by your Mom,” I said. Lorely’s ashes are buried on a little knoll next to the pond.

“And there it is,” Cindy said. I’m not making this up. The bluebird appeared as if on cue, on the bird house where we always see it.

The little knoll by the pond, a favorite
 bluebird nesting spot at our house.

Heaven has a lot of definitions, but that spot, that sight, and that moment was one of them.

Spring got officially underway then too. The calendar said it had happened six weeks earlier, but that warm moment was when it kicked in.

A hint of it came a few days earlier, on May 1, when I practically jumped out of bed at 5:45. It happens every year like clockwork, a feeling that I can’t lay in bed, that life is too short and the day is too perfect. Is it something in the light? Something in my genes? I don’t know. I only wish it would last all year. If I could bottle up that enthusiasm, I would be rich.

A lot of little things lead up to spring. Melting snow, maple syrup, frogs. Mud, grass fires, rain. The Minnesota Twins!

Bluebird babies in one of
our nesting boxes.

Then all of a sudden, it’s here. That’s what hit last Saturday morning, when that bluebird flew into the spotlight.

I was worried that I might miss it this year.

Things have been hectic. But I had enough sense to slow down last Saturday and soak it in a bit.

My thoughts had a bid of sadness with them too. We are going to be moving this fall, and in all likelihood, this will be our last spring on this property. The land, the garden, the birds, they all seem as familiar and comfortable as a favorite pair of jeans. I looked at it all last Saturday and thought, “Man I’m going to miss this.” You get attached to a back yard after 22 years!

The garden with its endless battles and blessings. The pond with its skating and swimming. The campfire, where we visited with friends. The sauna. Heck; even the outhouse brings a wry smile.

So many memories. I’ll have the rest of my life to remember them. It’s too soon to dwell on them here.

So I’ll just count my blessings for another wonderful spring—and that includes a big thank you for the glorious rain we got on Monday and Tuesday of this week. I hope you are enjoying your spring, and your bluebirds, equally as much.

Thanks to the rain ~ May 19, 1994

by David Heiller

It rained all day Saturday, a light mist of a rain. Some people probably cussed at it. But from the garden it made me glad. That’s where I spent most of the day, shoveling, raking, tilling. My T-shirt stuck to my back like, well, like a wet T-shirt. My gloves got coated with mud. So did my boots, and the rake and fork and tiller. We were all one soggy mess.

But the rain felt good, all six-tenths of an inch.

Kids love the rain.

We weren’t exactly in a drought. It had snowed eight inches just 17 days earlier. But the potatoes and lettuce and peas needed a drink. So did the corn and alfalfa. So did the roadsides along Highway 23, where train sparks have sent firemen a-scurrying and trees a-dying.

So did the perennials that Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson gave me last fall, forget-me-nots and delphiniums, primrose and daisies, and a bunch of others that I can’t even identify. Their leaves sprinted out of the ground with the rain.

We heard it start in the middle of the night. Cindy woke me up at 4:30 a.m. to say, “Listen, it’s raining.” There’s nothing better than lying in bed next to your lover and listening to a gentle rain fall on the roof over your head.

The rain didn’t stop our children. Noah was out on the driveway with his trucks and cars, wearing my rain coat and making grader noises and explosions for when he blew up the graders and trucks.

Malika came out onto the deck and skipped rope. “I did 23 backwards,” she called out to me in the garden.

“Great!” I answered.

They played with determination. Noah rode his bike over to Malika and said something, probably about guns and dirt bikes. Mollie lifted her chin and skipped on. Nothing beats skipping rope to an eight-year-old girl.

Rain doesn’t stop anything. The leaves on the trees seem to grow before your eyes, a bright and delicate green. The peas that you barely saw poking out of the dusty garden inch upward out of now-black earth. The farm fields that have just been seeded look ready to spring to life.

Oh rain! Oh joy!

Birds swoop and sing in the rain, feasting on mosquitoes, which in turn are feasting on me. Unfortunately, the rain brings bugs to life too. Orioles and hummingbirds politely take turns at their sugar water bar, while goldfinches and rose breasted grosbeaks gobble down sunflower seeds at theirs.

My thoughts turned to the Boundary Waters, how pretty that is in the rain, the pine trees and moss on the rocks and gray water full of rain drops and life. I’m heading that way with three friends this week, for the seventh straight year.

The rain made me think of those three friends, and of fishing for northerns in the Kawishiwi River. I thought of that big one Dave had on three years ago, how Jim missed it with the net when it made a pass at the canoe. Then it spit out the hook in Dave’s face like a guy that just hit a three run homer.

The rain makes me think of people like Elaine Pearson and Dorothy Nelson, how nice they were to share their garden plants and their knowledge with me.

The sun came out on Sunday. My rainy day thoughts came to an end. I was glad for the sunshine. But it’s nice to give thanks for the rain too.

The call of the garden ~ April 16, 1992

 David Heiller

The sun was shining, the birds singing, the bees buzzing. You name the spring cliché, and it was there last Thursday morning.

Oh gardens!
Little Claire lends a helping hand later in the season

And the garden was the biggest magnet of them all. I could feel its pull even as I knotted my tie, grabbed my briefcase, and headed out the door for work.

I almost made it too. But the garden looked so inviting. I walked to it. A week of unseasonable weather had dried out the raised beds. I grabbed a clump of some nameless weed. It pulled out easily. I shook the dirt and earthworms from the roots, and tossed it on the grass.

I was hooked.

Back in the house, I slipped a pair of coveralls over my dress clothes. Tie and all. I grabbed the garden fork, and went back to the garden.

Loosen the soil, pull up the weed, shake off the dirt, toss the weed aside. Repeat. Repeat. Again. Again.

Malika helps to plant.

I found a carrot that had been passed over last fall. I wiped the dirt off with my hands, and ate it. It tasted as sweet and crisp as the ones last fall.

At first my movements felt stiff and awkward. I felt the damp soil soak through the coveralls, through my slacks, hitting my knees. My left knee groaned as I got up and down. It has pulled in one too many gallons of sap this spring. My back popped a few times, like plucked strings on a banjo.

My mind whirred: What am I doing. I should be selling ads, taking pictures, writing stories. I moved to a new bed, raked back the newspaper and straw mulch. The grass underneath was brown and dead, so I dug it up, widening the bed by half a foot, shaking out the rhizomes, tossing them aside.

Then there is the joy of the harvest.
Shelling peas with Noah.

My thoughts turned to Binti, our dog who died last fall. She should be here, I thought, sniffing in the dead grass, looking for mice. She always hung out at the garden when I worked there, keeping me company, and vice versa. This will be our first garden without her in 13 years.

My movements became more sure, more mechanical. I’m not sure why, but it always takes about half an hour of a job before I really feel sure of what I’m doing. The crick left my knee. My lower back muscles quit snapping. My mind lost its doubt. Work can wait a bit. The ads will get sold, the photos taken, the stories written.

A few honey bees buzzed past my ear. No worry about getting stung. They have other things on their minds. Hello, it’s spring, and I’m hungry. Praise the Lord and pass the flowers!

Collin helps plant peas.
 Everybody's got to get into the act!

The sun felt warm. A steady west wind blew over the garden, bringing the moist smell of fresh soil and manure. I started sweating, cool and damp, like spring soil.

Two hours, that’s all I needed of this. The garden looked fresh and new. I felt that way too. Then the coveralls got hung. I straightened my tie, and the ads got sold, the photos taken, the stories written. At least this one did.

The next day, it snowed six inches. Only in Minnesota. I took my coveralls from their hook, folded them, and put them in the closet a bit sadly. Thursday seemed like a dream. The garden looked like it did last November.

But deep down, I know better, and I bet a lot of you do too. It’s there, waiting, like a magnet. Soon it will be pulling us again.