Ice Fishing

Also back in December i went up to Onaway to go ice fishing. After getting really excited i started working on my own tip-ups and poles. I had made a few before so i tried getting a little creative this time.

Here's the basic shape, cut out of a piece of 4" PVC

The spool i made by splitting one of the ball pit balls in half and taped to a piece of 1" PVC. Don't worry i still have a few left.

Here's the technical bits. The cantilever spring is attached to the pole (an old wire hanger) which is held in place by the magnet, which is set into foam in the spool.

Final product. The flag is old survey ribbon. And the round flaps on the side are to help prevent the hole from freezing up.

The poles are just aluminum tube connected to a PVC handle. The fishing line runs inside the tube so no need for eyelits. But there's no flex in the pole. Also i did end up painting these black as well.

The reels were made out of the bottom of beer cans and some PVC. They didn't work very well either. I spent most of my time on the tip-ups and these were sort of an after thought.

Now i'd like to tell you that i took these up north and caught some monster 36" pike or something. Unfortunately the gas powered auger we used had something wrong with the motor. There was no torque and it only cut one hole before running out of gas. The view was great though.

Final Lotus of the Year

Well as of right now the lotus plants are in the basement for the winter.

I didn't want the roots to freeze so i brought them inside. When it warms up enough in the spring i'll take them back out.
Here's what i have previously written about trying to grow them:
Sprouting Lotus Seeds
Lotus Update
Lotus in the Sun

Anyway going back a few months ... I was down near the Ohio border again for work and saw the lotus fields. Here they are in August, in a channel off of Lake Erie.
A view of all the lotus beds.
There were millions of them.
The view from the causeway.
A view of one of the rivers near a power plant to the north, flowing into Lake Erie.
Here's what the area looks like from above. The water is Lake Erie, the highway is I-75.
Back at my house the hot 90 degree summer days really made them grow big. The sun, heat and humidity outside caused them to take off. Here was one of my first aerial leaves before it opened up.
There were around four aerial leaves per pot.
The lotus effect on the leaf.

Some close-ups.

Back down near Monroe, Michigan i found a place where you can see them up close. It's visible from I-75 but you have to loop around to get there.

The leaves there grew much bigger then the ones in my backyard.
The seed pods which grew from the center of the flower.
By this time a lot of the seed pods had turned brown.
A couple of them broke off their stalks.
But there was a ton of them. If you figure that each seed pod has around 20 seeds on average, you can see how many seeds are here.

Although like i said earlier, seeds aren't the main way that these grow. They spread from the tubers in the mud, like how grass in your yard spreads.
Here they are in September. The leaves are turning brown and starting to go dormant.
The ones in Monroe had already turned brown.
This is right before i cut the leaves off, drained the water and moved them to the basement.
I'm expecting great things next spring. Hopefully all the energy is stored up in the tubers and will cause the plant to shoot up bigger then they grew from a seed this year.