Orange Hat Enterprises

06/09/2025

1 Photo

07/21/2024

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0dfDc9wD2SSQ6bxWYq3PMxs4Q

A helper brought this little guy to me earlier this summer. He caught it thinking he was doing it and me a favor, but I thought better and released him immediately. From the photo we ID'd him as a Kestrel. I little bit later I was passing buy one of the nesting boxes I built and put out specifically for making a home for a barn owl. As I passed another baby falcon (or possibly the same one?) fledged out of the house. More than happy to provide a home for a falcon rather an owl.

1 Photo

07/09/2024

“Emehrgensee, come kwick , emehrgensee!” the women implored with a heavy Slavic accent as she pounded on the door. On the other side, Bob and Gonzo snoozed like widowers in church.
When they first started going on their pilgrimage to Northern Minnesota some thirty years earlier, they would have been half snockered and entirely awake this time of the day between morning prayer and Vespers. But on this day, they’d sipped from the cup sparingly, slept fitfully and snored softly.
Earlier in the week, they befriended the woman, her husband and another couple, all staying in a cabin a couple doors away by sharing beer, bait and brats. They may have forgot to pack a change of underwear, but they always had more to share of the holy fishing camp trinity of meat, worms and Budweiser.
Share they did and new friends they made.
All four of them were Polish immigrants from Chicago. The men spoke passable English, the women not so much. They had a lot in common: Polish ancestry, Chicago area addresses, and a love of fishing.
The emergency cropped up on the sixth day. God may have rested on the seventh, but it’s bit different for fishers on a week-long sabbatical to Island Lake. The seventh day is for the long drive home; and a good part of the sixth is for packing up the gear, pulling out the boat and getting everything ready for an O-dark-thirty departure. There is a lull in the late afternoon – a time for reflection if you will – between the bait being set free and the alarm going off.
It was in this state of grace that the two were je**ed awake. Although getting a bit long in the tooth, our apostles of the hook, line and sinker response time was short. Just a step behind the damsel in distress, they followed her through the door to confront the emergency: a newly opened mason jar of homemade vodka.
Never in any time or place was there a more joyous communion.

07/02/2024

Bull snakes have turned up at Bee Haven Farm off and on the past 17 years. They’re harmless, part of the ecosystem, and I’m not afraid of them.

But they still startle me every time.

Once I picked up a tarp that had been outside in the rain. I drug it into the barn to refold it and noticed that there was something heavy in one of the creases. Water, I thought, and lifted one end high to shake it out. The big guy shown dumped out on the floor and curled up against the wall. Did you know that bull snakes shake their tail? Can you image the sound that it makes rattling up against metal siding?

Yes, I about jumped out of my underwear but soon recovered my composure to get a photo before shooing it out of the barn with a broom.

It’s been years since I’ve seen one, at least until today. The little fellow was curled up on top of the storage batteries in my workshop. I have no idea how this three-footer got into my snug shop. But I saw where it went into a crack between the dry wall and the insulation.

If you look closely, you can see the tail.

I’ve been thinking of switching to briefs from boxer shorts.

07/01/2024

July is a special time at Bee Haven Farms. The prairie grass is springing tall, the forest lush and the pollinator field rife with wild flowers. I love showing the place off with an electric golf cart that holds 4 (including me).

Grab a couple of friends and come visit, cut flowers and take some home with you. No charge but donations are welcome. There’s also some honey left over.

Call me at 319-321-2644 or email [email protected] or thru Facebook.

06/21/2024

All in the spelling

She was cute in a tomboy way. Short blond hair strayed from under a well worn baseball cap. Muscular shoulders filled out a softball jersey. Strong, tanned arms led to hands cradling her cell on the bar.

The Big Falls Municipal Liquor Store and Spots Bar sits on Main Street in Northome, Mn., population 155. The “Big Falls” part probably comes from the nearby town of International Falls. And “Municipal” because it’s joined by an open door to the city hall. Locals can drop in to “The Muni”, pay their water bill and enjoy a quaff without going out in the elements.

My fishing partner and I stopped to take a break from sitting in a boat without much biting, and we hoped to get an angling tip or two from locals. There were only three stools unoccupied, and we saddled up on two, leaving one space between us and the young woman.

On the other side of her, an older couple dined on burgers and fries.

Normally, I would try to start a conversation with the person nearest to me but her attention steadied on the phone. Plus she was young and attractive, and I’m loathe to be that old guy who picks on young women. And there was something else. Maybe “she” was a “he.” Probably not, but these days you can never tell. It was the not knowing that made it feel awkward.

So I talked across her to the older couple.

“Are you folks from here?” I asked, and they were happy to share. They had retired to the north woods a decade ago. He was a truck driver, she a nurse. Somehow the conversation strayed to military service. He did a tour in the Navy during the Vietnam war, and I served in the Army.

With this, the gal looked up and said in a confident yet feminine voice, “You’re veterans! I want to thank you both for your service.” Then she stood and offered us both a firm hand shake.

“What brings you here,?” I asked with the ice broken. “Were you born here, come here for a job, or the fishing?”

Her response caught me off guard. “I’m what’s called a male woman.”

I consider myself well read, travelled and do the crossword puzzle. Not only have I heard of, but can correctly spell, everything from A-gender to Zo*****ia. But I’d never heard of anyone identifying as a male woman, and it threw me for a bit of a loop. “What was she trying to tell me?” my mind puzzled.

She sensed the figurative smoke wafting from ears and volunteered, “No,” she said, “I work for the post office.”

05/06/2024

Read it here first: 1st place Cubs going all the way this year.