Goodbye to our Best Friend

Today we said a teary and sad goodbye to our best buddy Neo (the wonder dog). As I sit here now, it occurs to me (after many writes and deletes of this post) there are no words to describe how much we will miss him, how important he was to us and how glad we are that we had him in our family. For those of you who knew Neo well and probably have a muddy paw print covered shirt from a big dog's hello, here is a small tribute to our pal...

We know our little house on the prarie will not be the same without Neo and although he will be deeply missed, he will never be forgotten.

There are so many memories, including the day we got him - we were planning on getting a female dog, but 5 week old Neo was having none of that - he picked us and made it clear he wanted to be our dog, and he was... here are some of our favorite moments..

• Muddy paw prints on everyone who visited us compliments of the wonder dog
• Not 1 but 2 kiddy pools destroyed by puppy Neo
• Snoopy Neo laying not in but on top of his igloo
• Neo eating all the oil from the turkey fryer
• Neo on the fishing boat (what a disaster)
• Rollerblading Celery Flats (every single person stopped my to ask if I was crazy)
• Trying to shoot the gophers in the yard before he noticed what we were doing and went after it (he usually busted us)
• Neo's summer of Corn Detassling (still waiting on his check I"m sure its in the mail)
• Neo's days of snowplowing on the 4-wheeler w/ Bill
• Buying tomatoes from the store every summer because Neo ate all the ones from the garden.
• Neo jumping the gate @ my parents house without even needing a running start (we thought we would stop him - we were wrong)
• Neo and the Cow (if you don't know this one, don't ask)

Jadyn

UPDATE:
Little City is out of surgery and the doctors said the surgery couldn't have went better and they are hopeful they were able to remove almost all if not all of the tumor. He is doing well and we will know more about what comes next after his next MRI which is scheduled for later tonight.

For those of you who haven't heard, our favorite "City Folk" Jadyn Gottschalk is having surgery today. You may recognize Jadyn's name from his frequent visits to the blog. He is Jen and Joel's 10 year old son.
During a routine CT scan for allergies, the doctors found a mass at the base of his skull that they believe to be a chordoma. Jadyn is at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh having surgery to remove the tumor. Please pray for him and his family as they go through this difficult time.

A lesson in persistence

It's strange really when you think about it, I've lived this long (even on a farm) and up until last week I knew absolutely nothing about beavers except that they eat wood and make dams (and I only knew that because one time they made a dam in the culvert in the road and my dad and I would go visit it).. but over the last few weeks we have been taught a lesson in persistence by none other than the beaver family of 052...
Just to give you a starting point... (in case you know as much about beavers as I do..)
The beaver (genus Castor) is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Beavers are known for building dams, canals, gullys, log cabins, and lodges (homes). They are the second-largest rodent in the world (after the capybara). Their colonies create one or more dams to provide still, deep water to protect against predators, and to float food and building material.

Ok - now that YOU TOO are a beaver expert.... this is the story....
Earlier this summer we were back visiting the pond one fine weekend and we noticed this giant hole in the bank... of course this spurred a serious discussion about what type of creature would be living in this hole... the final determination was it must be a beaver family (how cute we love beavers) - except we all thought they lived in lodges - not holes..
A few weeks later it was confirmed.. Big Lare (dad) saw a beaver baby go into the hole and all was good and right with the world...
Little did we know that was just the beginning... these cute and cuddly little beavers are not exactly the best "pet" on the farm... and as we went about our business for the next few weeks so did the '052 Beaver Family (whose middle name is persistence)...They decided that LaKnoll was a nice place to set up camp which probably would have been ok had they remind in the pond, but they took up lodging in the creek (some might call it a crick). It just so happens there is a place along the creek where the gas pipeline runs through and there is a tube (culvert) similar to what you would see in the road to allow the creek to run through. Slightly up-stream from this tube the beavers decided to build a dam...
Not a major deal until the tube almost filled up and flooded the surrounding fields...
But no problem, Bill went back one day to cut out the dam with a chainsaw (see pics below) to solve this small problem.
Once again we thought all was good and right with the world until the VERY NEXT DAY - the dam was back and the water level was back up at the top of the tube (052 beavers are laughing at us - actually they were laughing at Bill)...
Since desperate times call for desperate measures we determined trapping the beaver was the next best option (scary looking device pictured below) so Bill cut a V in the dam, placed the trap there so when the beavers when to rebuild the dam they would be TRAPPED (sorry Beavers but you leave us no choice....)
The very NEXT day we go to retrieve said beaver only to find the 052 Beaver family is a little more wily than we had predicted - they built their dam on top of the trap!! I kid you not this is no joke - the Beavers are really laughing right in our face now...
So, we are mad... it was off to You Tube for a lesson in Beaver Trapping (you think I"m joking but I am NOT).....
Armed with our "You Tube" Masters Degree in Beaver Trapping 101, a handy dandy permit from our friends at the DNR and sheer determination to win, we dressed up in our waders and brought our snares, traps, wire, sticks, mauls and other miscellaneous trapping materials and declared WAR on the Beaver Family of '052...
After a long day of plotting, scouting, strategizing and a little sweat, we celebrated victory as we sat back and discussed who would have the most beavers in their traps the next day... 12 snares, one trap, a partridge and a pear tree (yes it was a competition between Bill, Trevor and Traci)... the night was long and everyone was up early the next morning awaiting the RESULTS... which were:
Beavers Family : Winners
Bill, Trevor and Traci : Loosers
(the beavers also found the time to post a little note to us...)

IMPORTANT NOTE:
No beavers were harmed in the making of this blog... tune in later this week for the rest of the story

Rib Fest 2009

You know that sad feeling you get around labor day when you realize summer is over and somewhere between the work, and weddings, birthday parties and other miscellaneous family obligations you missed out on all the fun you could have had... well I had that feeling, the Friday before labor day and we decided to do something about it.... so here it is ... RibFest 2009 - Peck Style...
We had games (cornhole), prizes (money), food (all you could eat), drinks (all you could drink), fun (all you could have), fireworks (UFO's)... and best of all, a great time for everyone (the kind you wonder why you don't have every weekend in the summer)...
maybe next year .... but for now here are the pics of the party

Grand Marais

After 9 years of planning, somehow Daryl, Nancy, Bill and I finally made it to Grand Maris together... and now that we are back home, we already want to go back. We had a great time and other than a light "mist" the weather was perfect!
Nancy turned out to be a professional perch fisherwoman she was putting on a perch catching clinic for the entire trip - Did you know you can catch perch right underneath the boat all day long ??
Daryl caught Pike until his arms were tired, and Bill and I just tried to keep up with those 2.
In other highlights, we made friends with the Hippies (Very Important) we had delicious monster cookies that Nancy has been talking about for a year, picked some blueberries, and had to come home way too soon....

First the fish takes the bobber.. then you REEL

This weekend it was off to the neighbors pond for a little Bennett family fishing tournament. The results went a little like this:Most Fish: Cole Armed with his brand new pole and tackle box from his birthday, Cole was ready to show his stuff and he did - hauling out 11 fish and learning how to put a squirmy wormy on his hook!

Toughness in the face of adversity: Big Lare for not swearing when he got 2 treble hooks stuck in his hands after catching a very large and very spunky large mouth bass. We'll spare you the photoBest Surgeon: Bill for pulling out the not 1 but 2 rapala treble hooks that were stuck in both of Big Lare's hands, one was nestled very near the bone and the other one was in his thumb (his good thumb)... GROSSSmallest Fish: Cindi - pictured below but she did set the hook!Future Fisherwoman: Lexi who had never fished before was amazing, she hooked fish, reeled them in and even decided to take one off and put it "in the bucket" I think it was Aunt Traci's lucky pole that did the trick...Biggest Fish: Trevor who was getting taken to fishing school by Bill pulled off a victory at the last minute and hauled out a 15.5" crappie to win the tournament moments before we were all carreid away by the mosquitoes...

Rilley is 3

There is no better way to celebrate being 3 years old than pizza, pop, cupcakes and games... so Chucky Cheese is the place to be. We celebrated Rilley's 3rd birthday with Chucky and everyone had a great time - and guess what - even Bill had fun... Rilley and him played every game in the place while I tried to get Lilly to go visit Chucky Cheese (I failed she was scared)...