Here are a few pictures of some Boot Lake walleyes and crappies! It’s been a great June thus far for fishing, and we’ve seen some beautiful fish come in recently. We aren’t trying to get your hopes up, but couldn’t pass up posting these 😉
Staff Intro
We had a little bonding time today with some of our full time summer staff at the Character Challenge Course! It’s a great place if you are looking to add a few extra thrills to your vacation. Awesome staff and cool facility, definitely a good choice if you want some time off the lake. Here’s a quick intro for our summer staff:
FORREST
Many of the past guests know this familiar face! After spending last summer in Texas, he’s back before starting his “real job” as a teacher and coach in Missouri.
Fun fact about Forrest: He can almost clear a two story building with a skinny fiberglass pole…and he’s the only guy I know who has bought a car for $1!
MANDY
This is Mandy’s second summer, but she’s like family to us, and we are sooo happy she is back!
Fun fact about Mandy – she jumped out of a plane, and survived! And, she can crack an egg with one hand.
ANNALISE
Annalise has been a part of our amazing cleaning crew for quite some time, but she became part of our full time staff last year. We are thankful she is back and hopeful for more great years to come!
Fun fact about Annalise – she’s been cleaning cabins at Half Moon since she was 8! And, as I found out on the obstacle course this morning, she is very fast!
KAYLA
Kayla – Most of you know that Kayla is my younger sister, and we are very blessed to have her living right down the road. She is a huge help, and definitely gets the award for being the veteran around here.
Fun fact about Kayla – She can stand on her head for 4 minutes and 27 seconds! Can anyone say, headache? And, she’s a great photographer!
Painting the Pool
Kim (our painter) and I put a fresh coat of white paint on the pool today. We constructed a temporary enclosure about a week ago in order to keep the rain and debris out so it could dry before painting. A few more days of drying and we will be ready to fill it up!
Spring Gardens and Grounds
Spring is in the air at Half Moon Trail! We are in full swing getting the cabins cleaned, water turned on, and the grounds cleaned up. I took a few minutes to snap these photos so you could see what grounds and gardens look like at this point in the spring. They look very different than later on in the summer when they are all filled out, but it’s still pretty fun when all those plants start poking through the ground in the spring!
Guess what!?
We are excited to add an old time favorite to the Half Moon Trail menu this summer! We will now have on tap root beer, and root beer floats, served up in a deliciously frosty mug. We just got the tap up and running recently, so we will have plenty of time to do lots of taste testing to make sure it’s perfect when you all arrive 😉 Cheers!
you all arrive 😉
Family Day
It was beautiful here at the resort this past Sunday, and we took the opportunity for some family time. We love many aspects of the resort life, but spending time with family is one of the most important. Working with, and teaching our kiddos the value of hard work is a huge benefit of living at the resort, but it’s great to kick back and relax with them too! Mabel found her daddy’s hunting decoys, and thought they would make good friends so she insisted on having Liz and I carry them around and even sent them down the slide…life is never boring with youngsters!
Shop Time
We are taking advantage of the inclement weather outside and working on some cool chalkboard signs for the lodge. We are making the frames from some old barn wood that we harvested last year from a local barn that was being torn down. Mary Kate seems to like a little shop time, too, while Mom snaps a progress photo 😉
For those that are curious, the lake ice finally went out completely yesterday with a strong north wind to break everything all up!
Boot Lake Ice – On it’s way out!
We have another early spring on our hands! I know many of the lakes a little farther South have already been open for a while, but we are typically a couple weeks behind the twin cities. I took a few quick pictures of the ice last evening. It’s started getting dark, cracks are widening, and it’s really opened up around the edges the past few days. As I was taking the pictures, I saw and heard several different kinds of ducks, swans, and geese as they are back in the area now with some open water for them to use – a sure sign of spring!
Easter Weekend Campfire
It was a little chilly on Friday, with a few snow flakes swirling in the cool spring air, but we still enjoyed a toasty campfire at Mom and Dads, just down the lake. My brother Nate was home from college for a few days and had made some benches and campfire ring so we had to try it out with a hot dog roast. It’s great being close to family! Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!
A Man of Many Hats
Today we are playing lumberjack! There is never a dull moment here on the resort, and it seems we are constantly switching our “hats”, which keeps life exciting. Today we harvested a few older trees that were near the end of their life and cut them up into specific lengths. We are taking them only a couple miles down the road to a friend of ours who will saw them into lumber to be used in one of our building projects in the future.
Half Moon Trail Lodge
We’re in the midst of a little remodel here today at Half Moon Trail. The Department of Health is requiring a new three bin sink be installed, so we are taking the opportunity to get a new floor, cabinets, and ice cream signage behind the desk.
An interesting side note on our vintage ice cream dipping cabinet – the seals were starting to go bad, so I spent many hours trying to locate a new seal, only to find that it is no longer available. The ice cream cabinet was made by a division of the Anheuser-Busch company back in the sixties, which is no longer around, hence the reason I could no longer find parts! We are still in the process of getting some custom parts made in an attempt to keep this piece of history in our lodge.
“Waking up” the plants
Over the years, mom has gradually “wintered over” (is that how you say it?) many of our plants in the lodge. They don’t require much attention through the winter, but come March, we start to help them wake up a bit in anticipation of the summer. We all worked to water, fertilize, prune, and check for bugs today! Even our little Mabel and Mary Kate got in on the action. 
