Memorial Park in Shakopee, Minnesota

 

Memorial Park in Shakopee, Minnesota

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for February 28, 2021

It was a beautiful day on Saturday hitting a balmy 45 degrees so we decided it was time to start visiting local parks again.  This week we headed to Memorial Park in Shakopee, Minnesota.

One of our neighbors mentioned that there are a bunch of Trumpeter Swans in the duck pond there and that sounded right up our alley.  We love Trumpeter Swans!  

We thought Blue would enjoy going to the park with us, but that may have been a mistake.  He also loves ducks and swans but has a tough time understanding why he has to be on the leash and can't run over to play with them.

 

The swans couldn't understand why we brought Blue with us either.  They kept looking at us as if to say "Why is he here?"

I had never been to Memorial Park before which is obviously a mistake on my part.  It is a great nature observatory!  What a nice way to spend a warm day in February.

@toddswank

I hate when I can’t find my mom. ##swans ##minnesota ##trumpeterswans ##birdwatching

♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys - Kevin MacLeod

Here's my TikTok Video of one of the swans honking it's horn.

I never knew that you aren't supposed to feed bread to ducks.  Apparently it's not nutritious enough to keep them warm in the cold Minnesota winter.  I guess we learn something new every day.

If you'd like to see some beautiful swans, I suggest you head to Memorial Park soon.  My understanding is when the ice clears up they start spreading out around the river so you don't see as much of a concentration of them in one place like we did.  

After we played with the birds, we headed out on Prior Lake to see our good buddies, Dan & Jen Walters.  They were out ice fishing and we always love crashing their party.

When it hits 50 degrees in Minnesota and the lake is still frozen, it becomes quite a party out here.  We saw people having campfires and all sorts of celebrations going on around us.  It probably also helped that this was the last weekend on Prior Lake you could have ice houses on the lake so people were getting in one last Hurrah before they have to put them away for the summer.

Some people get nervous driving on the ice when it's this warm, but that's not really necessary.  Dan showed us how thick the ice is by drilling a hole for us with his new auger.  It measured 25 inches thick.  He said you could drive a semi-truck out there, but I'll just have to take his word on that one.

@toddswank

Dan Walters shows off his new plastic ice auger for the DeWalt drill. ##icefishing ##dewalt ##drill ##minnesota

♬ original sound - Todd Swank

Here's a Tik-Tik video of Dan showing how his new auger works.

I like staring down the ice-holes and imaging the scariest thing I can think of suddenly swimming by below me.  The clown from It won the contest for me on this particular day.

Dan showed me his technique for setting up a "Tip-Up" fishing line outside.  He used his depth finder to set the bait just above the bottom and then set the flag.  If a fish hits the line, the flag gets released and stands-up so you can see it from inside the ice house.  Pretty slick, but I didn't get to see it work unfortunately.

Blue celebrated his 6th birthday this week.  He looks a little unhappy here because we didn't invite any of his friends over for the party.  Maybe next year.