My wife found a pile of dead minnows in a melting snow pile along our driveway this week. This prompted a phone call to me at work from her. I knew she was not happy. But I took it as a positive sign that spring cannot be too far away.

It took me a little time to gather my story together to explain to her why this phenomena had occurred. You see to me as a guy it made perfect sense. It was all coming back to me like a flash. After a weekend of ice fishing in the dead of January, I had brought my minnow bucket into the garage with some leftovers still swimming around. Minnows if taken care of in the winter can last quite a while and during these tough economic times my $4 investment was substantial. My thought process was there was the possibility of going out again ice fishing later in the week and so ….let’s keep them cool in the garage and use them. (It’s the same story I use putting night crawlers and wax worms in our refrigerator in the Summer…that doesn’t score me any points with my wife either.) The problem developed the next day when I checked my minnow bucket to find out they had frozen overnight. I did not realize it gets that cold in my attached garage. I tried to thaw them a bit by bringing them into the house…but I was worried about the stench. So I did take the easy way out and dumped them all in the snow pile next to the driveway.

That was 3 months ago. It’s now April and at the bottom of this snow pile laid the remnants of my little winter adventure. I must admit the whole story smelled (literally) a bit fishy. This weekend I proceeded to rake them into the grass. The first raking of the grass is a man’s rite of Spring. Neighbors you have not seen all winter drive by giving you the thumbs up. With each stroke of the rake visions of my self propelled Sears Craftsmen lawnmower appear with the sweet smell of cut grass and the taste of a cold beer on a hot day. It brings out the aspirations of all males their natural competitive tendencies to have the best grass in the neighborhood. And its the chance to again use my arsenal of power tools such as leaf blowers, weed wackers and power washers. oooooooo

Back to the present. With the hope of putting a positive spin on the situation I explained to my wife the value of the fish as fertilizer and the belief we will have the greenest, best grass in the neighborhood. I’ll let you know in another 3 months how that line worked for me!