Between adventures

Life is good! Life is busy! Life is rich and full and sometimes that means the house doesn't get cleaned and pictures don't get posted and blogs don't get written. It's important to write this all down, to look through the pictures to remember how happy and blessed we are with so much good in our lives.

Tim's beer brewing has been going well. He's making an IPA which is a particularly long-process beer. We have an upside-down tear drop shaped plastic container called a "Fast Ferment" the yeast and beer "wart" went in after boiling the sugar, hops, and other ingredients like a tea. After letting it sit and bubble away in our dark closet for a week or so, the dead yeasts are removed from the bottom of the batch to keep them from affecting the flavor. Tim found some local hops to add in as a "dry hop" for extra hoppy flavor. The extra hops soaked a few days in a big tea bag before being taken out again. Early next week it will finally be time to bottle the beer! A little sugar candy will be added to each bottle to feed the yeasts and make the beer carbonated, so in another week we should have home brew to drink and share. While working on his brewing, Tim found a hops plant for sale and brought it home to add to our garden. Though it is a single hops plant so I feel it should be called our "hop", singular. (Hop hop hop!)

Tim and Mike watching the races from the beer garden.

Joe and Ronie made a quick stop through to check on their boat and decided to take it off the market to instead start gearing up for a comfort trolling trip through Southeast Alaska. While they were in town, our friends Mike and Holly came over from Port Angeles to join us watching speed boat racing in Oak Harbor.

When we first moved to the island two years ago, Dad gave us a membership to the local shooting range for Tim's birthday. Unfortunately, the week we signed up and went through the new member orientation class was also the week Tim had the terrible accident with his wrist and we never did get to go shooting. Finally, with Tim's hand back in working order, we renewed our membership and got to go have a day at the range! The bar/restaurant is busy but the range seems to be always empty despite being a really great shooting range with many different set ups. Tim tested out his newly rebuilt long gun and we had a shoot-off with our pistols, starting with close range targets and moving on to freehand shooting at metal targets the size of a playing card at the far end of the range (50 yards). I didn't think there was any possibility of hitting such small targets at such a distance with anything short of a sniper riffle but we both hit the targets multiple times and Tim even hit his standing unsupported with one hand. We found something we can both do together that isn't a project we fight over! ("No, it's MY turn to change the oil!! You can hand me tools.") 

The last weekend of August, we headed to the State Fair in Munro. Last year we went for the drift racing (Sunday), this year we decided on figure-8 racing (Saturday), but of course that's only one small part of a long day of greasy fair food, giant bunnies, baby pigs, deciding on our future duck breed of choice, and more greasy fair food. 

We were particularly inspired by a pair of boys who had rigged up an impressive cart for their goat and taught her to pull. Clearly, Esther and Petunia need a double rig and will surely be brilliant at trotting down trails with all our gear rolling behind.

That's an alligator. She was very mellow and had little tiny teeth. She's a particular kind of alligator that is mellow and friendly. There were also some giant tortoises cruising about, all from a teaching zoo or wildlife education center of some sort. Clearly the novelty, noise, and greasy fair food won out over remembering what the handlers said. 

Teamsters: 8 horses navigating an obstacle course and backing up a trailer - maadd impressive.

Though we went to the fair looking forward to car racing, the horse show turned out to be even more impressive. Before the draft horse show, three horses were in their arena with young girls instructing them on a variety of maneuvers. Aside from running and walking and switching directions on the lunge lead, one girl had her horse sit, lay down, and roll over. Another horse had two little girls on it's back, one standing and waving a flag while the other bounced a giant ball all around and under the horse. The third horse seemed to do everything without hardly a whisper from the girl directing and ended with a bow. As they left the arena, the announcer said all three horses were under 3 years old and had been caught from the wild in the last 90 days before being trained entirely by these children. I didn't believe him and asked the girls after the show. Evidently there is a whole program and they told me more horses would be doing demonstrations the next weekend.

While Tim stayed home and worked on changing out seals and fluids on the truck (see that shiny, newly painted red super charger? I hear the paint-job adds 25 horse power), I went back to the fair again the next weekend with my friend Bianca and her 2-year-old daughter, Lyla.

Heavy Labor Day traffic kept us from getting to the fair in time to see the mustangs-tamed-by-children, but we did have a pretty good time eating fair food (isn't that really what it's all about? Templeton from Charlotte's Web told me so) and seeing all the animals. 

Tim, Tilly, Mike, and Holly headed up into the mountains of the Olympic Peninsula for some car camping over the weekend. I hear Tilly was full of trouble, determined to eat everything in sight and got sick while Mike ate way too many hot dogs and Tim was cold and wet in a tiny tent. One of those "misery makes it more memorable and memorable = fun" trips, like most of our camping trips, though I hear the first night was pretty good with fun mellow time around the fire with good friends. 

Well, I can't very well show pictures of Amanda in the dress before the wedding! Gotta keep it a surprise, especially if Brother Daniel were to see. So there you go - she's in the dressing room there with the dress. Close enough.

I opted out of the camping trip this weekend to join my soon-to-be sister-in-law wedding dress shopping. We tried on many dresses at a few different stores ad learned you must have one of those professionals on hand to dress you. When her friend Katie and I tried to dress her, the dresses looked silly and stuck out in all the wrong places. Once an attendant came in and tied all the ribbons in just the right places, she looked stunning. Some of the dresses still stuck out in all the wrong places because people who make wedding dresses seem to think that's a good look, but the others were a mix of "nice", "pretty", and "stunning". The second place we went shopping, we had an appointment complete with complementary blue champagne (in case girls trying on wedding dresses need to be more giggly or have something blue to spill on all that white). There was an attendant assigned solely dressing Amanda while Katie and I sat on a couch sipping our champagne and practicing with our "no"/"yes" voting cards with the family and friends of a second bride-to-be. 

If you click on a picture it makes it bigger and gives you a slideshow of all the pictures in the post.

Okay, I can't not put a picture of Amanda in her dress - she was so beautiful! And it was so beautiful on her! And look how happy and glow-y she is!!! Clearly, something good is going on here. Well, I had to censor the photo a little - can't be giving anything away, but look at Amanda's face! Look at the woman in the background cheering and smiling! That was one of the women there to support the other bride, but everyone was so excited about seeing Amanda in her dress. There are still more dresses to try on, but we've set a high bar for finding a dress that makes Amanda feel even more wonderful and special and beautiful and to find a dress she's even more reluctant to take off. I didn't really expect wedding dress shopping to be so much fun, I don't think Amanda did either, but seeing her glowing like that was really really wonderful and we all were grinning. 

Wow! That got me so excited I nearly forgot about my last piece of news: jobs. Specifically me having some. I think I'm at 5 jobs. I am now listed as a substitute for the South Whidbey School District and the Whidbey Waldorf School, but I also have some really cool jobs starting this school year. 

I will be spending one day a week leading early elementary students in the Calyx school garden. Calyx is a really great new-ish program which acts as a sort of home-schooling supplement program, offering outdoor learning 4 days a week for elementary students.Calyx students learn math, science, reading, writing, and history through earth stewardship and outdoor hands-on learning at the South Whidbey State Park as well as in the art garden they have built together.

The Calyx garden is a sort of magical place with a mix of music, art, flowers and veggies. I am looking forward to meeting the kids in the coming week and watching them grow in the garden along with any other opportunities to grow in my involvement with Calyx.

At the South Whidbey school gardens, students had their first day of eating kale, tomatoes, and carrots as they explored the mystery of what was happening to the sunflowers. Sammy Squirrel was very cooperative with coming out at the end of the students' discovery time to reveal the answer. After the classes ended, we had a planning meeting to talk about the coming year and my involvement with the garden. The plan is for me to teach the kindergarten and special education classes in the garden. I am planning to reclaim a bit of unused space between one of the greenhouses and a playground to turn in to a sensory garden for the little ones. While the older students focus on commercial food production for the cafeteria, I want the young discoverers to be able to learn through play, touch, smells and colors, creating a safe place for them to experiment with what makes a seed grow and other  outdoor learning questions. 

Additionally I will be tutoring at Ryan's House, an organization supporting homeless youth. Some of the young people are working on GEDs, others are struggling to stay in school and earn that diploma. One needs some remedial help to be ready for community college, and others just need a little more support so they can catch up or get ahead in school. Hopefully I will be able to build good connections with students and provide valuable support to them academically and for life. 

Chicken and egg facts

Eggs are the snack food or quick meal that only contains one ingredient: eggs! No sugar or carbs, and the least expensive source of high-quality protein with 6 grams for a few cents. Protein helps keep your mind and body going strong all day.

Egg yolks aren't future baby chickens – they are the food source for growing chick embryos. In the last hours before hatching, a chick absorbs the remaining yolk into it's body to keep fed for the first few days of life. Yolks are good for you too; with choline, lutein, Vitamin B, D and other important vitamins and essential amino acids.

The squiggly white line connected to the egg yolk is called the “chalazae” and helps keep the yolk centered. Eggs are formed from the inside out, starting with a yolk that grows larger as it travels through the oviduct, eventually adding the whites or “albumen”, then the shell comes last. When the egg is laid it is 105f. As it cools, the liquid contracts forming an air pocket on the large end. Eggs are laid large end first.

Nearly 200 breeds of chickens exist in the world. Some are bred for meat qualities while most are bred for egg laying. Eggs come in a wide range of colors from green, blue, and pink to white, brown, and even black. Shell color depends on breed as well as individual chicken and doesn't affect nutrition. Yolk color is affected by the hen's diet and thus may indicate nutrition. Cloudy egg whites also indicate a very fresh egg.

There are roughly 300 million egg-laying hens in the United States, producing 75 billion eggs a year, or 25 billion chickens laying 1.2 trillion eggs world-wide. There are more chickens on the planet than any other kind of bird and more chickens than people. In 1918, the United States government put out a publication asking families to keep two chickens per person in their back yards as part of their civic duty.

Spin an egg to tell if it's hard boiled or not: raw eggs wobble while it is possible to get hard-boiled eggs to spin on end. By putting eggs in a bowl of water, you can judge their freshness – fresh eggs sink while old eggs float. Eggs that are a little older and brought to room temperature are easier to peel than fresh eggs after hard-boiling.

Young hens lay more eggs, but older hens lay on average larger eggs. Young hens just starting to lay are more likely to lay enormous double-yolked eggs and other anomalies. The color of a hen's legs can indicate if she's laying eggs; bright colored legs mean she's not laying and dull colored legs show more nutrients are going to eggs.

Roosters don't cause a hen to lay eggs, light does. Hens, like humans, don't need a male to ovulate. Without a rooster, unfertilized eggs won't hatch, but will still be laid every 24-26 hours.

Roosters play an important roll in flock dynamics, not only by continuing the life cycle with regular new chicks in the flock, but also by watching out for predators and leading the flock in foraging for food. Roosters also dance for their hens called “tidbitting”. Without a rooster, a hen will sometimes stop laying and begin to crow along with other rooster characteristics.

When fertilized eggs are laid, they don't start developing until the hen starts sitting on them over night called “brooding”. All the eggs begin developing at once whether they were laid two weeks ago or that day. After 3 weeks of diligent incubating under a mama hen, the eggs will all hatch within a day or two of each other.

Hens are attentive and protective mothers; Jesus is said to have compared a hen's love for her chicks to God's love for humans, and ancient Romans gave the complement, “you were raised by a hen.”

The egg shape of a small end and large end is a development to keep eggs from rolling away. The angle of point varies by bird species; cliff-nesting birds having very pointy eggs.

The world record for eating hard-boiled eggs is held by a woman named Sonya Thomas for eating 65 eggs in under 7 minutes.  

Thankful for Rain!

My poor little mint and lavender starts were suffering in the hot sun, despite my occasional watering under Tim's concerned watch (if the ground is THIS dry, how much water is left in our aquifer?) The potatoes we planted before leaving for fishing looked as if they hadn't grown an inch since I saw them last and several plants were missing - wilted away to nothing. Hopefully the thunder and lightning means a few days of good rain to bring everything back to life. The goats and chickens were looking desolate in their dry, dead yard.

Speaking of chickens, chicken butchering is starting to seem like a normal activity around here, so much so that I think I didn't even mention it! This was our third round of juvenile rooster elimination, and we've learned a few lessons along the way.

1. Neighbors like you better when you kill all the squawking young roosters and I get to sleep in past 6am! It's great to only have one.
2. Being sneaky in the barn helps: I slipped in just after the chickens went to bed, before it was so dark I'd need a flashlight to see or a gun to fight off the rats, and quietly stood in the hen house waiting for the young roosters to ignore me and go back to sleep. To catch them, I put my hands on their backs and wings and stood still like that for a minute before picking them up. This way they didn't scream and flap about waking everyone else up. They went very quietly.
3. Feed: My process involves separating the death-row chickens from the rest of the flock 24 hours in advance and locking them in the small sandy run with only water to clear out their digestive tracts. It's a good idea but it means that a) I have to really commit to killing them 24 hours before I do it, with no backing out because we are tired; and b) I have to get the whole rest of the flock out of their house and around to the yard in the morning, then reverse the process at night. Last time there was a lot of catching and chasing and herding and frustration and a few bent feathers. This time I made a little trail of feed going out the hen house door and around to the gate (locked Tilly inside the house away from the action), through two sets of gates and into their big yard. After laying the trail with a big pile of food at the end (better lock up the goats somewhere away from that too!) I stood back and in about 10 minutes, the big red rooster led his girls along the trail, no problem. In reverse worked just as well. It helps that I was withholding food from them inside their house to try to encourage the rats to relocate, thus creating very hungry chickens.
4. Prepare: The night of the butchering, I neglected to really make sure we were set up well in advance. It turns out the painting crew over the summer removed some of my butchering supplies and I got a little desperate racing around finding the missing parts in time to hopefully be done by midnight and in bed sleeping soon after. Now our deck is beautifully painted and clean AND set up for butchering with things like a leg loop hanging from the beam for plucking and hooks around for hanging lights and other tools. The all important head-bucket-with-lid was located and we were ready to go before it was all the way dark (see above about rats and holding flashlights in my mouth).
5. Wait until they are all the way dead: Catching the roosters for the final time went like I said above. In the dark I held their backs and wings for a moment before picking them up. Sleepy eyed, they hardly made a cluck. Up at our butchering station I tightly swaddled the rooster in a black towel (hides bloodstains), and tucked him under my arm or between my knees and slit his throat over the main artery. The first two times I broke their necks and chopped off their heads a bit prematurely, this time I waited for that final shutter of life leaving their bodies, then removed their heads. As a result, the process was that much calmer, no fighting, no perceivable pain or discomfort, just very sleepy roosters transforming into dinner.
6. Control the feathers: This time around, we were much more prepared for the pile of sticky, wet feathers we accrue. Instead of having a deflated garbage bag near-ish and feathers everywhere, we lined our large 55-gallon curb-side-sized garbage can with an equally large bag and were much more successful at catching all those feathers. 
7. Package whole: In an effort to expedite the process as well as use the meat better, we elected to leave all the chickens whole this time around. Once all five were plucked and gutted and rinsed we brought them into the house, gave them one more rinse and scrub, and Put the whole bird into an 11" vacuum seal bag - they fit! With their wings and drumsticks tucked in tight to their bodies, they look just like commercial chickens, ready to be thawed, soaked in a sugar-salt-herb brine, rubbed with butter and baked. Delicious! 

In other chicken news, I discovered the secret of the missing eggs. I have 20 hens and was only getting about 6 eggs a day - suspicious. Before I left I was getting 10 eggs a day and now there are three more girls that should be starting to lay. Up in the hay loft above the goats, I pulled the tarp off the bales just to be sure, and lo, there were all the eggs. About 60 eggs ranging from very rotten to a hen mid laying when I interrupted. My neighbor, Linda offered to take all the eggs and mash them with garlic and onion for her own special deer repellent. 

On the goat front, I have a nice new bit of fencing up for them, but despite the shock they keep slipping through! They'll do alright staying in their yard and grazing the tall grasses until they see a person walk by and then their fear of the electric fence dissipates as they go running for affection. It's nearly time to breed again, and then they can start being useful and contributing members of the farm instead of just taunting tails for Tilly to bite at.

The goats had another admirer this week. Our friend from middle school and high school came down from Alaska on a work trip and took a day off to see us. Emily Thorpe, now Emily Bordelon, is expecting her first baby in another 6 months and we had a great time catching up and showing off the farm after so many years! We really need to work on our tour guide routine before she comes back as we fell a little flat on our presentation of the island, "um... there's a bowling ally in Oak Harbor, that's like 45 minutes from here, um... there... is... a market! on Saturdays! that's fun... but not today... You wanna go see the wild show bunnies at the fair grounds?" We can do better.

Having a visitor was a nice relief from my farm chores for the week: removing all the ivy from 5 trees and installing a new kitchen sink.

Nearly more ivy than tree it would seem. Last year's test tree seemed to be a success with my method of removing all the ivy as high as I could reach and hoping the rest would die and fall off - it did and hopefully these ones will too 

The kitchen sink project was an educational opportunity, proving myself as a strong independent woman and all. What probably would have taken a plumber only a couple hours took me three days with daily phone calls to Dad and sending labeled photographs to explain why I couldn't just unscrew the parts. But if we would have called a plumber, the plumber wouldn't have wiped out all the spiders and dust and mold and painted the inside of the sink cabinet to make it a usable and relatively pleasant space. I am very proud of my beautiful new sink. Hopefully it won't even leak!

While I was doing all that, Tim has been working on his own ATF approved projects; brewing beer and trading out foreign for domestic parts. He even brought me a baby hop plant to add to our garden.

Now it is time for Tilly and I to go to Search and Rescue practice while Tim monitors his brewing and waits for Joe and Roni to come by for the weekend.

Back on Whidbey Island!

We are home! Being away for so long really makes us appreciate how wonderful life is here on Whidbey.

What we missed most of all? Fresh produce! Two months of expired powdered mashed potatoes leaves a craving for anything green and leafy and fresh. Everyone at the farmers market was happy to see us as we made our rounds, getting at least one veggie from every booth.  

Since getting home, I've tried to do a wheelbarrow of weeds every day. I caught up with the driveway circle garden and planted about a dozen lavender and mint plants, plus one lilac, and have moved on to thinning the English ivy strangling the trees in the upper section of our property. On the water side of the house, I have added some temporary fences so the goats can be responsible for weeding and mowing instead of us.

Brother Daniel and Amanda took me with them to look at wedding venues on Friday Harbor, which was of course incredibly lovely. Amanda is pretty good at finding incredible places for incredible deals. With my day away, Tim had an opportunity to miss me a little after being trapped in a confined space with each other for two months.

 Tim went straight back to work as an apprentice electrician Monday morning, but had a short week before the Island County Fair. Tim dropped me off to volunteer at a booth, then strolled around seeing the sites and bringing me goodies before heading out. On his way home he spotted a car for sale that was too good of a deal to pass up. As soon as the quilting show was over at the fair, the owner met up with us and left us as proud new owners of a hopefully safe and reliable Mercedes-Benz ML550 AMG.

Introducing Marcy the Mercedes

Juneau

Mountains! Grey skies!

After leaving Juneau 2 years ago the day after our wedding, I finally returned home! Tim and I planned a stopover on our way back from fishing thinking we would have a week to relax before returning to the responsibilities of life on the farm. Turns out, there is too much to do in Juneau to recuperate from 2 months of confined living and long work hours! 

We enjoyed dinners and walks with our parents and a dog from each house, and got to catch up with a few friends still living in Juneau. Mom and I headed out to Peterson Lake Cabin for a night to appreciate their slow but thorough trail improvements then rushed home in time to meet up with the SEADOGS for search and rescue practice. Tilly got to learn about finding people in culverts and people above her head, as well as participating in obedience drills (we did okay for our first time after two months apart. Only a little sneaking around the corner to stay in sight of each other during the long, separated "down, stay").

All the dogs loaded into the back of a truck together and didn't seem to mind the new girl joining in.

While mom and I were out playing in the rain, Tim and Dad got right into the water with the m/v Sea Lyon to get ready for the sport fishing season. 

I don't think Dad's going to be able to get 10,000 pounds of fish on board that boat very comfortably, and 4 people will be tight living on there for a month straight! (Isn't that what everyone means when they say they're going out fishing?)

We did have some mellow laying around time, and what can be better than snuggling your childhood dog and your grown-up-life dog at the same time? Soon it was time to take one last walk at the wetlands, gather up Tilly's things and bring us all back to life on Whidbey.

While we were away fishing, my parents took care of the farm, then brought Tilly back with them to Juneau where Tilly serenaded Mom's office for a week. 

Commercial fishing in the Bearing Sea: Bristol Bay gillneting 2015

In early June, Tim and I flew in to the flattest place on earth: Bristol Bay Alaska. To get there, Grandpa drove me to the ferry, I took the ferry off Whidbey Island to the mainland where Daniel and Amanda took me home with them over night then onward to the SeaTac airport for an early flight to Anchorage where I left security to board a small prop plane for the long flight to the base of the Aleutians. The small planes pass out ear plugs and alcohol when you get on board to make the trip bearable. From the King Salmon airport, it's another half hour or so in either an over-priced Taxi or an incredibly creatively repaired and maintained van from the '80s. 

In King Salmon / Naknek, the world is a bit like America during the Great War; every job from baggage handler to hardware store clerk is done by young women while the "front lines" of fighting for the fish is nearly entirely men. At our company, Leader Creek, there are about 100 boats and only 2 are captained by women. We could only think of a handful of boats with any female crew members. 

When we arrived in Naknek, our boat along with all 1200 others was up on blocks in one of the many parking lots full of winter boat storage. We spent a week getting the boat packed with groceries, finishing small projects, updates, and repairs, and moving the supplies and nets from storage to the boat to be ready to go. 

The yard we're in has been under construction for the last few years, meaning boats piled together and a new arrangement at the end of every fishing season. This year we had power and water posts near the boat and were parked between our boat group - the three other boats we fish with and check in with to help each other out.

While we waited for reports of the fish coming in and worked on our projects, we also took the evenings off for tome R&R. We use shipping containers as storage lockers for our extra supplies, and with a few pushed together they also make an excellent picnic spot to get out of the dust and mud and share a potluck, listening to live music and grilling salmon burgers.

We also headed down to the beach for some great Alaskan bonfires and rousting games of Rock Pole: the game of trying to throw a rock into the top of the 20' metal piling on the beach. The world without TV, internet, or cell phones leads to more creative recreation. 

My project for the preseason was to build a fish slide to ensure high quality fish. The idea is the fish land on the plastic and gently slide down rather than being bruised smacking into the hard aluminum deck. Tim installed a new autopilot. 

After putting the boat in the water, we rafted together with all the other fishing boats tied off to a large tender boat (the ones who take the fish from our fleet of fishing boats to the processing plant on the shore) who was tied on to the dock for all the freedom of being able to walk to shore while being that much closer to read to fish. On a hot day we hid from the sun on the bows on the boat and waved to the movie stars on the Thunder (as seen on "Battle on the Bay" available from Amazon streaming video). 

The view in Bristol Bay might be flat and monotonous, but the sunsets are stunning. 

Once free from shore and heading south to our fishing district, life on the boat took on the bizarre routines of using a 5-gallon bucket on the deck for a toilet while waiving at all the other boats passing by and wearing clothes as long as possible as there are no more trips to shore for showers and laundry. Groceries are also whatever is on the boat and the company is limited to the captain and our crew of three, with the exception of the days we rafted together with the other boats in our small fishing radio group. Privacy and personal space will have to wait for the end of the season. While waiting for the fishing to get started, we didn't run the boat much which meant power was a limited commodity as well.

One day while waiting for the fish, we left a couple captains to tend the boats and the crews headed for shore leave in Egegik, a small fishing town with a dirt road and some fish processing facilities.

Another day we were left on the beach near Ugashik (smaller than Egegik by far and inaccessable for outsiders). The boys sat around and participated in my grass basket weaving lesson between nap time and a game of cork-ball.  

Finally we were in position, reports were coming in of fish in the sea heading for their home streams to spawn, and we had openings to start fishing. We flaked our net out on the deck to make sure there were no snags for the first set of the year. Our net is 200 fathoms or about 600 feet, over a tenth of a mile long and hangs down 12 feet into the water. The top is held up by a line of corks while the bottom of the net is held down in the water by lead-line. 

Each mesh is 5 1/8" diagonally, catching sockeye salmon while letting smaller critters through and letting larger animals bounce off. Occasionally the net catches a flounder, or a king salmon, or some jelly fish goo, but the seals are adapt at ripping fish out of the new without getting tangled and the pods of beluga whales passing close to our boats don't seem to have any interest in or problems with the nets.  

Joe drives the boat and plans the sets.

Tim runs the hydraulics to reel in the net, picks fish, and repairs what breaks.

Zac worked hard on learning to pick fish out of the net for his first season on a boat and cooked our dinners.

I am in charge of bleeding each fish for best quality, counting and sorting all the fish into our refrigerated seawater tanks, and hosing off the deck after each set. 

Kneeling in the blood and ripping the gills out of the fish tends to be a messy job and I never found a way to keep the scales and slime and blood off my face. 

During heavy sets when we were struggling to get the net and fish on board before floating over the fishing district boundary line or running out of time for the fishing opening, all hands jumped to picking fish - bleeding and sorting fish into the hatches had to wait until the net was out of the water.

Navigating the ever changing and uncharted shallow channels between sandbars can be tricky. One of our friends was unfortunate in running aground around high tide and had to spend 12 hours 10 feet out of the water right in front of the jeering fleet.  

At the end of each day, Joe drove us to the large tender boat to off load our catch while Zac got dinner going. After off loading, Tim and I wash the boat one last time and set everything up for the next day's fishing before heading in to our hot meal and a few hours of sleep.

 We had a slight problem with our hydraulic system which runs the anchor, deck hose, and reel; but with one day in Naknek, Tim and Joe got new lines run and the boat back to working order for a few more openings.

As the fishing died off and windy weather came in, we headed for shore. By going far up the Naknek river, we give our boat a good rinse with fresh water then call to have our boat pulled out of the water and back to the yard for the winter.

After getting out of the water, we had one last week of living together in the cramped space of the boat while trying to get everything thoroughly cleaned and packed away for the freezing winter. Zac was charged with scrubbing all the grease out of the engine room and making it look better than it has in years, ans Tim passed on the duties of changing the oil of the Detroit diesel engine and generator to me. 

All in all, we had a good season with nearly twice as many fish as last year, a good crew, good weather, and hopefully the price of fish will come up and we'l get a fair and reasonable price in the end. Do your part and go buy some Leader Creek high quality frozen fillets available at Costco!

Closing Thoughts

On goat milking:
After trying out the milking experiment and proving the theory (manually inducing lactation), Nancy and I made the decision that the 1/4 cup a day over four milkings I had worked up to was simply not enough for it to be worth her scheduling around and attempting to maintain while I am away for the summer, especially while first learning to milk - so until next spring when we have real live baby goats, we are weaning off on the milking. We look forward to spring when (hopefully) both Petunia and Esther will be producing much more milk than that with much less effort from me. Through milking, Petunia has become more gentle and sweet, so that is a plus we can hang on to for the summer.

On the Canine Good Citizen test:
Tilly passed! We are now a fully qualified search and rescue team with Whidbey Search Dogs, with voting rights and everything. Amazingly, over only a few weeks, Tilly has gotten her bouncy paws attached to the floor even when being given attention by a stranger or stopping near another dog. Hurrah! She did great during her test, though I was fairly nervous and worked up. I would have benefited from spending our time before the test laying down and snuggling with her in the grass like normal instead of practicing the test items over and over again.

On my teacher test:
Actually the "WEST-E" which is the Washington exam for "highly qualified" teachers and to be certified as a teacher in Washington, I must first be "highly qualified" in at least one subject - and art is the subject the Department of Education instructed me to test in. Though an art exam may sound easy, in reality it is 47,000 years of history from cave paintings to the modern day across all the major cultures around the world; quite a lot to cram for a test on! In addition to all that history and culture, the test also covered printmaking terms and techniques, sculpture, glazing chemistry, and kiln firing temperatures, hazardous materials handling, weaving, carving, musical theater, digital file formats, principles of movie making and editing, art theories and principles of design... you get the idea. In Alaska, I had to take the "Praxis" version of the same test twice before barely squeaking by on passing. Today, however, the test went smoothly and I was immediately told I passed despite not a lot of studying and even less sleep.

What was I doing not sleeping before a big test if not studying you ask? The advantage of taking a big test on the way to the airport for two months commercial fishing in the Bearing Sea, leaving my puppy and farm behind, is there is little time or energy left for worrying about the test. The disadvantage is there is so much else to do!

With short breaks to run errands around town, I spent nearly the whole day from sun up to sun down out in my garden. The center garden circle in the driveway has long been a problem area. Being the first thing people see, I want it to be beautiful, and being a confined and defined area that seems possible. When we first moved in, the area had been tilled over and piled high with fresh dirt - I don't know what it looked like for the previous owners but I'm beginning to have a suspicion. After a year of trying to garden this area, planting veggies and succeeding with growing garlic, I let the area be enveloped by the pushy horse tails. Last summer Mum and I went about trying to tame the wildlands again by mowing down the weeds and covering the area in thick ground cover and many many many bags of bark chips. Even after all those efforts, the horse tails were determined to come back. In early spring, we did a little weeding and I planted five asparagus plants, two mint plants, and an old lavender plant rescued from Greenbank Farm. Other than that, I left the planting up to the wind. Beautiful flowers have begun springing up and filling in around the edges. A poppy is in full bloom on the downhill side, columbine border the rocks, and other beautiful plants form little groups around the area. After taking out another 10 wheelbarrows of weeds this week and adding a few more bags of bark, the wanted plants are well framed and its beginning to look pretty nice. When I come home in the fall I hope to plant more lavender and mint (deer deterrent) in a border starting with our neighbors side, maybe a lilac bush too, then more asparagus ferns in the middle each year. I hope when I come home the horse tails and quack grass haven't gotten too out of hand.  

Remember how just a week or so ago it seems I was showing off my nicely cleaned up compost area? Well now the mound is higher than ever with a freshly cleaned goat and chicken barn and those 10 wheelbarrows of weeds. I also cleaned out the far bin of finished-ish compost mounding up the potatoes again. I skimped on rotating the rest of the piles before heading out. Always more to do!

The potato bins are finally full to the top and have been well watered in. It is best to water deeply and thoroughly or not at all. The dirt was mounded up higher than the sides before I added the water to help the bins settle. I look forward to opening those big wooden boxes in the fall and seeing how many potatoes are inside.

While we are gone, the chicken coop is all set up for "U-Pick" eggs with a big box of recycled egg cartons and directions on the door. Hopefully our neighbors will keep picking up eggs and the system will work for the summer. I wouldn't want Nancy to get flooded with over a dozen eggs a day!

I also included some egg "safety" and handling information for those a little nervous about eating something that is so farm fresh and not from the familiar supermarket. (click below to expand and read)

The goats are all set up for while we're away with their feeder finally reattached securely to a new section of wall and a salt block to supplement their mineral needs. So far they still seem to prefer the familiar lose minerals. One thing I forgot to do is add a few new staples in the corner of the chicken run fence where the goats managed to push a hole straight through to the great outside world. I used bailing wire to lash the chicken wire fence back together around the corner post, but a few staples too would have really sealed the deal. 

The sun set around 10:30pm last night, so that's when I finally headed in to start laundry, dishes, packing, and cleaning. I know I should have been on this a lot earlier, but I got it all done! I even cleaned and organized my ever messy "farm room", cleaned off my desk, and swept all the floors! I think I am ready to go!

This morning, just as I was putting the finishing touches on cleaning and worrying how I would take care of Tilly before I left and how she would do home alone after getting all wound up watching me pack, Nancy showed up. She thought I wasn't leaving until later and was coming by to practice the morning routine before I left but it turned out to be the most perfect timing. Nancy took Tilly to the beach with her dog for a long run while I headed out the door and then brought her back to spend the day with Grandpa and her new toys after I had left. Thank goodness! Also Tilly gave me a very nice hug before I left, managing to calm her crazy wiggles long enough for a goodbye snuggle. 

I know my farm is in good hands while we dip our nets in the far North!