1000 miles

Bad decisions,
Lust, lies and broken hearts,
don't comprehend thousand mile journeys.
Hard lessons not learned,
Travel faster then,
Planes can fly.
Mistakes made a mile down
can't be fixed a mile up.
Escape was the right answer...
to the wrong riddle.
Baggage travels.

I wrote this two years ago and it is still an accurate statement.  I'm still running.  I have plenty of voices calling me home.  I'm not ready, and the one voice I need to hear will never ask me to come home.
I get it.  I do.  You weren't wrong when you said you were afraid I might get hurt.  It doesn't matter if I get hurt though.  If it mattered one of my best friends wouldn't ask if she could sleep with you.  If it mattered, you wouldn't tell me things like, maybe we would date if you moved back home.  So its ok.  Do what makes you happy.  I want you to be happy.  But please, in no uncertain terms let me go and say what's done is done.  Or ask me to come home.

Weasel's Half-assed Guide to Improper Canning

Today I spent the day canning Coho.  They start out life looking kind of like this:

This is actually a Chinook smolt.  Shhhh...don't tell anyone.

And eventually grow up into this:

These may also be kings...what I've never taken a picture of a silver.  Don't judge me.

Once you get them all filleted and vacuum packed you throw them into your freezer until you forget they are in there.  At some point you will clean out your freezer and find two years worth of frozen fish that you don't want to throw away and also don't want to eat anytime soon, so you start to can them.
After some fish has been lost in the freezer for a few years, there will be casualties:

Ewww.

First you cut them into little chunks:

So, I'm lazy and never mark my packages, but some of this is also chum and pink.

Then you get your cans all ready to go:

Next, you shove all the fish in a can:

It makes a very interesting squeltching noise.

Once you get all the fish in the cans and lids on the cans you put them in the pressure cooker:

And then stare at said pressure cooker for about an hour and a half:

Seriously.

Once the pressure is back to normal you can pull out the cans and let them cool for the next 12 hours or so.  Why do you ask?  Because they are boiling and sometimes that can be kind of creepy.

The Tell-Tale Salmon?

So there is your (in)complete guide to piss poor canning technique (for the love of whatever, please do not follow these instructions to actually can, you will either blow yourself up or end up with botulism).

A Day in the Life...

As everyone knows, I'm off having adventures tagging fish in Neets Bay.  What you might not know, is exactly what that means.  Allow me to explain:

We wake up early in the morning a walk down to the docks.

See,  docks.

This is where our super awesome boss lady picks us up in a skiff.

This is my early morning excited face.  It should not be confused for my FML face.

We take a short skiff ride to the saltwater tagging shed.

This is the tagging station where I clip adipose fins off salmon all day.

This is a king salmon smolt.

These are a bunch of drugged king salmon smolt.  Drugs make them less likely to attempt to swim through air.

We have a bucket brigade that brings salmon in from the raceways....

And they get dumped into a holding tank.

It's a lot easier to get them back to their raceways.  We just dump them into the hopper and water pressure takes them back to their raceway.

This is the tagging machine.  It puts a millimeter long coded wire tag into the nose of the salmon.

We also go outside to seine up fish that need to be tagged.

This occasionally requires a d dingy

This is our lunch break.

Some of us are more relaxed then others.

We also may or may not have a crab pot set out.

Ok, we totally do.

After clean up and a short boat ride back to the dock, we make the short trek home.

TL;DR: We listen to a lot of music and take a lot of ibuprofen.

Stopping by the woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know. 
His house is in the village though;

 He will not see me stopping here 
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

 My little horse must think it queer
 To stop without a farmhouse near

 Between the woods and frozen lake 
The darkest evening of the year.

 He gives his harness bells a shake 
To ask if there is some mistake. 

The only other sound's the sweep 
Of easy wind and downy flake. 

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep.
 But I have promises to keep, 

And miles to go before I sleep, 
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost

Questionable Yoga Poses in Inappropriate Locations (Neets Bay Edition Part 1)

So I'm sure everyone has seen those pictures of people doing yoga in strange locations.  Here is my two cents on the matter.

Disclaimer: I don't really do yoga.

On freshwater coho raceways

Where the Bears are.

Where people don't belong.

And thus concludes this edition of doing yoga and questionable locations.  Please stay tuned for yoga in boats and on saltwater raceways.  Or anywhere else that strikes my fancy.

Forgotten Things

When traveling, it is inevitable that you will forget something.  When you pack like me:

 It's inevitable that you will forget many things.  Like tank tops to go under the 6 wool sweaters you brought (it's going to be an itchy week).

I also forgot ibuprofen, aspirin, or anything else that looks like pain killers.  That would of course mean that my overworked right ankle would decide that it hates me. 

 And since I'm out in the middle of BFE, it's not like I can just run out to the store and grab some.  Thankfully one of my coworkers had an ace bandage, so at least I'm limping around with a little bit of support.

It can also be said that no one forgets my birthday.  I was here at Neets for about an hour when someone called and informed the whole camp that it was my birthday.  Thank you random person.  I feel so special, but you are either 7 months early or 6 months late.

Not that I'm complaining.  It could always be worse.

Neets Bay Day #1

This weeks adventure started as any new Alaskan adventure would: with fog delays.  But only for a few hours.  We did eventually board our flight and managed to cram all of us into a little sardine can with wings and floats.  After a harrowing (ok, it wasn't harrowing, the flight was smooth and the view was incredible, I just really, really, really don't like little planes) half in hour on this delightful peace of float plane material, we arrived in Neets Bay.


When I said that I would help tag fish at remote hatcheries,  I was expecting this:

Not this:

The view is also kind of to die for:

Although I guess some of it is still what I expected:

Exactly what I expected: