First Snow!

We had a couple of inches of snow yesterday morning, which gets Frank all excited to go hunting, easier to track the deer that way. So, we spent the day driving and glassing the hill sides. Snow is so much better then rain! The day was mostly clear, and the snow makes everything so bright and clean. Saw a few deer, Frank did a short sneak up a clear cut, there was no way I was going to climb all over those logs and bushes, plus I didn't buy a hunting license this year, good excuse to wait at the bottom of the hill for him. We didn't see any sign of bears, no purple scat in the roads, no bear tracks in the snow, that sure makes it a lot easier for me to get out of the truck and walk around. Since our deer population is pretty slim from the last 2 hard winters, it is bucks only, and we came home without any, but it was still nice to get out in the fresh air. We have a few more inches of snow this am, but the weather is calling for 40 degrees today and the rest of the week, so it will probably be melting soon, which is good since we need to get the boat out of the water this week, cleaned off with the pressure sprayer and stored for winter.

How can you be depressed when it looks like this out? There were still A LOT of blueberries that we didn't get picked! The taste was pretty much gone, but I liked the texture of semi frozen blueberries.
It's days like these that I realize why we live here, it can be so beautiful.

Cheer Up!

It could be worse, you could be here, in the rain, with us...............
I was thinking of some of the funny things we have heard in the past 3 years from tourists who have been on board fishing with us, and thought I would share. You can always tell when it's getting close to the end of the season by some of the stuff they are told at other ports.

Look at all of the female eagles, huh? Yes, the ones that are brown are the females and the ones with white heads are the males. Who told you that? The naturalist over in Juneau.

What port were you at before you stopped here? Shitka. Oh, you mean Sitka. No, the correct pronunciation is Shitka, that's the native pronunciation. Mmmm, ok.

(The doll porpoise are black with white on them, and it's very common to see them here)
As we are heading out fishing we go by a pod of doll porpoise. Look at that pod of baby Orcas, where? Right there, those are porpoise, over in Juneau they told us the baby Orcas all travel together in a pod.....

Do you know why whales breach? (One couple talking to another on our boat) Why? When we were in Hawaii they told us. When they jump out of the water they are looking at land marks to find out where they are. Sure...

My all time favorite questions:
What elevation are we? Uh, this is what's known as "sea level"........

Are we fishing is fresh water? Last I knew the Pacific Ocean was salt......

Where's the ocean from here? What can you say?

Here are a few "out takes" I love Franks expression more then anything in these:



Ooops!

I Wish it would SNOW!

At least then it wouldn't be raining! We got up around 6am today, looked outside, same dreary, wet, yuck it's been for weeks. I told Frank this weather is going to make someone shoot someone, then headed back to bed for a couple more hours. I intended on staying in bed all day, but my stomach wouldn't let me. I don't know if it's worse for me because I know I will be out of here in a couple of weeks, or it's just really worse. We had a break from the "showers" so took a walk up to the store, was going to stop at the nearest store, but it was closed, weird, the hours posted, it should have been open. So we walked farther up to the other store. On the way back the "closed" store had police tape across the door. Someone else let the rain get to him, he decided to shoot himself in their store, not sure what the message was there. We don't know who he was, or even his name, but in this small town he is probably related to almost everyone else. Just sad. Then it started raining again before we could get home.

On a different note, Frank took a drive out the road to see what he could see the other day, no deer. It's bucks only again this year, our deer population still hasn't recovered from our severe winter 2 years ago. He did get a couple of fall pictures:
Fall Fireweed


And some other kind of weed.....

Some Bored Kitty Cats

I don't think it's ever going to stop raining, just when you think it can't rain any harder, it does. We have a metal roof, so the sound is constant. The cats aren't liking it either, it's getting colder and they hate the wet, so when they aren't sleeping they are bugging us. A friend from our church will be house sitting while we are gone, and she just got a year old lab mix, so that should liven things up a bit for the cats while we're gone!

Nooks in her "princess" chair. I had some foam and an old fleece blanket, was bored so made her a kitty bed............aw, her and Izzy have to take turns in it and they don't like to, causes some friction once in a while.

Izzy likes this little blue pillow, but sometimes she doesn't quite get centered.

Our berries are all processed, so now it's time to crochet, make our Halloween costumes (Franks not too thrilled about that), clean, clean and clean before we go, sort and pack, take the boat over to Juneau on the ferry for it's 200 hour check up (Frank gets to do that too), and diet (hey, we've been doing good since "Sven" and his chips, dips, cake and ice cream left!). So far we haven't gotten into our winter routine of a morning and afternoon nap yet! Will the rain ever stop?!!!!

A Bear in the Road

We actually had a break from 3 days and night of pouring rain and wind. It took about 15 minutes to bilge the water out of the boat this morning. A lot of boats in the harbor where setting low in the water. I'm sure everyone made a trip down there to bilge today! Since it was still nice out when we got home, we decided to go for a drive, see what we could see. Got out the road, picked some more berries, it's just too hard to resist when they are so loaded and the leaves are off the bushes. On the way back home we came around a curve and this sow was walking down the road towards us. She kept getting closer, and closer. About the time Frank was ready to get back in the truck, and I thought she was going to walk right by the truck, she angled off the road, she was about 100 feet from us at that point.


And she had this little guy following her the whole way! What a cutie, I haven't seen a cub this blond before. They were both pretty mellow with us sitting there watching them.

The Finished Product

The Christmas jam and syrup are done! (oh, was that a surprise?) Since not too many people are liking our high bush cranberry syrup and jam as much as we do, you get blueberry/huckleberry, we'll keep the best for us! We had enough for 12- 1/2 pints of blue/huckleberry, 12-1/2 pints of highbush cranberry and 4 bottles of highbush cranberry syrup.
Berry goodness................

The highbush cranberries before cooking and juicing. They taste awful until they are juiced with sugar added, then they are pure heaven!
I knew those Pendleton and Patron bottles would come in handy!

Frank even had enough juice left to make a small batch of highbush cranberry ketchup........that is so good on venison, makes my mouth water, oh too bad there's only enough for us! (ok, maybe Josh will get some, since he has venison in his freezer to go with it)

That's What Friends Are For

I think Deb and Lyn brought the sun with them when they came. We actually had a few days without rain. We managed to get some crab, and go berry picking. Picked High Bush Cranberries, Huckleberries, and Blueberries.
We managed to pick 2 1/2 gallons of Highbush and 4 gallons of Blueberries/Huckleberries in twice the amount of time then with just me and Frank.

The area we pick has this really pretty pond near it, and of course lots and lots of bear trails.
Lyn picking some of the High Bush Cranberries, it's so much easier to pick when the leaves have fallen off.

One more time

Our friends Lyn and Montana Deb flew over from Juneau for a few days, we were really hoping it wouldn't rain the whole time they are here. The sky was so white, almost looked like it was going to snow, but it wasn't foggy so the planes were flying and there arrived right on time.
Arriving at Hoonah Non International Airport. This is the Wings caravan, one of the bigger planes that flies into here from Juneau

They said flying over the water was flat and they could see whales, so we decided to head out in the boat for some final days of fishing. We set out the crab pots too, right along with a million commercial pots......grrr

While trolling for salmon Frank caught this Lingcod, and he got to keep it since the season was actually open. Didn't catch any salmon, so went halibut fishing. We picked up 3 halibut, they bite very tentative this time of year. Which makes them hard to hook.
The water was flat and calm the whole time we were out there. We could see all of the mountains, and my favorites, the Fairweather mountain range, that is on the outer coast. It was a beautiful day, cold, but beautiful. Of course we woke up to rain this am.