Sunday, August 1, 2010

MY HOW TIME FLIES!


I was going to say When you're having fun...but that
is not very accurate, at least for my Mom. She had
a setback in the middle of July and was taken back
to the hospital. Her regular doc wasn't there, so
the attending one suggested they take a "wait
and see" attitude as to why all of the sudden
abdominal pain and nausea.

She didn't improve, so when her doc got back they
went ahead and did another surgery. Good thing
they did, because they found a big part of her
intestines had twisted and buckled, which was
causing all of the pain and of course, everything
was backing up in her system.

No reason given, she didn't do anything wrong.
The doc called it a string of bad luck.

They ended up taking out approx. 7 inches of
her intestines and she has been suffering
through the last week or so with pain and
lots of nausea. I talked with her today and
she was just getting ready to receive a blood
transfusion. It should make her feel a whole
lot better, hopefully with a lot more energy
so she can go home soon and heal.



I have been selling at the Farmer's Markets, which
is a lot of work but a lot of fun too. Here are my
daughter and I at our table:

This was most of the way through the day so all I had
left were gluten-free cupcakes and cookies.

See my computer on the right? What an awesome
tool a Mac can be. I have it set to slideshow and I
have pictures of my cakes and cookies scrolling the
whole time I am at my table selling. People just
love this feature and comment to me about it all
the time.


And the fishing! This time of year a lot of
effort is spent harvesting to fill the freezers
for winter. Here is my husband pulling up
the skate line he set earlier the day before.

It takes a bit to learn where the best spots
are to set the skate. And you don't dare ask
anybody, no siree! The most detailed answer
you will ever get is... Out in the water. Or,
my favorite...In my secret spot.
Wow, how very helpful!

So you just get your buns out there and
learn for yourself. Sometimes you get
good eating fish, sometimes you don't:

No, these skates are not for eating. They
sure are cool looking, though aren't they?
We let him go and off he swam, he was
very happy to be released.

The eyes were blue--weird.



Lots of these huge sunstars in the crab pots
my husband set out. They are not like regular
starfish, they have lots of legs and get really big.


Oh, and then my personal favorite, the
Wolf Eels. Yuk. My husband took a friend
out with him and one of the eels had
swallowed the hook so far that they
couldn't save it. So he took the eel home
and cooked it to eat. We talked to him
later and he said it was a white meat and
tasted like a mild fish. BUT, the texture
was mushy, which would have done me in.

eeew.

throw. it. back.




Look how gorgeous! We went up to one of the
bays not far from our house and it was calm
and silent. There were eagles in the trees just
sitting calmly and watching us slowly float,
nobody else was around anywhere.

I asked my husband--Can't we just stay here forever?
Next time we will bring the kayaks and paddle around
the whole bay.


Today was the first day of hunting season for deer. My
husband and older daughter were gone at first light.
They set a skate on the way up to where they were
going (sshhhh...it's a secret place) to hunt and
shot a spike at 9:30am. The spikes are small, but
boy oh boy is the meat good. Every part of a deer
this size is a tenderloin.

On the way back they checked the skate they had
set and there was a real nice halibut on there:


I quite like the idea of a freezer full of
clean, organic meat, how about you?



3 comments:

Laura ~Peach~ said...

wonderful stuff :) love good home grown foods... you have a bounty thats for sure... if i could stand the cold and lack of darkness Alaska woudl be my idea of perfection!

Niki said...

Wonderful harvesting! Your hubs looks happy :)

Love the slideshow idea, and I bet it draws alot of potential customers.

Have a great week!
Niki

Schnitzel and the Trout said...

I really enjoy all of your posts. I do have a question though. You said your husband was putting out skate lines and then you picture this (ugly?) skate and say skates are not for eating. Why does he want to capture them? By the way, that blue eye is so unreal...like some undersea creature in a movie. We have eaten skate before and like it a lot. Are there different species? I would take that halibut any day. WOW!! That would be good eating!!!