What happened to 40s and rain!?

*SHIVER*

MAN was it cold today! Josh (he's formerly from Battle Creek by the way!) said it was probably the coldest it has been all year today... Angie said it was like 22 degrees and that was around 12pm. And it was snowing all day.

But yesterday looked GREAT outside... I say it looked great cause I didn't go anywhere but it was nice LOOKING! Apparently it was cold and windy. Sun was out though.



Behind those circle ponds,there is a "lagoon" which is where the fish come in during spawning season. Right now it's half frozen over but there are still ducks. And around those trees is always where I can see bald eagles flying around. That was from my window so you can see some crazy icicles hanging too.

Anyhow, that is NOT how the weather was today. Today was darker and snowy. I spent the morning helping Angie out. We "morted" the ponds. This is just taking the dead fish (aka the "morts" or mortalities) out of the ponds. They keep track of the number so we had to count them. It was pretty easy... they ranged from 0- the 30s. I started out in the circle ponds in the back... These are the covered ponds. There's a picture for you. I found this on the computer so as you can see by the GREEN ground instead of snow covered, it wasn't recently taken.



There are 14 ponds I think. Only 10 of the ponds are taken up right now. 2 ponds have really little Chinook in them. These are fish in the "zero check" program which will be released this summer but will be quite small. All the rest of the fish stay about a year and a half but these will be released a year early. It's just a test program sorta to see how they turn out... by cutting that extra year off. I'm not sure if I explained that quite right but atleast that's how I understand it. And 8 have fish that are about 3-5 inches long. They're from last year's season and will be released in July I think. Chinook I think? The ponds out front that are in the upper picture, Angie and I "morted" next. The fish are about the same size as the others...3-5 inches and will be released this year also.

After lunch, I worked with Deena (she's another hatchery tech and is 23 like me) to find some nets to cover the chum pens when the fish get out there, which we will use to keep the bird from eating the fish. Thankfully that was an indoor job because... I just didn't want to be outside today. After walking around in the snow drifts this morning around those front circle ponds, my feet wanted to be warm! It was one of those days where right when you take the net out of the water, it freezes! I had some water on my gloves so when I went to write down the number on the piece of paper, the paper and pencil would become frozen. Thankfully we had special "write in the rain" paper but you'd have to scrape the ice off the pencil lead... and then off the paper! That's how cold it was.

ANYHOW... I'm really starting to like some of the people I work with. I've worked alot with Angie and some with Deena and they are both really cool. Everyone is cool but I've worked with them the most.

SHOUT-OUT OF THE DAY - I've decided I'm going to do this little section everyday or somedays or whenever I feel like it.

Today I have a FEW...
1) To my Grandma! I got a message from her today and she says she reads this everyday! So I wanted to say HI and I REALLLLLLY miss and love you!

2) To my crazy 'ol friend, Ben... he inspired me to do this! Thanks for being online to talk to me today... and reminding me that you were going thru the same thing over in the Indian Ocean! :-D Have fun in the FL heat for me! *cornbread*