30.5 hours in 3 days...

ALRIIIIIIIIGHT!!

So today was Day #3 of starting work at 7am. We're doing this so the boat can get an early start at taking the chum to Takatz. It takes 2 trips a day. Really it doesn't take THAT long but Scott is also ponding chum at the same time so an early start at getting the fish OUT of the ponding trough (the raceway) means an earlier start at getting a new group back IN!

Now, I've decided that these past three days have been a good indication that I don't mind what I'm doing up here. Day #1 of 7am start ended up being a 10.5 hour work day! Morting some ponds, feeding all the front round ponds BY myself and having to clean the freshly fallen 12+ inches of snow off of the predator nets before I fed! Rediculous, Mother Nature... REDICULOUS! One day it's nice... but snowing a little... then we wake up with 12... 14... KNEE high snow on the ground! I hate you. Anyhow, all of that stuff that I did took me until 5:15, which is already PAST "clock out time"... then I went in to help Scott clean up in incubation until 6:30! These Takatz chum are in "R48 incubators"... I'm not too sure why they are called "R48"s but my guess is because they're round and there are 48 of them. :-D But they are set up alot different than the previous incubators. It's one big round VAT of fish... layered in there with biorings (substrate) and mesh screens. Fairly easy clean up... the screens get alot of bag eggs and goop stuck to them and it's sort of fun to clean them off actually! he he he I wanted to take some pictures in incubation today of the ponding machine and the R48s but the lights were off when I went in there later on. With these R48s, we don't have to work in pitch black so should be able to get some pictures.

Anyhow, Day #1... 10.5 hours. Day #2... 9.5 hours... not too bad. Day #3... 10.5 hours again. LOOONG days but...... they haven't FELT long. (And no... I don't get overtime pay! BOO) I wasn't thinking "GOD I just wanna get out of here." To me, that's a pretty good sign. And today the weather was GREAT! This morning, Angie and I were pushing out the chum and the sun was out and it was soooo clear. The mountain looked gorgeous. It got kind of gray later on but it was real nice for a while.

SOOOO... I have some fun pictures! YAY!


This is the downstairs of the bunkhouse. I'm standing at one of the doorways. Behind me is the doorway to go the laundry room and up a set of stairs or outside. The tv isn't visible but it's in that right corner by the couches... Caf-style tables... kitchen is in the back there thru that little window.


MMMMMM... Sarah and Brandon brought me some crab! They brought me 4 halves... these were just two halves to show you how big a full crab could be... that's a normal sized dinner plate. Give me a nut cracker type thing and I can crack the heck out of some crab! ;-D


This is the spawning shed with the feed shed as the big building in the back. It's the morning that we got all that snow overnight... it all slid off the roof of the spawning shed and completely closed it in! You can see how much snow we actually got... the edges where it was plowed... that's how much.


So behind the feed shed are the green round ponds that I showed you before. But that picture I showed before was taking where the was no snow... see all the snow up the side! This is from all the snow sliding off the roof... it was higher last week actually!


This is Muttley, Dan and Deena's massive dog. You really can't tell how big he is but he comes up to about my thigh. He's got a hilarious face... you can't help but just laugh when he looks at you.


So I talked to other day about how Angie said we would have to dig out some screens that were buried in the "boneyard" under about 12 feet of snow. Thankfully I didn't have to dig but she did... really, it was about 12 feet!


STARING DOWN THE HOLE OF DOOM!!!! That's Deena next to me.


OK let me explain this one... We have this cookbook in the kitchen... The Joy of Cooking. I was trying to find a recipe for the extra crab I had. So I'm flipping pages and the word "woodchuck" catches my attention! "WHAT!?" So I find it... and it's a section for Wild Game. How to cook woodchuck, possum, rabbit, beaver, stuff like that... and then I see this! How to cook squirrel... with directions to SKIN A SQUIRREL! Now tell me if this is NOT the scariest picture you have ever seen in a COOKBOOK!!!!!! That bottom one with the... "naked" squirrel... doesn't is just look like a cartoon!?

ANYHOW... HA HA... Tomorrow is my day off, along with Saturday. I may ride the boat out to Takatz with the chum to check it out. I think it's suppose to be a nice day. And I have to check out the Takatz house before I live in it. For those of you I have talked to about it, I found out there IS a toilet! I won't have to use a bucket unless the toilet freezes! HA HA

SHOUT OUTS OF THE DAY: To Traci and Aunt Sandy! THANKS for the packages!! :-D And to everyone who had to listen to me FREAK out about some "accommodations" at Takatz, THANKS. :-D

By the way, I've partially given up on the weather report. Mom sent me a little thermometer for my window, but I think the temperature FROM the window throws it off... it said it was almost 50 out but I think it was much lower than that. So until I really figure out what the temperature is... you're gonna have to go to that weather page.