The Week: ("Fun"-scapes in four parts with a camera)

Another fun-filled week.... and lots to talk about... lots of pictures to show also!

TAKATZ
So if you are really paying attention, you will notice that I am posting this on Saturday afternoon when I am normally heading back to Takatz. Well the weather hasn't been all that great so I got stuck down there an extra few days, which wasn't that bad. The weather on Wednesday (the day I normally come back) wasn't all that great but also, Chris, who is the new girl replacing Dean, was arriving that afternoon, so we were probably going to switch Thursday morning anyhow to let her get settled. Thursday the weather wasn't good either so I stayed and worked . Friday, which was supposed to be my day off, we managed to make it back around 4pm so I am taking off today and Sunday instead... Adam's orders. ;-)

Things are going really good down there. The fish are growing and eating alot... better than Dan's chum here at the hatchery. he he he We sampled every pen the other day and they are around .69 kg. That probably doesn't mean that much to you I guess... they're growing though. We switched some of the pens to a larger sized food... "0" food is very fine but not quite powder vs. "1" food which is like coffee grounds. And they sure are eating alot of food too. :-) Anyhow, on to some fun stuff...

NAKED IN THE WOODS
WHOA alright I swear this is a G-rated story so you can read on! On Wednesday after work, Adam and I decided to venture to the Baranof Hot Springs! That's maybe 6 miles south of Takatz... It was raining and the waves were kind of crazy for some of the drive but Adam said it was just because of the tides. It was nicer coming back. Anyhow, so we make it into the bay and Adam points out something that I thought was a bunch of snow from a distance. It ended up being a waterfall from the river there and it was awesome! Adam said he's never seen it like that before... RAGIN'!


So it was actually like coming into some civilization... there were a few houses there though we didn't see any people. There was some kind of shop which was closed. There were 3 cabins there, but sadly, they were on a slant because the snow fell and pushed them down. Kind of crazy. Well there is a bath house with a few private tubs where you can sit in and fill it with the water from the hot springs. Only one of them was even working but the water was cold. We guessed that it was chilled as it came down the pipes because they still had ALOT of snow! So despite that snow, we decided to hike up to the pools.


It was a funny hike up because some of the snow was soft so you'd hit a pocket and sink in. There's apparently a path but it was all snow-covered and like this picture shows, even if you COULD see where you needed to go, you had to pull a risky balancing act. No injuries though! Anyways, half way up I realized "humm... I sure hope there aren't any bears here!" Well finally we made it. Before we came, I had asked Adam if there was anywhere to change up there and he was like "ummmm the woods..." GREAT... thus the title! Ironically, there was a wooden sign hanging on some trees pointing one way and saying it was the changing area, yet there was nothing to change behind! Thankfully though, there was a downed pine tree which gave some privacy. So there I am, changing between a pine tree and a pile of snow into MY BATHING SUIT! A two-piece of course! :-) I was pretty warm from the hike up so I didn't immediately freeze but standing barefoot on mushy ground and trying not to fall onto the pile of snow was an adventure!

Finally I finish and walk to the pool and go to get in. Well Adam failed to mention it was slippery so I slipped and fell on my left knee, which felt GREAAAAAT! The water was warm though.


See those rocks next to my towel... busted the knee on those. And those are my super-stylish Xtra-Tuf boots that I wear. You can see the downed pine tree on the left... aka "the changing area." To the very right of that tree you can just barely see that wooden sign pointing to "the changing area."


I was sitting in the upper pool. At the bottom you can see a lower pool and that is the RAGIN river in the background. It added for some awesome sound. On to the interesting FACTOID about the hot springs...


THAT!

There is alot of "interesting" algae growing in these pools. It was gross or creepy at first but as Adam said it "you sort of become one with it." There is algae pieces floating in the water, but along the sides you can pull off this SUPER slimy algae that you see in my hand. Once you accept the fact, it becomes kind of cool and fun to play with.

ANYHOW, so we hung out for a while then decided to leave. Lemme tell ya... getting changed back into all my clothes with a bum knee was ALOT harder! Especially when you are partially wet... trying to not get your clothes all dirty and wet... crazy. Hiking back wasn't all that fun though because of my knee. As we got closer to where we came in, we saw a few bear tracks! Yeah, makes ya feel safe right!? :-) The hot springs were cool though and I'd like to go back, but I guess I pictured it different in my mind. I figured the pools would be larger... CLEANER! I guess I just romanticized it in my head... pictured it like something you'd see in Hawaii or something! :-D


That's nice right!? When I first took off my bathing suit IN THE WOODS, I had a nice layer of this dirty lookin stuff ON ME... and all over my suit.


So here's my knee as it looks today. When I fell it actually broke the skin so it bled a little. Still a little swollen... turning some colors but I wish it would be more colorful! It sure feels more bruised than it looks. I'll survive though.

WADIN' AND WASHIN'
I said that I returned to the hatchery on Friday afternoon. Since it was only 4-ish, I asked Scott and Angie what I could help them with. They were out in the round ponds pushing the Early Entry Coho out... and I mean IN the ponds. There are 16 ponds I believe of Coho that go into the saltwater pens early and that's what they were doing. So Scott told me to go put on a pair of waders and help. HA I've never worn waders... I was a bit confused but I got it all figured out. But the second I jumped in, I felt water seepage in my right ankle area! That's a good feeling.

So what we did was... the round ponds are well... ROUND. Duh... so there is this screen thing that is basically two pieces but connected in the middle so it bends... they use this to crowd the fish around into one area. Think the hand on a clock... except you move the pieces toward each other so the fish are pushed to one area. They get sucked down a hole at the bottom of the pond and piped out to a saltwater pen. The interesting part is that the round ponds are also covered in algae and super slippery so it's like ice skating!!

Finally when we got done with that, I was able to take my long awaited shower. Usually I'm down in Takatz for only 4 days (5 nights) but this time it was 6 days! I figured it was about 6 and a 1/4 days without a shower... plus I went in that algae-filled pool of hot springs water! NICE... that's definately a personal (DISGUSTING) record! Not one to really be proud of... that's what I call "being flexible."

THE HIDDEN FALLS
Alright don't worry, this blog is winding down! It seems that when I returned to the hatchery yesterday, I discovered one of the special features of Hidden Falls that I knew was there but somehow hadn't seen it before. THE Hidden Falls! As in the waterfall! I knew it was back there somewhere but maybe snow was in the way... I have NO clue how I never saw it. The trees are in the way, but it's HUGE and you can see it through them.


Make the picture bigger... it might help. But see behind the red box... Don't worry, it will be my mission to get a great shot of this waterfall! The waterfalls here amaze me... that's one thing I love.


Here is the picture I promised you of throwing the fish food. Kinda cool, right?

Alright, ONE more crazy factoid and I'm done. This is a good factoid for Valerie, cause I know she's a stickler about this. When we first put in a food order for Takatz, we got 2 gallons of milk. This was... like the beginning of April. Both gallons were expiration dated April 7th. WE ARE STILL DRINKING IT! Can you believe that!? As of yesterday, there was about 1/4 of the 2nd gallon left... April 27th! 20 days later and it's still good. We were seriously amazed by this. And we keep it in a cooler outside... not a cold refrigerator... a cooler! :-) ok that's it.

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - I don't know anymore... How about I turn this into a game today! EVERYONE who reads this... write me a comment to say hi. You don't have to say anything... just say HI or something and your name so I can know who's reading! ;-)

P.S. I'll give a nickel to anyone who knows how I came up with my corny title.

Pictures of the week

Here are some picture for you... Dean took this really cool picture of me tossing fish food into the water and the food is still in the air. I'm going to get it from him and show it next week.


You wondered what the bedrooms looked like... this is it! :-D I'm standing as far back as I can... and the bed is up against the wall. The other room is the same size.


I just think this is a cool picture...


This is a sea anemone that has grown to the underwater part of the Takatz house. There are a bunch more but I think this was the biggest one. Sorry for the gross stuff floating on the surface of the water.


While taking the sea anemone picture, I found this guy also hanging out on the side. A big ol starfish. I have seen some MASSIVE starfish since I've been here in Alaska... we have pulled a few out of the crab pots even!


I didn't realize this until Dean told me to drive the boat over there one day, but there is a small waterfall across the bay. I thought it was just ice or something but the water is really falling.


Sun makes the babies very happy! When it is sunny, they like to hang out on the very top of the water. Sometimes they are so thick on top that it almost seems like some of them are out of water. Click on the picture to make it a little bigger. My large version is alot nicer because the individual fish are more defined.

Algae Arms & Food Shooters

Alright, before I get into Algae Arms & Food Shooters, I just want to say something. I'm not saying this so I can hear a bunch of nagging and stuff but to... emphasize something. I got a bit sunburned today on my face and arms. I repeat, NO NAGGING... no "oh you're fair skinned..." blah blah... I know all that. My point is that THE SUN WAS OUT AND I WASN'T COVERED FROM HEAD TO TOE WITH CLOTHING!!! Anyhow, I'll get into how great the weather was today in a few... :-)

Soooo I got a email from one of my ADORING FANS today bugging me about how it's been a week since my last blog. WEEEEELLLL... sorry about that. I'm in Takatz 4 days a week so there's really nothing I can do about the lack of reading material for you. :-D Sorry... Takatz goes until the end of May or early June so it's going to be like that until then.

Alright, to get you up-to-date on my week. Sunday at Takatz was awful! Alright so just the weather was awful... started off as rain... ended up SNOWING! UGHH... gross. Then it was this weird mix of rain and snow... blah. Monday... can't even really remember. It rained too. Around 1pm, Adam and I decided to take a ride out towards Chatham Strait to check out the water and to pull up the crab pot. We got like 6 crabs... On the way carrying them to the house where Adam was going to put them in the bucket, one of the crabs pinched me with his snapper! HA HA I had gloves on and these crabs aren't super strong but I felt it... it was kind of funny actually! Anyhow, Tuesday and Wednesday though... UHHHH-MAZING! Great days... when the weather is great, Takatz is great! It makes feeding nice... and it makes the downtime at Takatz great. Both days I spent the afternoon laying on some wooden palettes reading.... trying to pretend I was sunbathing on the beach in Florida. I mean, it wasn't THAT hard... laying on the palettes, looking out onto the water, and it was warm. So what if I was wearing jeans and long underwear and all that and it was probably 50 AT MOST, but it was nice. :-D

Today I worked here at the hatchery. The place seemed deserted today though! Adam and Dean are in Takatz, Dan and Deena have been in Sitka for a few days, Branden and Sarah took off a few days ago because they are getting married!!!, and I think Shannon is even gone! So that left me, Scott, and Angie to tend to the fish. It seemed like EVERYTHING needed to be fed today too. I feel like I worked my butt off today! Angie worked with all the fish here on land... Scott and I were out on the water.

Like last week, Scott and I fed the chum. They have to be fed 6 times a day so we fed them first thing, then we "pulled some nets." The nets get pretty gunky with algae and if the holes in the nets get blocked, the water can't get through to give the fish fresh water. So we pulled up the net on one side so the algae part is out of the water and so it can dry. Then it is dropped back into the water block-free tomorrow. Well we did 5 nets... then it was time to feed again... then we did 5 more. It's hard work... the nets are heavy and wet and slimy with algae. From pinching the nets to hard with my fingers, if I press on my fingernails, it hurts. Ever do anything where the tips of your fingers hurt? It's weird. As we came in for lunch after the 3rd feeding, I noticed the backs of my arms were green from playing in algae. :-D The smell of the algae reminded me of my clam-raising project in college. We fed them algae and it's that exact smell.

So after lunch, we fed the chum, then came back and loaded these contraptions onto Scott's boat and over to the Chinook pens. Feeders... Food Shooters, if you will. :-) Last time I sort of talked about the chinook... because you all were wondering. And probably whatever I told you, I now realized was wrong. Today was the first time I've been to the chinook pens. There are only 10 net pens of fish... I thought they were the size of the Coho in the round ponds... 3-4 inches long. NOOO... These babies are big. Probably twice the size! 6-7 inches maybe... I had no idea! Scott said last October they were the same size as the Coho are now. These fish are going on 2 years old I believe. Anyhow, so I was ready to have my first experience feeding them... and then Scott tells me I am also going to have my first experience using the FOOD SHOOTER! I saw one of these things in motion when we took our tour of Medveije way back in February and it's pretty cool. You load food into this bin (we loaded 2 bags but you could probably load 3), start up the motor, point the tube and SHOOT! Air shoots the food out. It's pretty cool. And feeding the Chinook at the size they are is pretty cool too! They were jumpin out of the water all crazy... way more active than any of the smaller sized fish I've fed. If I would have had my camera, I would have taken a video.

Anyhow, once that was done, we headed back over to feed the chum, then right back to the Chinook pens to pull up a net there. Basically for the same reason.... however, since the chinook are larger, the holes in the net are larger too. Even though algae still gunks them up, Kelp (seaweed) claims residency on the nets! So before Branden left, he was pulling these nets up and replacing them with another net and then washing the net he pulled out. I haven't seen it done but this entails pulling the net up pretty high, then taking the other (clean) net and somehow moving it under the net that is in now. Then dropping that top net and pulling it out once that bottom net has been connected... can't let the fish escape. Hopefully that makes sense? So we pulled this net up and Scott said it really wasn't all that bad, but there was ALOT of kelp on it! Actually, we pulled it up so the kelp was out of the water and it looked sort of cool with all of it connected on there. Scott said it looked like it had grown hair. I want to take a picture but... who knows if I'll get out there tomorrow. We got that done and went right back over to the chum pens for the last feeding.

I'm BEAT! We were non-stop ALL DAY! But the weather was great... normally the mornings feel cold but it warms up. Not really this morning. I had my winter hat off before I had even finished feeding a few pens! The fleece pullover was off as soon as we started pulling up nets. It was nice to shed layers! The sleeves were rolled up almost all day... which is where I got some sun. It barely even looks burnt... just like I got some color. :-) It was a great day to be in Alaska!

On a side note, Dean will be leaving us. He told me last week that he took a job up in Kodiak, which is where he came from. Not sure what he'll be doing or why he's leaving, but there is a girl coming to replace him in a few days. She'll be down in Takatz with Adam and I probably starting Thursday. It'll be sad to see him go... he's taught me alot. I'm just sad they couldn't have found a young guy to replace him! ;-) he he he

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To Steven... Happy Birthday in a few days bro! :-D

ALASKA WEATHER REPORT - FABULOUS! ;-)

P.S. I'll probably post some pictures tomorrow.

It's story time folks...

So I guess no one liked my Killer Whale story!??!?!?!?

Well here are some more...

Today was my day to work at the hatchery. I was assigned to feed chum with Scott (the boss). So the first feeding, we headed out on his boat and fed and then messed with some of the nets. But then a plane came so we hurried in so Scott could talk to whoever was on that plane. It ended up being some builders? who are going to build an apartment. So 2nd feeding time rolls around and Scott is still talking to them. He tells me he'll be just a minute... but then a few minutes later, he ends up saying that I can go ahead in the work skiff and he'll meet me there. Then he asks if I've ever driven the work skiff and I say "umm well no, but people have shown me how." So I tell him I think I can do it and well... I did. But it's a bit nerve wracking driving some boat you've never driven before... ALL BY YOURSELF. I haven't even driven the Takatz boat by myself! Well you might be thinking "well, you HAVE driven the Takatz boat before... what's the big deal about driving this other one?" Well the Takatz boat is alot nicer... you turn a key... it starts... drive it with the steering wheel. The work skiff isn't the same. I've been with Sarah when she's driven it and I know it's a bit temperamental. It "starts" with a pull cord... I say "starts" with quotes because it likes to give you a work out before it'll actually fire up! Then you sit in the back of the boat and use the lever on the motor to drive the boat. I know you guys can mentally picture a boat like that... like a little fishing boat. Well this thing is a bit long and it was a little hard to steer. And it's confusing to drive for ME because you want to go one way and you have to move the lever in the opposite direction of what you think. Well, it ended up stalling on me after moving about 5 feet... Then it ended up stalling on me right near the chum pens, so I just drifted to the pens and didn't have to worry about parking it, which was fine.

I guess it wasn't SO bad... maybe because I didn't have someone watching me do it so I didn't feel self conscious about screwing up or something. But then when it was time to come in for lunch, Scott drove his boat and I had the work skiff still. Which meant I had to PARK the boat in front of the boss. Now that's intimidating! I guess it wasn't completely horrible. I ended up being a little bit away from the dock but Scott pulled me in. But then I had to think to myself "ok... how do I turn this boat off again!?" Because I didn't HAVE to turn it off the first time... it stalled on me! And I wasn't going to ask because then I'd look like a moron! I got it though. :-D

Anyhow, that's the boat story for the day. Here's a wildlife story. I saw another bear today. Or maybe it was the same bear just in a different spot... who knows. It was pretty cool though. We were out on the chum pens and Scott pointed him out. He was just walking around up on the hill... don't worry, the bear and I were separated by a bunch of water. We watched him for a few minutes... he didn't seem to even see us.

Alright, we've got a boat story... and a bear story... how about a tourist story? Ok sorta... So after the 2nd feeding, Scott said he was going back in but that I should stayed to mess with some of the nets again. Well during that time, this big boat had come into the bay. Who knows what for... then I saw they lowered this little fishing boat to the water and someone was messing around on it. Well then that's about when Scott went in. So I'm messing with the nets and sort of watching this boat... then it goes back to the bigger boat, loads on 2 more people and they head over to the chum pens. I'm thinking "Oh great... I'm gonna have to talk to these people, whoever they are!" As they pull up, I say HI and the guy jokingly says he's from the Alaskan Hatchery Inspection Agency or something like that and we laugh. Then he says he's from Sitka, but the other two people are from Pennsylvania and they were just checkin things out. So they asked me some stuff about the pens and the fish... And I'm trying to BS my way through answering these questions. Thankfully I've gone to enough trade shows with my dad to know how to BS my way through answering questions while trying to sound like you really know what you're talking about! ;-) he he he Most of them I could answer but I did have to throw in the "Umm yeah I'm not sure... I'm new here!" statement. They asked to see the fish and I said sure, hoping that it WAS, in fact, ok! I couldn't see why not... I'm sure we get people who do this... wanna just see things. Then they left. I just thought it was sort of funny... the ONE day I'm out at the chum pens, some random tourist type folks come up and the NEW girl has to play a "tour guide" of sorts. Now that I think of it, Scott did ask me earlier on if we got any visitors... boats... down at Takatz.

Well...... those are my stories for the day. Sorry, no pictures. Today's weather was crap, with a side of CRAP. Rain... wind picking up in the afternoon. Probably in the mid 40s. The water temperature today was 4.9 degrees Celcius, which is about 41 degrees Fahrenheit around lunch time I think? BRRRR...

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To Dad... thanks for teachin me to BS! ha ha

Who needs Sea World!?

So I only have a few pictures for you guys but I have a REALLY cool story! But you'll have to wait a minute for that... :-) Like American Idol.... You'll hear the story... RIGHT AFTER THE COMMERCIAL BREAK.

I got to Takatz on Saturday night (the 7th) just in time to call Valerie and wish her a Happy 21st Booze-Day... *cough cough* I mean Birthday! ;-) Talked to her, Melissa and a friend, which was fun. ;-) he he Then the next day was Easter. It rained all day and was pretty gross so it wasn't all that eventful. Feeding in the rain isn't very much fun because 1) since we only feed once every hour and a half or so, we had to keep putting on and taking off our rain gear... and 2) since the fish are tiny now, the fish food is very fine and makes a nice PASTE on anything that is wet. MMMM... yummy! Just hope you don't have rain AND wind at the same time or you might discover a new face cleanser! eww


HAPPY EASTER? And where did that big huge mountain go!? HA HA Yeah, as you can see, it was very foggy/cloudy... this is the view from my window.

Anyhow, Monday was nice again so Adam and I went out to pull up the Shrimp pots that he and Dean put out for the first time the other day. So we get to the pots which were in a different finger part of the bay. And I asked Adam if they were as deep as the crab pots (one was about 60 feet and the other was 160!) And he said deeper... like 4 times deeper. It took me a second and then I was like "whoa! Wait... they are like 500 feet down!" Adam - "umm about 580!" OH YEAH, by the way, we have to pull the pots up BY HAND! HA We ended up pulling it around with the boat... long explanation but eventually it came up. I was surprised to see the size of these shrimp but 1) apparently they were the medium sized ones... and 2) we actually got a bunch of smaller ones compared to times before.

As you can see below, they look quite large! Well after experiencing my first time of cleaning shrimp, I learned that really they are 1/2 head and 1/2 tail meat, which is the part you eat. By the way, you just kind of bend them and twist their heads off. Sorry if that creeps anyone out!


Basket 'O Shrimp!


This was one of the biggest ones we caught.... about as big as my hand. But remember, these are just the "medium" sized ones! As you can see, only about 1/2 of it's body is the meat that you actually eat...


That's essentially what the shrimp pot looks like. There were 2 of them on the long line that was in the water... basically stacked on top of each other.

*End of the proverbial Commercial and onto the story*

Well later that day, it was time for Adam to head to the hatchery and Dean to come out to Takatz. So like usual, we donned our NASA spacesuits (I'm going to have to get a picture of them one of these days... they are suits to keep us warm and I think keep us afloat if we go over the edge of the boat, like snowsuits. Dean's is all orange and looks just like a NASA suit!) Well since I'm learning the ways of the boat, I drove. Let's just say I had my first WHITE KNUCKLE BOAT RIDE! Dean said the seas were probably 3-5 feet, which is kind of pathetic! But since I've only been driving a boat for about a week, I was completely frazzled when Adam and I made it back to the hatchery. It's like driving on a Michigan winter day after you've been driving for A WEEK! Pathetic part is that Chatham Strait can get much worse than that and most likely WILL. EKK... makes me nervous.

SOOO... Dean and I had to make our way back to Takatz but I was glad to let Dean drive. Even though I need experience in that kind of seas, I think one trip was enough for me for one day! I just wanted to HOLD ON and let the experienced one drive us back. So that's what I did. Well on the way back, he points out into the water and said there were porpoises or something out there... he could just see the fin. And I saw them too but actually I thought it was just waves making whitecaps over a rock or something. So I kept watching, hoping to catch a glimpse of what it was, when right then, a KILLER WHALE came out of the water!

A KILLER WHALE!!!!!

I couldn't believe it! A KILLER WHALE! I only saw that one come out of the water but you could see there was a whole pod of them... maybe 6 or more. I mean, he didn't SEA WORLD jump out of the water, but he came up so I could see about a 1/3 of his body.

Maybe like that much or so... no I obviously didn't take THIS picture.

Well I turned to Dean and said "OH MY GOD IT IS A KILLER WHALE!" really excitedly! Probably the kind of excitement that would be in your voice if you saw your favorite celebrity walking down the street! It completely made my WHOLE trip to Alaska worthwhile... definitely one of the coolest things I have EVER seen in my whole life! Like a 100 feet away.... a real killer whale. AWESOME! I had to call people and tell em!

Well that's my story... the past two days were really nice at Takatz, especially today. We've been trying to mort some of the pens which includes a loooong 2 inch piece of pvc and air from a scuba tank which somehow sucks the nasty dead stuff off the bottom of the net pens. A pleasant smell I tell ya! The most we have gotten so far has been about 22,500 dead fish roughly... We obviously can't count all that so we're estimating. I tried to count better how many pallets of food are there and I came up with about 90-95 pallets. That's alooooot of food. More and more avalanches can be heard everyday, which keeps us entertained. And it's ALMOST warm enough to keep us from having to turn on the oven/heater thing at night. First night, we left it on with the door opened a crack but we were both hot and the door kept creaking with the wind so that got closed at about 4:30am! So the second night we left it off and it got a bit chilly! One of those colds where you are alright as long as you don't move any skin out of your blankets! Thankfully Adam wakes up before me... I wasn't going to MOVE until I knew he had the thing lit and it had been running for a while! :-) That's why boys are handy! he he he

ANYHOW... so back at the hatchery. The seas were great and calm today so I drove at peace!

OH, Mom told me to talk about this a little..... I've talked mostly about the chum salmon but there was questions about the others. I basically only work with the chum but we do also raise chinook and coho salmon, but they are smaller projects. While we have about 90 million or so chum, there are only about a few million coho and maybe less chinook. I'm not exactly sure of the numbers. I sometimes still get confused about which fish are the chinook and which are the coho! I know the round ponds out front, which I mort and feed sometimes, are coho that will get released this year. There are some chinook of the same size out in some saltwater pens. There's another set of pens out there that, honestly, I'm not even sure what they are! HA But yes, we raise those 3.

Also, I know when I was talking on speaker phone to the family on Easter Sunday, a question arose about crab pots. They weren't sure what a crab pot really looked like... well these are the two pots that we use.


This is the pot that we put in the 160 ft. deep water. I'm not sure if there is a specific reason it goes for that depth though... You put some bait inside... a dead fish... and they crawl inside.


This is the other pot. I guess it's hard to really see it but it's about a foot wide. Put some bait inside and the crab climb in through the little gates on the sides (you can see them if you look close). They can climb in, but they can't get back out.

If you guys have any other questions, PLEASE email or comment or something! I know alot of this stuff may sound confusing or weird so let me know!! Or if you DO want me to talk about something, I will. :-D

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - I'm going to go with Melissa today.... Thanks for letting me talk to someone on Saturday. HE HE HE Even though I said that I didn't really want to cause I wasn't sure WHAT to say... THANKS. It went better than I thought. *girly giggle* Alright, no one is allowed to comment on what I just mentioned! HA HA

To Takatz and back

Man, it's been almost a week since my last blog. I apologize to my faithful readers! All.... 5 of you!? I was away for 4 of those days anyhow....

Sunday morning I left for Takatz on the boat with one of the fish transfers. After the transfer, Dean switched out with me and I stayed with Adam, where he showed me "the ropes." They ended up finishing all of the fish transfers that day too. Anyhow, as soon as the boat left, Adam turned to me and said "we have 45 minutes until the next feeding... you can go inside and get settled." That first day was a tad busier than the next 3 just because of the transfers but the next 3 days went something like this....

8 am - take bags of food out to the pens and give them their first feeding of the day...
8:30 am - first feeding complete... go inside and do nothing...
10 am - 2nd feeding...
10:10 am - second feeding complete... go inside and do nothing...
11:30 am - 3rd feeding...
11:40 am - third feeding complete... start thinking about lunch...

And that pattern continued... 7 feedings a day... 1 pm, 2:15 pm, 3:30 pm, 4:45 pm... done for the day.

Right now since the fish are small and not eating that much, there is ALOT of downtime! It only takes about 10 minutes to feed (with both people working on their 7 pens on one side) By the way, before I said there were 16 pens, 8 on each side. I lied... there's only 14 pens. The chum pens here at the hatchery have 16 pens. The second day I was there, we had to compete with some iced over water... it wasn't completely frozen over but there were chunks of ice. So Adam hopped in the boat and played around so that he could create waves and try to break it up. Still there was a bunch of ice so it made feeding a little harder because the food doesn't SINK... so we took a long rope and dragged it along the water so try to get the food down. The ice eventually melted. The days I was down there the weather was really great! Though it was cold in the morning, when the sun finally came overhead, it warmed things up.

ANYHOW, I've read alot... listened to alot of Sirius sattelite radio... played a few games of Skip-Bo... watched a few movies... You tend to head to bed a bit early also!

Now the INTERESTING things about the site...

*** No running water... We are getting water from a jug... like a 5 gallon container with a spigot (sp?) Then we refill it with water we have in some buckets. Adam said they collect rain water to use but it hasn't been raining lately (It is right now though!) so we've been getting buckets of water from the hatchery. We also found a little stream that we could use if water gets low that is just across the bay. Anyhow, water supply IS limited so that means no showers... I had to go 4 days, but Adam went probably 8 or 9 before he could get back. It wasn't SO bad but my hair wasn't very pleasant! :-D

The toilet is run on saltwater so it sucks up the water from outside. It's a pain though because it fills up pretty slow.

With the limited water supply, that means we don't really wash the dishes too often. When it was time to eat lunch my first day, I asked which plate was clean and Adam was like "Wellll.... we haven't done dishes (they had been there for like a week)..." So we resort to wiping it with a paper towel and maybe using a little water if it needs it. Anyone who had OCD wouldn't definately NOT survive in this place! he he he

*** Power... the power is from a generator, but we don't have the generator on during the day. The lights are on battery power though... but we never need them during the day really anyhow, except for the bathroom light. So if we want to watch movies on our laptops, we have to use the laptop battery (until it dies...). We usually watch movies at night though and we turn on the generator.

*** Heat... the heat source is a stove that uses diesel. It works pretty good unless it is windy. And when it is windy (like the first day I was there and the few days before I got there) sometimes the wind tends to put the flame out by blowing in the exhaust tube. That then blows the fumes inside and it's not too pleasant! It wasn't SO bad but that first day, you could smell the fumes. Adam warned me that it could be a cold night cause if the wind was too bad, 1) it might just blow the fire out! and 2) the fumes could just be bad so he might just turn it off anyhow. So I got prepared and put on alot of clothes and blankets but ended up kicking it all off cause I was hot! Everything ended up being fine.

*** Avalanches... this is the COOL part! Though we haven't actually SEEN any yet, you can always hear avalanches from the surrounding mountains! Sounds just like thunder. I'm waiting for the day that all of the snow on the big mountain comes down because the sun's been out and it's been warm, but Dean said that it was probably REALLY icy and hard from it melting during the day and then freezing again at night, which is true. So maybe that will be the LAST snow to go. But in the meantime, it's pretty interesting to just HEAR them.

*** Boats... well I am learning how to drive the boat. I can't remember if it was the first or second day but Adam taught me how. I'm still trying to get used to it and still fret that I'm going to crash the boat when I come in to park but it hasn't been TOO bad yet. One of the days even, Adam and I had just come back from somewhere (I'll mention where in a second) and I parked the boat SO good and he goes "Geez... you take the boat out while I was sleeping!?" :-D I've driven the boat to the hatchery a few times (which is about a 15-20 minute boat ride on a good day) for the person exchange (as in me going into the hatch and Adam returning to Takatz)

*** CRABBBBBBB... Takatz Bay is loaded with Crab. A few different kind... we have a few crab pots set in the bay and that's where my first boat driving experience was to. Lemme tell ya! Pulling up a heavy crab pot that is 160 feet down will wear ya out! One person can't do it on their own. The other pot is 60 feet down maybe? Anyhow, we caught a ton of crab in the one pot but they were all pretty small so we tossed them back.

Anyhow, I can't really think of anything else to say. I do like Takatz even though it SOUNDS bad! It's kind of fun... it reminds me of camping. I have a few pictures for you now...


Standing on the back deck, this is the view. Nice right!? Anyhow, the bags that you see at each pen... that is 20 kilos of food (44 pounds). Though they are eating a bit more now, at the time each pen was eating 20 kilos of food a day. (By the way, it was afternoon and we had already fed out a bag between the pens.)


This is the view when I look to my side. Behind that mountain is where we keep hearing all of the avalanches.


FOOD FOOD FOOD! Lots of fish food! I should have estimated how many pallets of food are in there. Maybe like 80 or more... not too sure. Each has 30 bags of food I think....?


BABIES!

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To Valerie... since I probably won't post tomorrow. HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY!! I wish I was there to celebrate with ya but we'll make up for that when I return! ;-)

Alright, I am going to go frost the Easter cupcakes that I made for everyone! I am off tomorrow too but will probably be heading back to Takatz around 5 tomorrow (Saturday) unless the wind is too bad. Right now it's currently raining it there's no tomorrow!!

A Taste of Poland... and Takatz!

**UPDATED**
There are a few new pictures up since you might have last seen it.

Before I get started about my quick trip to Takatz, I want to jump ahead in the day and tell you that I did a pretty monumental thing today. Monumental for ME I guess... I successfully made my first batch of pierogi BY MYSELF! I've helped my grandma out before but I've never actually MADE ALL OF IT. Even though things were a bit messy and I had some issues with the dough, I MADE EM! None of them fell apart... and I even let people try them and they said they were really good! :-D



So yesterday was my day off so I decided to take a ride down to Takatz with Grant on one of the fish transfers. I just wanted to check out the house and the area before I had to LIVE down there. The area is very pretty with a big snow-covered mountain in the background. I've been told many avalanches will be seen and heard. The house is decent too... considering it's a floathouse. The living room/kitchen are is spacious with two tiny bedrooms in the back. There IS a bathroom with a toilet and a shower. Atleast I think it's a shower... I saw a shower curtain!? Anyhow, it doesn't have hot water though so... On the way out there I saw this awesome waterfall too but since my camera decided it wasn't going to work, I couldn't get a picture of it. Dean gave me some batteries though so I got picture of stuff, but didn't find that waterfall on the way back.

I tried to put a picture on here of a map but it wasn't working. Try this link.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl&q=Takatz%20Bay

Hidden Falls is in Kasnyku Bay just north of Takatz Bay. It isn't that far really... You are going to probably have to arrow up a little on the map and then zoom in maybe if it doesn't say any names of the bays. It shows Kasnyku Lake, and Kasnyku is the bay right above that.

Anyhow, pictures.


Welcome to Takatz Bay! Gorgeous right!? It's really hard to see but if you look at the water line at the VERY LEFT of the picture, you can see the Takatz house back there.(Again, click the pic to make it larger.)


There are 16 chum pens, 8 on each side of the house. It basically makes a big H. This is the back side of the house. Those two windows are where the bedrooms are. Those doors open up to where the food is kept.


The inside of the Takatz house. The house is 2 stories but the bottom level houses all of the food.


The guys at work... transferring chum. Dean's in the orange. Adam's in the blue and green. Grant's in the background. He is the guy who runs the boat, but doesn't work at Hidden Falls.


Welcome to saltwater Little Chum! This is the best I could do for taking a picture of the fish. The glare on the water made it hard. It takes them a little while to adjust so some might look dead... but they'll recover.


Remember Muttley!? Well this is his brother. He is Grant's dog but from the same parents that Muttley is from. This guy is BIGGER than Muttley actually... he's got a super puffy coat and looks like a bear. Again, hard to really tell how big he is.

Well, I think Takatz will be good. I will be heading out there tomorrow actually for my 4 day stay so you won't see me online. Some of you MAYYYYY get a phone call though. :-D I'll leave you with just one more picture. I talked the other day about how gorgeous the mountain looked at Hidden Falls. Well it was an equally gorgeous day yesterday (and today!) so here's a shot heading into the bay that Hidden Falls is located in. Let's just say it was another "Oh my god, I'm in ALASKA!" days! :-D


Similar to the Takatz picture, you can see a little building and chum pens at the water level on the very left of the picture. Those are the chum pens that we moved from the other side of the bay. Those trees in the middle are on a little island but behind that is the hatchery.

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - Grandma Czuba... Thanks for showing me how to make pierogi! :-D

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.

The sighting!

I SAW A BEAR!!!!

That's excitement by the way... not fear!

This weekend, Scott said he saw a bear and Josh said he saw tracks. So we have been put on bear alert... making sure the food vans are closed tight and that no garbage is left out. Well today I had just started to "mort" the round ponds out front when Shannon, who was standing over by the duplex, starts to kind of point and call me over. And I knew right then what he was looking at. I would have had the PERFECT view of it from exactly where I had been standing but I probably would have never seen it. It blended in real well and was just kind of sitting there for a few minutes across the lagoon. Then it started to move around a bit. Shannon said it is normally June-ish when they start to see the bears out and that this guy was probably looking for a dead deer to eat because he woke up too early. It wasn't HUGE but it was decent sized... Shannon said probably 3-4 years old. From across the lagoon, it was hard for me to really gauge how large he was. Anyhow it was pretty cool! Then I went back to morting.

A few minutes later I see something out of the corner of my eye moving up the hill and I thought it was the bear so I stopped to watch. It ended up being a deer and I kind of laughed. It was moving in the opposite direction of the bear so I hope it escaped with all of it's limbs! A little later I did see the bear walking down by the water so I watched him for a few. That sure is an interesting sight. It was a good "First bear sighting" experience... that's how I wanted it to be... seeing him from ACROSS the water. This morning as I was walking back to the food shed (pre-bear sighting), I was praying "please don't let this bear come walking over the snowbank!"

Anyhow, that's really the only thing I had to say. Tomorrow work starts at 7 because we are making our first chum transfer to Takatz. Scott and Deena ponded some today and tomorrow they will get pumped into a boat and transported out there. Though Angie told me that we will be DIGGING some screens out of the snow tomorrow, so I don't know why the heck we have to get up an hour early too! :-D he he he Apparently these screens (which are for a raceway she needs ready by Friday) are laying flat on the ground... Under umm...... 12 feet of snow!? Really I have no idea how much snow it is but 12 HONESTLY sounds about right. Maybe I'll take my camera out there tomorrow and take a picture first. It's quite funny...

SNACK EXPLOSION... CLEAN UP... ROOM 3

HEH Alright, I'm just gonna jump right into this before talking about work stuff.

I have received 6 BOXES this week..... 6! That's outrageously funny. I got 4 just today... Angie came into the kitchen and was like "Is it your birthday!?" heh nope... A box from Melissa, Stacey, 2 from Grandma Moser, Mom, and Hannah. Let me just say... I HAVE ALOT OF SNACKS! Allow me to give you a quick list I compiled... really, it's quite funny...

- 6 boxes of Nature Valley granola bars (not including the 2 I have downstairs!) plus a box of a diff. kind of granola bars... (Let me just say, I love them all, but those Sweet & Salty ones are AMAZING! I got 3 boxes of them... I was rejoicing!)

- 3 boxes of cupcakes plus 3 of the 2 pack Hostess cupcakes...

- 2 boxes of Fudge Rounds

- 2 boxes of Nutty Bars

- 2 things of Peeps

- 2 packages of Nutter Butter cookies (1 is a bag and 1 is a smaller pack)

- 7 BAGS OF JOLLY RANCHERS in flavors I didn't even know they had!

- Atleast 10 things of Ramen Noodles... I can't remember...

- Lots of random crazy hilarious stuff from Hannah

- Assorted other stuff like M&Ms, Mini Peanut Butter cups, 3 huge tootsie rolls, jelly beans, twizzlers, life savers, peppermint patties

OUT... OF... CONTROL!! There's no way that stuff will fit downstairs in my one cabinet so I'll be slowly replenishing my downstairs stock... if I don't eat it all upstairs first! heh THANK YOU everyone for sending stuff. If anyone else is planning on sending anything, feel free to hold off for a few... months? ha ha As I was putting my groceries away today, I was thinking, "MAN, I shouldn't have ordered this..." because I shoulda known snacks and stuff were coming. Oh well...

Anyhow, so on to the past 2 days. Well yesterday was the 1st day of spring and Mother Nature decided "alright... I'll give you some spring for god sakes!" and instead of a day of snow, it was a day of rain. And Scott, bless his fabulous heart, decided to give us the afternoon off! He called it a "rain day." So I spent the afternoon doing NOTHING... playing on my computer in my room. I even had the window opened in there for a bit! *GASP* Last night I was watching some tv kind of late but there really wasn't anything on so I flipped to the XM radio channels on the tv... they just play music with a blank screen. And I found THE BEST COUNTRY station! It was playing very brand new music... stuff I haven't even heard... I was so happy. So I sat there and read to some great country music! :-D

Today.... *I drop to my knees and fan my arms at Mother Nature*... WHAT A GORGEOUS MORNING! GAH... the sun was out... it had stopped raining... FABULOUS I TELL YA! I just kept grinning to myself thinking "MAN, this is why I came to Alaska!" as see a bald eagle land in a pine tree and I feel the warmth of the sun! I was down to one layer because it felt so warm! I morted some of the round ponds and then we fed them all morning. Meanwhile, the plane came in. I've decided that as much as I love the sound of the plane coming in, there's something about the sound of it taking off that's really cool. It's sort of cool to watch too.

Anyhow, this afternoon, though the sun went away, it stayed sort of nice for a while. At 3:30, Angie said it was 41 degrees. I fed the fish in the back and then helped Angie in the little incubator room do some stuff that was kind of interesting, though it meant I had to dip my fingers in 3 degree water! Not just dip, but hold them there for a little while. There are a few incubators there like the ones that we just ponded, but I think the fish are Coho... They only started to hatch 3 weeks ago and some of the eggs aren't even hatched yet. Anyhow, so in those incubators, they put a screen in that sits over the substrate that I talked about before. They put the eggs on that screen and when the babies hatch, they fall down through that screen and hang out in the substrate. But there were some bad eggs still on the screens and we had to get those out and just take the screen out period. Though it was cold at some points, it was kind of interesting because I didn't realize that was how they did it. Actually, I don't know if they DO do it that way for all those Chum we ponded... because alot of the substrate was clumped up by bad eggs. Whatever... HA

So that was the day. Now it's raining again. But tomorrow we have a day off for a "holiday."

William Henry Seward (May 16, 1801 – October 10, 1872) was United States Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

As Secretary of State, he fought for the U.S. purchase of Alaska which he finally negotiated to acquire from Russia for $7,200,000 on March 30, 1867. He had claimed that the United States must move westward. This translated into approximately 2 cents per acre ($4.94 per km²) for 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km²) of territory, more than twice the size of Texas. The purchase of this frontier land ("Sewards Icebox") was mocked as "Sewards Folly" and Andrew Johnsons "polar bear garden".

Currently, Alaska celebrates the purchase on Sewards Day, the last Monday of March.

Yeah, so technically the holiday is Monday but we are going to start ponding the Takatz chum on Monday. THAT means, I'll be heading out to Takatz pretty soon... probably next week. My schedule will be... (not necessarily THIS week but once things get going)

Sun. & Mon. - At Takatz with Adam
Tues. & Wed. - Still at Takatz, but with Dean
Thurs. - Back at Hidden Falls to work (just in time for Grey's Anatomy!)
Fri. & Sat. - OFF

Really, out at Takatz, all we are doing is feeding the fish, so we'll have alot of downtime. Sound be interesting. Anyhow, this was a LONG one... Thanks for stickin with me! :-D

SHOUT OUTS OF THE DAY - Grandma Moser, Mom, and Hannah! For the gifts! THAAAAANNNNKKKKSSSS!!! Oh Hannah, thanks for the things to keep me pretty for the fish! The hair ties and rain bonnet! Always lookin out for me! HA HA

On top of the world!!

Ok I mean the roof... on top of the roof...

Alright.... a few people made my day... but we'll get to that later.

What'd I do yesterday, you ask? Snow... shovel... ROOF! yes... And I have some pictures. Now I've talked about the infamous roof snow alot lately. Well the snow depth up there got too high again... they snowblowed some of it, but the rest was just too hard to get through. So that had to be shoveled by hand... and it was conveniently in the CENTER of the roof.


That's Scott and Angie is in the background. So that ledge of snow that you see is what needed to be shoveled. Doesn't look like much... it was a couple feet. "Oh come on... the roof can't hold that 2 feet of snow!?" you ask. Well... there's a good 3 feet of snow UNDER that... we were trying to get the snow down to that 3 foot mark.


Down the center of the roof, there are a few drains and this big trench was created. It's hard to really get perspective but I was bending down on my knee IN the trench when I took this... it's about 5 feet high on either side.


This is me IN the trench... again, hard to really get perspective since EVERYTHING is white but the snow pile behind me was probably as high as me or pretty close. Angie was standing up a little higher to take this.

So yesterday, Scott created these "sleds" which consisted on a piece of "poly" as he called it... plastic.... with ropes on each corner to pull. The plastic was ehh... 5-1/2 ft x 3 ft. maybe... so alot of snow could be piled up on it. So we'd load that baby up and dump her off the edge of the roof. For the first while, it was actually rather funny. I took a few videos on my camera of Angie and Scott pulling the sled and dumping it but they are too large of a file to put on here unfortunately. Anyhow, as we started to creep more and more inward, it got more annoying and I had had enough. There are hoses up on the roof spraying water to try to melt the snow and there are areas where the snow is down to the actual roof so we just ended up throwing snow there just to even off the depth of the roof. It was a long hard day and my left forearm hurts if I touch it!

Anyhow, today Angie and I morted and fed, but once we were done, it was BACK up on the roof for a little while, then out to the dock to clear that off. While we were out there, the plane came to drop of Adam and Deena, who were in Sitka for a few days. Mail came with! YAY for that...

Some interesting facts... Scott talked to a guy he used to work with yesterday. And this guy said that where ever he is, over by Juneau somewhere, they have had 420 INCHES OF SNOW this winter! 420! That's 35 feet of snow! Our number is somewhere like 187 inches... Last year it was somewhere like 65 inches! Gee, guess I picked a good year to move to Alaska! CRAP! ha ha

OH and we're under many advisories tonight... GAH!

...HEAVY SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 10 AM
ADT WEDNESDAY...
...WIND ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 9 AM
ADT WEDNESDAY...
...SMALL STREAM FLOOD ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 4 AM ADT WEDNESDAY
TO 6 AM ADT THURSDAY...

SHOUT OUTS OF THE DAY - To Melissa and Stacey... you guys are amazing! I don't wanna sound like I'm downplaying your package Melissa, but I was truly shocked when I saw a box from you Stacey! I never expected it! I actually carried Melissa's box up to the loader to be taken inside so I knew about that one (and I knew it was coming anyhow.) And then I saw TWO boxes after work and I was grinning from ear to ear! Thanks so much both of you! Hey Melissa, I couldn't open your box right away because I was still working but I was thinking about it while chipping away at the ice on the dock but I was thinking about it for some reason. And I just had this feeling... I was thinking "it would be cool if there was a magazine in there." and there WAS! So when I finally got done with work, I opened them and sat in my room reading that magazine and eating some food for a little while. It was great! And I got your card too Melissa! THANKS! I have a few of your cards hanging up in my room! ;-) And now I have a big stash of snacks under my desk! he he he Except for those Hostess cupcakes... those were gone the minute I sat down!

The Good and The Bad

The Good
The grocery flight came today!! YAY! I was walking down the stairs and I heard what I thought was the plane but.... it didn't sound like it landed... maybe like it just flew over so I wasn't completely sure. But then I saw a few people going out to the dock and I rejoiced! I still didn't get any of your packages yet but I did get a few things I ordered online. I'm sure I'll get them this week though... they're probably sitting in the NSRAA office but the stuff that came today was probably the stuff that has been sitting at the airline place since the original canceled flight on Wednesday.

The Bad
So I'm gonna share a little bit of my gripes about not being able to shop for myself. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy my stuff is here, but certain things about this whole concept makes me crazy... I've kinda gotten over the frustration of not having the grocery store right there when I need it. Now I have to figure out HOW to get exactly what I want.... here are my examples...

- I asked for 1 box of cereal, 1 box of granola bars, & 1 box of popcorn... I got 2 of each. Really, that's alright though because I'll definitely eat them.

- I asked for Finesse shampoo and conditioner... they sent me some coconut smelling Suave shampoo and conditioner for dry and damaged hair. Now you GUYS are probably going, "ohh so what!?" but the ladies understand. I can't get much more specific than what I said... and even if it was out, this is probably the most random 2nd choice they could have picked out! Maybe a guy shopped for me! HA HA

- I asked for Nutter Butter cookies. Those are the peanut butter cookies shaped like little peanuts... they're AMAZING! Except for you Hannah! heh not a good idea. ;-D Well they sent me these Nutter Butter wafers... close but... I've never even HEARD OF THEM!? They were alright but not the same...

- I asked for tuna... 4. The past weeks I have gotten cans... that's the obvious choice right!? This week they sent me the packets of tuna. Which would be alright if they weren't $2.00 EACH PACKET! A can of tuna is what... 89 cents!?

- I wanted Lipton Iced Tea mix but my dumb mistake, I didn't put "MIX" so I got the bottles of Iced Tea. 6 bottles... FOR $9.99! Payin out the ass! Sorry.... heh That was my fault though. And atleast it tastes alright...

- Now this one isn't the grocery store's fault either... it's the weather's fault. I decided to order a gallon of milk instead of the 1/2 gallon since I always run out when I really need it. ($5 a gallon up here by the way!) Well... they shopped for our stuff on Wednesday, but it was sitting there since today... Sunday. My gallon of milk... expires TODAY. NICE... so now I'm looking for ways to use it!

Well, I am really appreciating the concept of shopping for myself these days... and really appreciating the prices of Michigan groceries. :-D Now I'm going to go downstairs... Scott got frozen pizzas and beer (not that I'll benefit from that one) for us so we're going to eat... :-D

A Triumphant Return

I only had to work 1 hour today. It wasn't that bad... I probably would have just been sleeping anyhow. Instead I made a few bucks. The rest of the day I watched a few movies... the net wasn't working so I couldn't get on that. And it was snowing like a madman out! GAH...

The plane STILL hasn't come... which officially makes it WORSE than last week. The funny thing is that we have to put our food orders in again on Monday... I can't even remember what I ordered!? I hope it comes tomorrow or Monday atleast... or we are going to be getting TWO food orders in one day.

Alright, I know what I said... and no I haven't received any packages yet but since I KNOW they are coming, it'll make an appearance today.

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To my Uncle Eddie... he told me he was protesting because I took this off and well... I don't want to lose one of my avid readers! Plus... the poor guy needs a bit of "love" because I'm sure he's a little hurt after the Spartans' loss today. So shout out to YOU!

DOH...

So you know what the major downfall of living and working in the SAME remote place is...? Your boss can just say to you "umm I'm gonna need you tomorrow..." when it's your day off... Because you can't just say "ooooh I can't... I have to go somewhere." Cause you got nowhere to go! You HAVE to work... there's no gettin out of it... it's kind of a pain!

So yeah... you just learned how my "weekend" will start out. Working... but what will I be doing, you ask? Well I will tell you! The same thing I had to do on my Saturday off a few weekends ago... *you think back to former posts and list off some weekends*

*YOU THINK*
--> Well last weekend, you worked on your Saturday but you ponded... and you are done with that... can't be it.

*YOU THINK HARDER*
--> The weekend before that you... UH OH.... not again! Snowblowed the snow off the roof!?

OH NO, don't be silly... I don't have to do that again!

No... this time I just have to shovel the roof! HA no joke. The guys spend the day up on the roof again snowblowing, but also shoveling the snow off the edges of the roof. Now, apparently it won't be all day... just a few hours probably, Scott said. And we're probably just going to come in at 10. Deena, Angie and I will. bleh... Dan and Adam always work on Saturdays so atleast Adam'll be up there probably. Not sure who else... Scott I'm sure. The boss wouldn't make us come in and then NOT come in himself...

Hopefully the plane comes tomorrow too so my day can be better. Funny thing is this is just how last week went... except THIS week, we were suppose to have 2 flights! We didn't get any. I'm pretty convinced this snow is never going to end.

Just want to say that the "SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY" is doing fine... I haven't harmed my hostage. In fact, it will return pretty soon... and in full force! I have gotten word from a FEW people that help is on the way... and I thank you! :-D Now if we could just get that plane in to BRING me the "help!"

I ROCK!

No... literally, it feels like things are rocking a little! ha ha I spent all day out on the chum pens or in a boat. Interesting thing we did today, we moved the chum pens. Those 16 pens that we ponded all those chum into... now on the other side of the hatchery. It doesn't sound too bad but I'l explain more about how big these things are.... It was kinda neat...

So the pens are 8 pens long and they connect in the middle to make 2 - 8 pen long pieces. Each pen is 40 ft. x 40 ft. (I'm pretty sure... the nets that cover the pens are that long, and I tried to measure it with my feet today!) And there is a 3 ft. walkway in between each pen and on the outsides... so do the math... 320 ft of pens plus 27 ft. of walkway... that's a good 347-ish feet long chunk of stuff that we had to move across the bay! About 46 ft. wide. TWICE! And the fish are still in the pens!

What they did was just attached boats to it and pushed it. It took a while... maybe like 45 minutes to move one piece to where we needed it. It was a long sort of boring ride across the bay... about a 2 minute ride in a speedy boat. But I had my music on... and I was entertained for a bit by some bald eagles. Right when we pushed off, there were 2 bald eagles flying around at the same time over the water right near us trying to catch fish. It was really pretty cool. They'd circle and then go down with their claws. Just like on a nature show or something. I couldn't really tell if they did actually catch anything. One did it a few times. Then they flew off and landed on the same tree. +1 about Alaska... bald eagles are definately an amazing sight!

-1 for Alaska is this never ending SNOOOOOOW! We're having a repeat of last week... flight plane still hasn't arrived yet. It's all because of this snow. I've decided though that Alaska really isn't all that much different than Michigan around now. The weather is so unpredictable! Yesterday when work started, it was bright and sunny... amazing really! Made me happy to be here. It was like that for maybe an hour and a half but then the snow clouds of doom came in! Though we knew it was coming because they were lingering over the mountain... but if you turned around, you were happy again because it looked like a totally different place with the sun and all! Then it started to snow pretty hard... little while later, it was amazing again! Obviously not enough time for the place to arrive though. BOO... *BANG* Snow... just fell off the roof again right outside the window.

What's that you say? You sent me mail!? AWESOME... I'll be expecting it!

I'm holding the "SHOUT OUTS OF THE DAY" hostage until I get mail... mail is the ransom. Anything... boxes are better!

48 million down....

ALL ABOARD!! Last call for all you baby chum to catch the water slide out to salt water!

Ponding is DOOOOONE! Ok well atleast ponding the chum that are going to stay at Hidden Falls. The Takatz chum still needs to be ponded but there's a different method and Scott might do that on his own... and we still have Chinook that needs to be ponded.

Ponding has been taking alot out of me. Quote of the day yesterday from Sarah when we were out on the chum pens trying to pull apart some frozen chum nets was "My arms are tired... my body is tired... MY SOUL IS TIRED!" I agreed. For the past few days, I've been BEAT after work... collapsing on my bed and sleeping for like an hour.

Anyhow, now that ponding is done, who knows what we're going to do. Actually I'm sure tomorrow will go like so... Sarah and I will go out to the chum pens (like we've been doing for about a week) because the fish we ponded today still need to be pushed out of the raceways and into the tube down to the chum pens, where we will be on the receiving end making sure they look ok when they hit saltwater. We'll also take care of feeding all those fish out there. Getting the feed to the boat is a work out in itself. There will now be 16 pens of chum out there and each pen eats 1 bag of food a day, which is 20 kilos or 44 lbs. (though the fish that are going into the last 2 pens won't get fed yet.) So we'll lug 7-44lb bags of food down to the dock... which will only last for 1/2 the day, in which case 7 MORE bags will have to be lugged back down there. They have to be fed 6 times a day... 3 million chum in each pen... does that all make sense!? HA HA Let's just say it's alot of lugging...

Well that'll probably be my morning, but who knows what I'll do in the afternoon. *shrug* OH today when Sarah and I were out there, we saw a few sea lions swimming in the distance. Pretty cool. :-) Grocery flight tomorrow... Dean should be arriving back at Hidden Falls! YAY! The new flight schedule is starting, meaning 2 flights a week... I think. I know we're suppose to have one Wed. and Fri. this week... then Scott said Mon. and Wed. next week. I guess that's all I know for now. I'm PRAYIN for some mail people... don't let me down! he he he

Man that's a great sound!

So I used to say that my favorite sound ever was the Phantom Regiment hornline or something like that... Well... for the next 8 months or so, I've decided my new favorite is the sound of a Cessina clearing the mountain top! Sarah and I were working out on the chum pens at around 9 this morning when out of the blue, we hear it. The distinctive sound... that lovely sound! The plane to bring us our groceries! AHH... it felt like I was a 5 year old at Christmas time!

Actually, what it felt like was something from a movie... where there are two people (say Sarah and I) who are stuck on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere (say the chum pens... hypothetically. *wink wink*) and you hear that sound... a plane coming to rescue you! When you watch it fly over the top of you and you two just look at each other and cheer and push your fists up in the air! HA cause that's what we did. Thankfully it came when it did too otherwise, the weather wouldn't have been great.

Another day of ponding... we tackled a stack of incubators that we knew weren't going to be pretty because 1) they smelled pretty bad... 2) they've been having problems with the water level and stuff. Lots of dead fish for some reason. And lots of dead fish laying stagnant with no where to go, even if the water is running, equals some pretty FOAL STUFF! A pretty awful smell... water coming out of the incubator as it was being dumped the color of skim milk. Not pretty...

Anyhow, I'm sure ready for my day off tomorrow. Two 6-day work weeks in a row'll getcha!

OK... Alot of you have asked me "do you need anything?"... "what do you want me to send you?" So I tried to think up some stuff I would enjoy receiving. Basically, snacks are FABULOUS... those tend to go fast around here. Think drum corps care package... here are some ideas...

1) Hostess Cupcakes... anyone who's hung out with me at night knows that this is my late night gas station snack choice. Yes I'm talking about those cupcakes that come in the 2-pack.

2) Nutter Butter cookies... my new addiction! Seriously... fabulous! Don't waste your time on the little gas station kiddie 6-pack... go for the BIG PACK! he he

3) Fudge rounds... or all those other Little Debbie snacks!

4) Granola bars... chewy are good. The Nature Valley ones are my new favorites though.

5) Ramen noodles... I'll probably get sick to death of this AGAIN but they're lightweight, cheap, and easy to throw in a care package.

6) Jolly Ranchers... feel free to open the package and take out the grape ones for yourself though. Not gonna lie, won't eat em!

7) That Quickcandy stuff... This is an odd one, but some of my family knows what I'm talking about. I just thought of it... I can get myself some pretzels or something and make my own great snack of chocolate covered pretzels. I know Meijers has it... Meijer brand. Or whatever... tis good!

8) Anything really... I've only gotten TWO pieces of mail since I've been at the hatchery. (not including my sister's cards when I was back in Sitka) It's kinda sad. Come on!

my anniversary

WOW, I just realized that I've been here for a month today! That's CRAZY! :-D

MOOOOOORE ponding. We have 4 more days left on these chum. (I've figured out these 48 incubators we're ponding are the chum that are staying here... soon we will pond the chum that will go out to Takatz. They're in a different type of incubator.) Today I spent alot of the morning working with the raceways. After the fish are dumped in the ponding machine, they are piped out to two raceways, which have nets in them. We leave them in there overnight and the next morning, before starting the ponding process all over again, we send those babies out to saltwater. They are piped out there again.

Well these raceways are about 50 feet long and maybe like 8 feet wide but the fish are contain in this net which covers the whole area. To get the fish to GO down the pipe, we have to run this metal pole along a ledge on the sides of the raceway which goes on the underside of the net, which just pushes the fish to one end as the net goes over the pole. MAKE SENSE?

So Adam and I did that this morning. The unfortunate thing, though, was realizing that there were ALOT of fish UNDER the net in one of the raceways, meaning there must have been a hole somewhere. As we started to push that net, we discovered a 6 inch hole in the net where one of the weights sat. MAJOR bummer because Adam estimated about 100,000 fish loose in the raceway that we'd have to try to gather up somehow. So after we pushed the majority of the fish out, he and Brandon tried to run the net down on the bottom of the raceway as they disturbed the fish to try to get them back on top of the net and it sorta worked but there were still quite a few underneath. It's not a good day for those babies.

We've had trouble with the birds lately too... seagulls and ravens. Those babies are under alot of stress by being dumped to going outside in the daylight and all... and then the birds tend to freak them out too! This is when the fish try to burrow down which causes that dog piling effect I talked about before. Scott put Deena and I on bird patrol for a little bit yesterday... possibly as a joke... he told us to throw snowballs at them. Well today he came in this morning and said one of those darn seagulls must have been pretty full and had an accident because there was a dead seagull on one of the pallets that sit on the side of the raceway. I'm not sure if he just died on his own or someone... "helped" in the process! HA Not a good day for that guy either.

ANYHOW, still no grocery flight... it was suppose to be on Wednesday. My food supply is dwindling! HURRY UP! :-\

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To my dad again for leaving me the funniest comment on my last posting! I laughed for like 5 minutes!

DAD'S COMMENT...
OK! About yesterday. I hope I am around 20 years from now, to hear you say to your 15 year old son who doesn't want to shovel the porch:

"Why sonny! When I was working in Alaska, I had to shovel my way out of the bunkhouse just to get out. Then shovel my way to the office, just to find out I was going to shovel snow ALL DAY LONG! Then I had to shovel my way back to the bunkhouse! And it was UPHILL, BOTH WAYS, too! Kwitcher bitchen!and just shovel the damn stuff!"

Wise words of wisdom. DAD

Is that Spring I feel?

So... I first want to start off by saying thanks to those 3 people I emailed today during my lunch break. Thanks for reading my "mental breakdown" email and thanks for your words of wisdom. After lunch, things got better.

Alright, not much to say today except that.... it felt like Spring was on its way! Though it rained all morning and felt cold, after lunch it actually cleared up for a little while and the sun ALMOST came out. You could see it... just beyond the mountain, but the mountain is TOO high. The wind really picked up though, but it was a warm wind. After feeding the fish out front, which is hard to do in strong wind by the way. It's a good thing I kept my mouth closed or I wouldn't have had to eat dinner... ha ha it wasn't THAT bad but yeah. Anyhow, I did a bit more shoveling and was getting warm. For the past few weeks I've been wearing 3 thick layers (2 fleece things and a sweatshirt, and then my t-shirt and long sleeve shirt) and I was down to one thick layer and actually felt like I could have taken that off! It felt NIIIICE! It was probably in the high 30s, which is nice to say for a change!

Anyhow, unfortunately it didn't stay that way. In a short amount of time, it started to rain again and boy was that wind going! Not exactly the ideal time to go shovel the docks but hey, that was what we did. At one point, I had to go to the railing because I really thought I could have blown off! People were saying the gusts were probably 60 mph or so. It was pretty crazy. With all the rain and melting snow, the roadways are now waterways too. Thank goodness for waterproof boots! :-D

On a good note, word is that Dean didn't really break his leg. It seems like a pretty hard thing to mistake but when I said yesterday that it was pretty bad, that means it broke the skin in a few places so I guess that's why they thought it was broken? I don't really know. But I do know that that is a good thing because he'll be able to come back pretty soon.

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To Mom, Dad, & Melissa... thanks for reading my email.

ANTI-SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To my "L" key... remember how my space bar used to not work when it didn't feel like it. Well the L key is doing the same thing today. I had to type it about 5 times to get the L to work once.