60s are the new 80s!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Though we don't really get tomorrow off like everyone else.

Anyhow, not much going on this past week. Our fish didn't grow real well this week and we don't really know why... we had nice weather! We made a trip to Baranof Warm Springs this week and hung out in the tubs instead of the natural pools. They pump water into these livestock watering troughs (that's what it looks like atleast!) Adam went fishing up at the Baranof Lake too. Wednesday we were sort of bored so we decided to make a trip back to the hatchery to possibly catch dinner and just to do whatever... no fresh dinner that night. The next day it was so nice that after work, Adam went out fishing and I...... layed out on the deck... IN MY BATHING SUIT! I tell ya... 60 degrees is the new 80s!

Now we're back at the hatchery (and about to leave back to Takatz actually). We had the best weekend possible! Couldn't have asked for any better weather! Sunny skies and warm temperatures. Yesterday and today, Adam spent walking from the porch to the dock and back patrolling for King Salmon. And yesterday he caught the first two King Salmon of the season... and of course that's what we ate for dinner! I layed out on the grass and read in shorts... yes... shorts! Last year I wore shorts only once and that was in August... this year is shaping up to be a possibly decent summer. Today no fish were caught but they were seen.

This morning right when we got up, we had a bit of excitement. Well it was exciting for me... because of my love/hate relationship with bears. There was a mother and cub eating some grass close to the weir so we watched them for a few minutes. Then I went to do something and Adam said "Oh the cub's crossing the weir... and she's letting it." Talking about the mother. Then both bears come walking across the weir toward the hatchery side. There's a net fence right there so once they got far enough, they crossed over that to walk right in front of the house. I got all excited and told Adam to get the camera. Of course, I didn't want to get too close so I was watching from the window but Adam took the camera and went outside onto the deck. Last time we did that, with the mother and three cubs, she wasn't too excited about it and tried to scare us away (and it worked for me!) So I didn't want to get too close even though the deck was seperating us. But once they saw Adam, she and her cub started walking faster to get away. Once they were all the way under the deck walking away I went out the back door and watched them. It's amazing sometimes getting really close to something so big and powerful. She wasn't a real big mother bear and her cub was probably half her size, but the cub probably weighed the same as I did. It's just sort of cool to look them in the face that close up. Even though we were fairly safe, I still had a crazy nervous energy going through me... and I was all excited and shaking afterward. Adam did get a few pictures but no real face shots... There was probably weeds in the way when you could see the front of them. Just bear butts really...







Well that's my cool story of the week. I hope it even made sense... sorta confusing to talk about unless you see right where they were. Anyhow, time to head out. Don't forget to let me know about the "Catch of the Day" orders!

The Official Return of the Porch Salmon

Happy Beautiful Sunday! And I mean that... it's nice here today!

I don't have much to tell this week really.... hasn't been THAT eventful. We had some rain this week, which makes things a bit on the BLAH side. Tuesday was sampling day and our fish grew better than we thought, which is always a plus! Everyday we are netting alot of dead fish off the top because well.... they're dying obviously. But they are just really tiny fish that just never grew. Dan has been having alot of die-off issues with his Hidden Falls chum so Thursday Adam got dive tanks to use with our mort sucker. Though Dan has pulled out ALOT of dead from the bottom, we didn't really get much of anything.... except alot of extremely foul-smelling fish poop and liquid! Friday was a busy day of feeding 4 times a day, morting the tops of the pens with the dip net, morting the bottoms with that mort sucker, and trying to get all of our nets dropped to the deck like we did last year. We were on the go ALL day but we managed to get it all done... and in the rain!

So it was nice to come back to the hatchery and have our weekend on Friday, but it was a very wet ride back. Despite being tired from the week, my night was spent freaking out in front of the computer until I finally gave up at 11:15pm. Last weekend I was looking into flight to come home and the prices weren't exactly great. But I figured out what I'd do and I was planning on booking my ticket this weekend. Friday, however, didn't go as smoothly as I thought it would. I kept running into alot of issues with stuff being sold out or the price jumping up! Finally I had settled on a ticket to Midway airport (even though I had previously decided to pay a little more to get closer to home) But it was the cheapest flight I found at a cheap $653 so I went ahead and tried to book. Note the TRIED! I had literally pushed the purchase button but on the next page it told me that flight was gone or something and the price was now $900 something! WHATTTTT!? NO... That's when I pretty much gave up. I looked at a few other things, such as Adam's flight stuff just to see if it was just me who would have issues. Then I went to bed.

Next day, I talked to Adam about my airline-induced headache I was having the night before... his flight stuff seemed fine still. I still don't know what the deal was. Apparently alot of people were flying to Chicago at the same time I wanted to!? So he booked his flight... then I looked on the same website he did and just found a flight... close to home... but costing a tad bit more than Adam's ticket! However that works out...!? I just didn't want to deal with it anymore... Adam's flights had a 5-ish hour and 7 hour layovers in Seattle so I said "Hey, might as well keep you company." So we both have the same flight from Sitka to Seattle and Seattle to Sitka on the way back. So you can expect me home July 4th... hopefully WITH my luggage! I'm stayin until July 15th.

Anyhow, that's one of the announcements. 2nd announcement... Today, Adam has spotted the official return of the season's King Salmon. He's been out standing on the porch looking at the water and finally spotted a few swimming in. It's a surprise he didn't fall running down to the water IN FLIP FLOPS with his fishing pole. Like a little kid on his birthday, I tell ya! But that makes me happy too.... fresh salmon! YAY.

Well, we got a new girl this week.... Lexie. Anna is leaving this coming week too. Our chum should be large enough and ready for release in a few weeks. Probably about the first week of June, just like last year. Then we'll be back and forth to the hatchery with dirty ol chum nets... then back at the hatchery period. So in the coming month, we'll be washing and mending nets and setting up incubation and the spawning shed for spawning season. Then we'll head off for vacation and return with spawning season not far off. Where does the time go!?

Alright, guess that's about all for now. Sorry, no pictures this week. Congrats to Dad and Lee for their remarrying shindig yesterday! I was there in picture and spirit! :-)

The Attack of the Buzzing Birds

Back for another week.... sorry for the lack of postings and pictures lately. But I have some this week.

There really hasn't been all that much going on. The Takatz chum are growing... slowly. They're a little bit smaller than they were last year at this time. There has been a type of plankton in the water that is spikey and nasty looking through the microscope, but it gets into the fishs' gills when they eat and irritates them. Thus making the fish not want to really eat. But they are eating and we think it's getting better but we are still finding that stuff in the water. Not much you can really do though. I was just trying to find a picture of what these things look like but I can't find one. SO, imagine a center point with a bunch of long spikes radiating off of it in all directions. They are fairly simple looking but can look pretty nasty! Anyhow, so the fish are up to about a gram a piece, and we release them when they are about 2 grams so we have a ways to go yet.

We really haven't been dealing much with the weather being bad, which is nice but apparently tomorrow is supposed to be really gross. Speaking of gross stuff... we've been dealing with another element! Fish poop! HUH? Alot of the poop from the fish just gets washed out of the nets, but alot just sinks to the bottom. Unfortunately, lately something has been causing these "poop balls," if you will, to float up to the surface. Sometimes it's just small chunks but sometimes it's small ISLANDS!



I know this is a fairly gross topic to be talking about but hey, you wanted to know about all elements of my job, right!? Unfortunately this one happened at about 9pm, right after we had eaten dinner. I know you can't get the full effect of it just by this little picture. And it doesn't really even look that big. But you should probably be thankful this isn't Smell-O-Vision! You've all changed a nasty baby diaper right!? Times that by 100. We tried to just drop down the net and float it out, which worked but then we tried to get the thing to sink. Anyhow, nasty nasty stuff! :-)

Now onto a more cheerful subject, last week my brand new hummingbird feeder arrived and we filled it and put it up as soon as we got back to Takatz. The week before we had a cute little red hummingbird always buzzing around. Unfortunately, it trapped itself in the rafters of the warehouse downstairs and couldn't figure out how to get out. It wore itself out so much that Adam ended up netting it with one of the fish nets and releasing it outside, where it flew away, but we didn't see it again. :-( It probably died. BUT, since the feeder has been up we've had about 3 new ones CONSTANTLY around. There are 3 brown and red ones and 1 brown and green one that we see only randomly. But are they ever NUTS! Those 3 that are always around have gone through 16 oz. of liquid in only like 5 days! I'm sure it's mating time and probably that, mixed with them being jacked on sugar water, makes some amusing birds always buzzing around. You can stand right next to the feeder and they aren't scared to come up, which makes for some good photography. They are just really funny to watch too... they will chase another bird away if they are drinking at the feeder. They try to scare them away by fanning out their tail and then they just buzz after them. It's funny. Anyhow, here are some pictures.


This picture is really cool bigger so blow it up. I was super excited to catch two of them at the same time... Checking each other out.


I was MORE proud of this picture though. It is the clearest picture! I was amazed. The bird's neck doesn't show how interesting the colors change and reflect red and yellow but it's really pretty.


This is a close up of the bird from that last picture. The wings look transparent because they are beating so fast.


Now you can see the neck colors better, even though it's blurry. The neck looks red but it can move just slightly and it looks like it changes colors. It's awesome!


Coming IN!!!

So that's been my amusement for the week really. Last week, my amusement was something Adam showed me at night. You maybe have heard of this, but there are some types of plankton that are bioluminescent. This means that at night, it's like they glow in the dark almost. We walked out there and it almost looks like there are fireflies in the water. Random green dots flashing. But then he took a net and ran it through the water and the water lite up with green. I've heard of this before but I've never seen it and it was awesome! He said it's really cool if you take the boat out, because the water from the prop is just a trail of green. It's a pretty neat thing to see.

Well I have a few random pictures now....


This is just a cool picture I took while watching the hummingbirds. Some rain coming down not far from the house. This was around 5:30pm.


This was a cute little starfish we pulled up in one of the crab pots. I wish I could figure out a way to preserve them and them looking exactly the same. This one was pretty cool.

Well, I guess that's the wrap-up for the week. Except a few things. Friday we pulled up our first King Crab of the season. YAY! We weren't even sure if they were legal right now though. I'm trying to figure out my vacation time right now... at this point, I'm pretty sure it's going to be the first few weeks of July. So save the dates! ;-) I'm thinking I'll be home the 4th until the 15th... maybe.

Alright, I better get going. It's almost 3... I have a shower to take, stuff to pack up for Takatz, and I have two batches of fabulous brownies to make. Yesterday was Anna's birthday so that's one batch... the other is for us of course! :-) Oh, Andy and Anna are calling it quits. Actually Andy left last week and Anna will be out next week or so. But a few weeks ago we got a new guy and this Wednesday a new girl is coming in. OK, catch ya later!

SHOUT OUT OF THE WEEK - To Mom, Lee, Grandma Czuba, and Grandma Moser, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! And to all you other mothers that read this, same to you! And to Steven, shout out to you! You know why! :-)

P.S. Mom, pet my two babies for me! It's hard to be a mother away from her two furry babies!

Sunny Side Up!

HEYYYY-YO!

So you know how last blog talked about how Mother Nature was playing mean games and giving us snow?? Well she was very nice to us this week. It was sunny all week, which was such a nice change! It was probably in the mid to lower 50s I guess but definitely felt warmer. We were lying out on our deck in the afternoon a few days and it feels really warm up there because it gets direct sunlight and the house is covered with a dark green metal, which is about 80 or 90 degrees to the touch! We had a little bit of wind a few days but not too bad. THANK YOU MOTHER NATURE!

There really isn’t all that much new. We had a 4 day week at Takatz because we were there for 6 last week. It is definitely getting warmer, which feels so nice. I put away my long underwear for now, which I’m happy about! I don’t have to wear as many layers of shirts anymore either. We can even walk around the pens in flip flops now instead of having to put out boots on every feeding!! We are finally starting to switch the fish food from the size 0 food to size 1 food. That’s like switching from powdery sand to coffee grounds. It’s much better to feed out because it doesn’t blow back at you as easily and the fish like it much better, since they are growing big. Now we’re only feeding 5 times a day also. That gives us ample time to sunbathe! ;-)

Friday’s boat ride back to the hatchery was a little bumpy but very sunny! When we were dropping off our stuff and collecting others, one of the good ol hatchery dogs started barking across the weir. Usually the crazy dog is barking about birds or…. Shadows… but this time we were curious. Bear? It’s about that time… well we didn’t see anything right then, but a little bit later there was a bear out across the lagoon. A skinny little bear was out eating some grass. They sure do come out of hibernation pretty skinny! I took pictures of it but I just realized I forgot my camera cable at Takatz, so next week.

Mother Nature must have decided she was tired of being nice, however, because it has been raining and windy for the past two days. Yesterday, Adam and I camped in and watched episodes of How I Met Your Mother ALLLL day! No point going into the rain if you don’t have to… and we have 6 Netflix so we were set! The wind doesn’t seem to be as strong now (3pm Sunday) but who knows if we’re going to be able to head back tonight.

For my weekly baking attempt, I decided to try a Chocolate & Peanut Butter Pie. Alright, so it was a no-bake pie but it wasn’t from a box! I needed some chocolate wafers, which we took as chocolate graham crackers maybe? Well, our good ol grocery store sent some chocolate covered graham crackers. I don’t think they worked out very well…… I decided to make 2 pies actually because I had enough stuff so one was that crust and the other was mostly oreos. I think the oreo crust turned out much better… that other crust doesn’t look like it will come off the pan so Adam and I will take that one. The other will go to my co-workers. But the filling of the pie turned out pretty good. Peanut butter, cream cheese, whipping cream, and chocolate chips are the main ingredients. I think it will be alright. Adam decided to make some cake doughnuts this morning in his fryer that turned out pretty good! There’s nothing better than some fresh doughnuts in the morning. :-)

I guess that’s about it for this week. Oh, if any of you happened to watch Grey’s Anatomy this past week… don’t worry, I know better than to touch baby bears! :-) If you didn’t watch it, there was a bear attack. Mama bears don’t like you messing with their cubs.

No Shout Outs today… how about you give ME a shout out!

ANYONE READING THIS NEEDS TO SAY HI ON MY COMMENTS OR VIA EMAIL!

Mother Nature LaughFest

After skipping last week's entry, I'm back. The past week has been a Mother Nature LaughFest really... our weather has been just odd. One day it is sunny and clear, then next day it is THIS...



I know that date makes it look like it's November 4th, but that is really April 11th. On April 11th, we woke up to slush on the pens... and snow ALLLLL day.


Slush in the whole bay. And you can see how much fish food is stuck on top of that slush. It wasn't a very pleasant day. That was a Friday so Adam and I returned back to the hatchery that day. Luckily, at the end of the day, the snow turned to rain, which was a good thing. When you are driving fast in an open air boat in the middle of the ocean, you'd think being hit in the face with snow would be better than having rain hit you in the face. That is untrue! It sure makes for a wet ride, but rain is better. Unfortunately, as we came into Kaznyku Bay (the bay the hatchery is in) it turned to snow.

So let me set the scene... I am wearing this giant puffy survival suit with a hood, which makes me resemble an astronaut, but I don't care because it keeps me warm and dry. I have gloves on. It's cloudy and fairly dark for being 5pm, but I'm wearing sunglasses because it keeps the wind out of my eyes. I have a snow hat on and my hood pulled down so the only thing exposed is my nose and cheeks because my mouth is buried in my suit. It's raining and my suit is soaked and I have water dripping all down my face... and then it turns to snow. You would think it would be welcomed since I won't have water dripping down my face but the sensation has now turned to NEEDLES STABBING ME IN THE FACE. That's what snow coming at you at a fast speed feels like. It's great....

Well, we made it back... soaked, face frozen, but safe. The weekend was NASTY. Strong winds and rain. So I sat in and made some more bagels and cookies. The weather got better so we could head back Sunday night. Andy an Anna said they saw Killer Whales in the bay but they were too far away by the time we got out there. I saw their water spray though.

Our week at Takatz started off alright, I think. Monday we sampled the fish because the weather was decent enough and we weren't sure if the next day would be good enough. It was... Tuesday and Wednesday was sunny but Adam was dealing with a strong current on his side of the pens so he couldn't seem to keep the food IN the pens long enough for the fish to eat it. My side is on the inside so I was alright. Then, after two sunny days, we woke up Thursday to THIS...





NOT AGAIN! I thought we were done with this!? April 17th! The snow didn't last very long really... I can't exactly remember but it was probably gone by that night. Friday was yet another ACT in Mother Nature's LaughFest. Sunny and WIIIIINDY! Like 35 mph winds. That's when feeding salmon turns into The Art of Reading the Winds Mind so that more food goes into the mouths of the fish instead of YOUR MOUTH! We fought the wind all day... it was basically rediculous but it had to be done. Friday is our day to head back to the hatchery but we knew that wouldn't happen! We took a ride out to look at Chatham Strait anyhow and it was a sight! I've never seen the mouth of Takatz Bay so wavy before... there were waves on top of waves in our usually calm bay. Waves breaking all over the place. It was rediculous.

So our plan was to try again in the morning. We settled in for another night. Saturday, we did the first feeding, Survival Suited-Up, and tried to head back. No such chance. It was still fairly windy and the water was still very choppy... Plan C... we fed for the rest of the day and we'd leave at the end of the day. End of the day, Survival Suited-Up AGAIN, and drove about 1/3 of the way, but Adam decided Andy and Anna would have a tough time getting out of the bay so we turned around. Plan C FAILED... Plan D. So we settled in for the night again... the annoying part about that was I had to make the bed again! And did I mention I have a hard time getting out of that huge survival suit!

SOOO... Sunday morning was very nice so we headed back. WHEWWWW... The weather for the past two days has been great again. Yesterday, Adam and I took a little hike up to one of the lakes and walked around and it was so bright I could barely see! There was still quite a bit of snow up higher (hence the snow glare) and we saw a bunch of bear tracks walking all around. We wore rain pants so we did a bit of butt sledding, which was kinda fun too. Then, after we came back, I got ambitious again and decided to make a batch of pierogi! I made more than my first time but seemed to have a tougher time with that darn dough. I need to learn the trick..... They turned out alright though after some grunting and moaning and even a pierogi thrown out of frustration. I took some up to Deena and had some reserved for Adam and my dinner, but then we got invited up so I brought them along. Everyone said they were good despite my frustrations.

Well, that's about all I have for now. The weather for the next week is calling for Partly Cloudy and in the mid 50s! That sounds FABULOUS! The sun comes over the mountain and hits the pens around 11am so hopefully partly cloudy will mean "sunny?" That will make that 53 degrees feel about 75!

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - To Steven, Happy Birthday man!

RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK - We discovered yesterday that 30 Rock is a pretty funny show on NBC! Catch that! Also... Dried Mangoes are delicious! :-)

The forgotten cool shots

Hey All!

Well I don't really have much for you guys this week. We had a short 4-day week at Takatz and we'll be heading back there later on today. It's currently raining, which is surprisingly the first real rain we've had in over about a week and a half. That'll help to fill up our Takatz water tank! Anyhow, that makes the boat ride down to Takatz fairly miserable but whatcha gonna do!?

The main reason I posted was because upon talking to Mom the other day, I realized I forgot to post a few cool shots I took. Adam and I were out in the boat a week ago and somehow found this little stick that had 6 little clusters of eggs wrapped around it. The cool thing is they were different colors and you could see that the eggs were in different stages of growth. One cluster had eyes, another cluster almost did...


You can definately see the cluster with the eyes. I'm not sure what they are from... or if it's from the same animals, but probably. Adam guessed maybe Rockfish eggs. I have a feeling that dark cluster is the same as the lighter ones but since they are so far developed, the fish inside make them alot darker.


Here you can see alot better the development. Eyes in the one cluster, but in the other 4, you can see spots. Not sure if that's what will develop into the eye. If you click the picture to make it larger you can see it better. The three on the left have just one large spot but the one on the right side looks like it has a few spots clustered together. Perhaps cells in division??


I was looking at this cluster closer and touched one of the eggs and the casing was so thin, the fish came out. So that's what the fish looks like... whatever kind it is? Those eggs must have been just about ready!


So this is my goofy picture from Baranof the other day. My brown Xtra Tufs match nicely with my brown Victoria's Secret bathing suit... I should suggest it for the catalogue!? :-D

So that's really about all I have.... I'm in the process of trying to figure out a food order. It's pretty hard though. I haven't even SEEN last weeks food! See, we put the food order in on Monday (Or Sundays from now on)... then we go to Takatz. The food comes on Wednesday... but we don't get back to the hatchery until Friday. Then Andy and Anna take the food to Takatz. Now I have to place another order to come Wednesday when I really have no idea what food we have (and what food Andy and Anna have eaten over the past two days) at Takatz! So think about that the next time you are wandering the aisles of Hardings or Meijers or whatever grocery store you visit! :-)

RECOMMENDATION - I do have on Recommendation today. Do any of you watch the show called How I Met Your Mother? Well I highly recommend it! With our Netflix, we decided to get some tv show episodes because 1) we are running out of movies, 2) 1 disc is like 8 episodes so it's almost like getting a bunch of short movies! So we weren't sure what to get and Adam suggested this show. He'd seen a few of the first episodes and remembered it was funny. Well let me tell ya! It's GREAT!

We started on the 1st season (obviously) but they are on the 3rd season on tv now. I guess it's on CBS on Mondays at 9pm I think. Well I'm not sure if the episodes are the same way but I'll tell you how the first 8 episodes are. The whole thing is narrated by "the dad" aka Bob Saget (the former dad on Full House) who is telling the story to his kids in the year 2030 about how he met their mother. Then it jumps to 2005 to the younger "him" and his group of friends. The first episode you are pretty sure you have met the future mother.... but you don't. Each episode is the same... It's all about this guy and his friends (who are in their mid to late 20s) and his quest to find a woman to marry and their lives. It's definately a very funny show! Half the cast are people I know from movies, Jason Segel from the recent Knocked Up, Allyson Hannigan from the American Pie movies, and Neil Patrick Harris aka the former "Doogie Howser." As for the other two main characters, I've never seen them before but that doesn't mean they aren't great also! This is definately a great show to catch!

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY - VALERIE, HAPPY 22nd tomorrow! YAY!!!

Random pictures

Hey guys, so I promised another blog with some more pictures. Just some random interesting things I thought you'd like to see.


When we first got to Takatz, Adam noticed there were a ton of little fish and stuff swimming around at night where the light from the house was shining down into the water. So the next night we fished some out with the net and found this guy... that's what most of the fish looked like. It's on the orange glove so you can see that it's completely see-thru. Pretty cool!


So you've see the shrimp before... they are huge. But half of them is just head. Here's just a close up on a shrimp head. I wanted to get a picture because of it's nose spike thing. It's probably the longest one I've seen... also pretty cool! And sharp!


So you might not know this but the female shrimp just carry the eggs around with them. Sometimes you get shrimp with the eggs still attached... thought you might find it cool to see. Also, if I do send shrimp home, I didn't want anyone to be completely surprised if they found one like that.


Eggs again. This is a Coonstripe shrimp, which is alot smaller than the normal kind we get. We don't usually keep them but I had never seen this color of eggs before.


Adam with some Yelloweye Rockfish that he caught.


Yelloweye is mostly head! This is how much is left after he cleaned the meat off... ALL of it almost!


So a little while after he threw those two Yelloweye carcasses into the water, a Bald Eagle tried to get it. It was a BIT too big for the eagle to carry but he wasn't giving up. I had NO idea they would even do this but he landed in the water and literally swam the carcass to the rock.


It took him about 10 minutes but he made it. Seems to be enjoying his find!


I have no idea what this is... kinda looks like a lobster though right? Anyhow, Adam found it somewhere... fishing or in a crab or shrimp pot. I dunno... it's cool though. By the way, it's fairly small. We had the goofy idea to superimpose something in there to make it look HUGE but it didn't work too well. It was only a few inches long.

Well enjoy the pictures! I'll be back to the hatchery Friday night if all is well with the weather. I'm about to head out now.

Feeding begins

After a long stay at Takatz just babysitting the house, we FINALLY have fish and Adam and I finally have a “weekend” back at the hatchery. Grant and his boat “Heron” started delivering fish to us on Tuesday, March 25th. That day and the next day, he made 3 trips each day, each trip filling one pen. Unfortunately, both days, we were battling ice and slush on the top of the water. The weather on Tuesday was pretty crappy with lots of fat snowflakes creating a lot of slush on the top of the water and Wednesday it was more of an ice layer. If there is ice or slush in the pen when you pipe the fish in, the fish tend to jump on top of it since they are hitting saltwater for the first time, thus causing possible death. Thankfully, we’ve managed to clear the pens out pretty good before the boat comes. Wednesday, the weather turned for the better. The sun came out and helped to melt a lot of that ice. Thursday and Friday had only two trips and the weather was good so we didn’t have to worry about anything at all! We woke up Saturday to a bit of ice in the pens again but nothing too bad. We finished off the transfers with the last 4 pens and then we rode the boat back to the hatchery for our weekend.

Really we haven’t been doing much of anything though. We feed the fish the day AFTER they show up. So nothing on the first day (since the first 3 pens were filled), 3 pens to feed on the second day (but 3 more were filled), 6 pens to feed the next day, etc. It’s only a bag of food a day, seven times a day. The fish are barely eating now but we are giving them food for when they are ready to eat it. Thursday after work, the weather was really nice so we decided to head to the Hot Springs. They still have quite a bit of snow there but we still hiked up to the pools. They were the perfect temperature! It was really nice.

Besides that… humm…. I have pictures and that’s it!? I think I’m going to have to post another post tomorrow maybe because I have quite a few, mostly random, pictures. But first, let me introduce you to the brand new Takatz house! :-)




























Alright I’ve decided to start a new section… it’s going to be my RECOMMENDATION section. Just because I have a few things I want to recommend to you.

RECOMMENDATIONS – First I have a few movie recommendations. Some of you might have seen one or both of these but I just saw them.

DAN IN REAL LIFE – I can’t remember the rating… PG-13 I think but it’s a great movie. It’s pretty funny, kind of reminds me of my family because it’s a family setting the whole movie, and has a very good cast. Definitely go rent that.

INTO THE WILD – This movie is newly out on DVD and is rated R I believe. It’s about a guy who basically is tired of “society” and decides to get away from it all, backpacking across the country, but his main goal is Alaska. It’s a long one but it’s pretty good and based on a true story. *Note the Xtra Tuff Boots in the movie if you rent it. ;-)

Alright, my third recommendation may sound a little odd after two movies but I recommend trying some Yoplait Yogurt WHIPS if you haven’t! They are FABULOUS! Alright, they aren’t a new product but since I ate a great one this morning, thus putting it into my head to start this recommendation section, I had to give my opinion! I had Orange Crème this morning and it’s great… I had a Chocolate Raspberry Mousse one yesterday which was more like a dessert than yogurt, but did still have that yogurt taste. They have a few other chocolate mousse flavors, some fruit flavors… they are GOOD. Get some!

SHOUT OUT OF THE DAY – To the Grandmas, Grandma Czuba and Grandma Moser! Thanks for the mail!!

And we're off!

QUICK POST!

I am leaving for Takatz in the morning (I will have already left by the time you all read this) Sorry for the short notice... we weren't even really sure when the house would go. Really the fish aren't ready to come to Takatz yet but our boss doesn't want to leave the new house down there alone. So that means Adam and I will be living in it for a while... 10 days maybe? I'm sure we'll be back here and there to get groceries and do random stuff so leave messages!

I'm pretty excited! :-D BYE!

Pictures of the week

UGHH I don't like this thing sometimes. WELL, I had a short post about my fairly boring week but I lost it. It just talked about how I had a pretty busy day on Tuesday but the rest of the week was pretty slow.

Tuesday I had to:
1) feed 2 round ponds of babies 6 times a day
2) feed a raceway full of babies 7 times a day
3) feed 41 round ponds of Coho
4) mort the big chinook in the saltwater pens

It was a busy day! But a little cute seal made my day. Wednesday Adam came back though... YAY! Thursday was just "one of those days..." Friday was boring and we got out early.

The whole point of this blog today was just some very random pictures I have to show...



I bought 3 amaryllis bulbs at home and brought them to Alaska. Finally I planted them a few weeks ago and two of them had already started growing IN the paper bag so I was worried that would stunt their growth. They were both the same variety, a salmon colored one. This was the day ONE bloom opened up all the way.


I took this today. This is the other plant actually but it has 5 blooms! I thought they only got 4!? Anyhow, they are beautiful right now. The other one has 3 blooms right now, but could get a few more. The 3rd bulb I had will produce a dark red bloom. When I planted it, it hadn't started growing already like the others, but it has shot up FAST! It's currently a few inches taller than the other two right now, though it just has the two green stalks right now. Oddly though, it looks like it is growing a third stalk at the very bottom. It isn't just a leaf... it is fat on top like it could have a bloom. It's only about 2 inches tall so I'll let you know. Can that happen!? A 3rd stalk?





Tuesday, I was talking to mom about my busy day and we were talking about raceways. She wasn't sure what a raceway looked like even so I said I'd take a few pictures. These pictures almost look connected if you put them side to side, but the top picture is of the two raceways that we fill up with fish during spawning season. In the building at the end of the far left raceway is the shock box that we shock the fish and dump them on the table. The second picture are of the other two raceways back there. One of them is empty but the other is full of the baby chinook.



These are some of the baby chinook IN the raceway. They are pretty small right now.

AND NOW... The sad truth.... Just like in the human world, some fish babies are born with differences. While most of the fish are born normally, but some are born as....



Siamese twins! You do see this quite often. Unfortunately, they probably won't make it.

OR...




Two headed! Adam said he's never even seen this before so I felt lucky to catch a picture of it. Pretty crazy right!?

Here are a few other pictures too... I was basically walking around looking for random stuff to take pictures of after those pictures. So how about showing you some fish food...



This is some pretty small food we feed to the babies. It's .3 mm food. About like grains of sand.



Then there's this food... it's 2 mm food. We feed this to the Coho right now. They are pretty big fish... about 3-4 inches long. Not very exciting but though it would be interesting to show you the different sizes of food.

Alright, well that's all I have today. I suspect I'll get alot of comments about those "poor babies!" They are pretty crazy looking. You see some with one eye or none... those are usually blue. Some that are just shaped weird. Deformities in tails. The awesome orange albinos too! Its a part of life I guess! :-)