Purl, Interrupted

yo soy fisherperson

Just returned from a delightful weekend of camping on Quartz Creek on Alaska's Kenai Penninsula. We camped with eight friends, two babies and four dogs.

I'm sure everyone around us was thrilled.

Our friends Andy and Steve took us out via a drift boat and a cataraft. We started at Skilak Lake and floated to Bing's Landing, which is the part of the Kenai River known as the Middle River. We floated and fished for about ten hours in really gorgeous weather.

And look what I caught!

It was much, much bigger in person. Seriously.

After growing convinced that I was never going to actually catch a fish, I caught three -- a dolly varden and two red salmon. It was a lot of fun, although much more physically demanding than I'd realized it would be.

Incidentally, today is the six month anniversary of my shoulder replacement surgery. Having missed out on all the fishing last summer because of this injury, yesterday was a pretty great day.

P.S. the rest of my photos from the trip are on flickr.

more photos

but wait ... there's more. these were actually taken about a week and a half ago, when our friend steve was kind enough to take my parents (and us) for a float down the kenai river in his cataraft. this was the maiden voyage for my waders, and the trip on which i learned that waders, while waterproof, have few inherently insulating properties. while the weather looks nice, the water was icy!

on a somewhat related note, i have finally started putting photos (like this one, in fact) on flickr.

fish guts for everyone

terry was kind enough to take this little photo sequence while i was cleaning fish on sunday in soldotna. it's as fun as it looks!

actually, the first side came out really well. the second side, which is always about 100 times harder, came out less well.

he also took a little video of the fileting action. i'd post it here if i knew how, except that at one point i look up at him while holding the knife and wearing a crazed experession, so maybe we'll just keep that to ourselves.

transmitting from the kenai

my parents left anchorage last night after an eight-day visit. other than one day of floating/fishing on the kenai river last saturday, we didn't do much during their stay besides lay low, relax and eat well. fortunately, these are some of my favorite activities. we dropped them off at the airport less than 24 hours ago, but it feels like about 2 weeks. that's how summers are here: there's so much to do that you just go and go and go.

this morning, we dropped truman off for a two-night stay at "arfie's doggie daycare" and then hit the road south for the kenai penninsula, about 2.5 hours south of anchorage. i have meetings here tomorrow, and it's just too long a drive to go here and back in one day, so we decided to come down early and do what alaskans do in the summer: fish. as an added bonus, my client who i'm meeting with tomorrow offered to take us out fishing, which made for much better opportunities than if we were just fishing from the banks in front of our B&B.

so we spent a few hours this afternoon fly fishing with my client. i got to wear my fabulous breathable waders for the second time, and learned that the whole experience is much more enjoyable when you've remembered to wear fleece pants. i didn't catch anything, although i almost did. terry caught one salmon, which i filetted using my "pond to pan" skills. lots of pressure filetting fish in front of people who fish 6 days a week during the summer, but it went ok.

all in all it was a delightful day and delightfully alaskan as well. i was happy to learn that i actually enjoy fishing (even when not catching), and also happy that i didn't do anything to embarass myself too badly during my first real time out.

so we're spending the night at a nice little B&B in soldotna, ak. and, because of the whole midnight sun thing, terry has gone BACK out to do some more fishing on the banks of the river in front of the B&B. what a nut. tomorrow while i'm working he's going "dip netting" with our friend steve's dad. I'm not sure exactly what dip netting is, although i think it involves using very large nets and catching large numbers of fish. i'm sure there's probably some skill to it, but i have no idea how it works.

anyway, if all goes according to plan, we're going to have a freezer full of fish and then some. time to learn how to use the new smoker!

worst. blogger. ever.

ok, seriously, my intentions are good. but i've fallen completely off the blogging wagon. my new computer isn't helping matters, since it has windows vista, which is the biggest pain ever and is not compatible with anything in the world. serious hassle. but that's beside the point.

and if i don't update my blog, terry's friend peter won't know if terry is still alive.

so, since i haven't blogged in about 2 months, i guess we have some catching up to do.

First thing first: my new titanium shoulder pretty much rocks. before my surgery, i couldn't use my left arm to hold a beverage, shampoo my hair, apply deoderant, bear any weight whatsoever -- we're talking about really, really basic stuff. And (as I know I probably made abundantly clear), just going about the tasks of daily life was incredibly painful and exhausting. Pretty grim stuff.

Five months post-op, i can't believe the things i've been able to at least try this summer. such as: canoeing, fishing, riding my spiffy new recumbent bicycle, cooking elaborate meals again (i'd pretty much stopped cooking b/c it was too hard on the arm), and, most recently: making a very slow foray into the world of running.

i know -- me, running -- it's an absurd thought. and last summer i tried running exactly once, for about 10 steps, each of which felt like i was being beaten with a baseball bat. so the fact that i've gone on 5 walk-runs in the last week without any problems during or after is nothing short of amazing to me.

so i've been trying to pull it together, so to speak. i'm in week 5 of what i refer to as my stupid diet, which actually isn't stupid at all and is a pretty great and healthy way of eating that has me eating better and cooking more than i've done in years. i feel good, i'm starting to lose some of the weight one gains if chronic pain keeps one from engaging in any physical activity for, say, about three years. so, hopefully this is the summer of pulling it all together.

that's the big motivational part of this story. if you've hung in this long, i'll fill you in on the rest of our lives:

-- terry, too, has a new bike, and has now taken to biking the way he took to kayaking and skiing. obsessively, that is. on sunday he rode 62 miles. just because. i may be moving towards a healthier lifestyle, but i still think that's just plan nutty.

-- truman continues to be loads of fun. when we got him at the end of last summer, he was really afraid of the water. (our first clue that he wasn't really a lab puppy after all....) this summer he's getting more interested in it. still won't swim, but he'll run into the water after the other dogs, which is big progress. we want to take him canoeing, so yesterday i picked him up a really adorable doggie life jacket. maybe i'll post photos later if my computer will let me. terry's favorite part is that it has a handle on top, which makes him look and function much like a suitcase.

-- summer in anchorage has been great thus far. we had a stretch of the kind of weather that reminds you why you moved here. it's a little greyer now, but hopefully the sun will come back to us. we have a bunch of out of town guests headed our way in july and august, so we'll get lots of excuses to get out and explore.

-- speaking of guests, we had a delightful visit from karrie in june. she and i went up to lost lake, near fairbanks, for a weekend of learning crazy wilderness skills. i'm a good person to take camping, b/c i can start a fire, build you a shelter, cook you tasty dutch oven treats, and splint your arm if necessary. karrie is a good person to take camping because she can hunt you a styrofoam animal and then field dress it for you.

-- when we returned to anchorage, karrie and i showed off our mad wilderness skills by fileting a king salmon in our driveway. i love alaska.

ok, had enough? i'll try to post some photos soon, and to be more reliable about blogging. hope everyone's summer is going swimmingly.