Last Trip-Kisaralik River

Sun dance. The sun came out on this night, after rain.

I finally caught a sockeye salmon. We went down some side stream and found a nice fishing hole with lots of sockeye. We could see them in the water as the water started clearing up after several days of rain. We were so excited, Greg nearly dove into the water with the net to make sure this fish made it to shore.

Moxy wanting some sun on his bum. Fishing from the boat with Ruby. "got one."


silver salmon. We found a fishing hole off the main river, and caught fish from the boat. We probably lost 8 lures in this hole.

Last day to fish. The water is just starting to clear up, and go down. Greg caught a greyling that was very descent in size. Big Girth. We don't want to stop fishing, and we don't want to go home yet.
Greg found a big spruce tree and cut up fire wood. Plan is to bring it home if it will fit on the boat.





We camped on an island that was slowly dissapearing on us as the water kept rising. It was a nice camp site, and we didn't get flooded.



Trying to fish in bad weather and muddy water. We were pretty desperate to find fish. Ruby just wanted to play in the mud.

We slowly had to throw rounds out of the boat to get back on step.We tried shifting them around in the boat and eventually were sitting on them. We got down to seven rounds before the boat could step it up. Very sad deciding what round would get tossed.

We got home at about 11:30PM. We had a hard time leaving because the fishing was just getting good.

Pickling Cucumbers

These are bread and butter pickles. This is my second attempt at pickling cucumbers. I have never actually canned before, and did not realize that the "pop of the lid" may not occur until after you take them out of the hot bath. These all popped immediately. My first attempts are refrigerated, because I was not patient enough to wait for the POP.


These are some of the first pickles inside a sandwich. This is homemade bread gone bad, but worked for sandwich making. For the bread I used that "NO Knead Bread recipe" from the New York times. My bread did not work, because it was left to rise for a whole day after the initial 22 hours of rising. It got air bubbles though. :)
My first canning attempt. Hopefully they won't grow botulism. :) I used rainbow carrots with the pickles, that's why the water is pink.

Rain Rain Go Away

Ruby with Isabell playing with house rain. They were pretending to be showering. It has been raining non stop for at least three weeks (I am not exaggerating). The nicest weather we had was when greg and andrew went and got logs, and it has been raining again since. I am told over and over by people that this is normal Bethel weather. August is the rainiest month of the year. We cannot be inside any longer, and decided to tough it out and get wet.
Ruby and Moxy playing in the mud. They did this for hours. People seemed to feel bad for them, getting wet and muddy, but the kids seemed to prefer cold, wet, and muddy over dry, warm and clean. I think this is the case with most kids.

Bethel limousine. There is hummer here too, I rode in it with the kids at a wedding and it was a great way to view Bethel. Now I know the words to Lady Gaga. :) This limo brought Kristy home from work, because they appreciate her. I appreciate you too Kristy! Actually the owner is taking the limos out of Bethel, because kids keep throwing rocks at them. Kristy announced this on the radio in support of the owner.
CABIN FEVER. Ruby dressed up Moxy. Greg asked him if he was going to go to the store in his tutu. He told Greg "yep." Ruby responded with "No Moxy you can't wear that tutu or the cops will pull us over.'


Ruby teaching Moxy how to brush his teeth. Amazingly he did not bite her.

Logging Part Two

This is not a fishing story, but even on a logging trip you have to fish.

Andrew's rainbow trout, 20 inches long and big wide body.

Greg's silver salmon, nice red color.
This tree earlier in the day got away from them, but they found it down river.
Towing logs to their log camp.

Nice log raft. They used bolts and rope to create.
I am impressed that our little boat pulled this load. Greg thinks all this weighed approximately 12,000 pounds. They called the big logs on the side of the raft "the cannons", because they powered (blasted) through river debris, and protected the load.
Andrew. You can guess what he is thinking.

The load on the inside of the boat. Notice how calm and smooth the water is.


Above: They explained that when they first started the water moved more quickly, and they had to keep the logs closer to the boat to control them. This river has a lot of turns. Below: As they moved into the water down river they moved the logs farther back to keep the logs out of the motor's wake.
This is at the mouth of the kasiglak, where it meets the kuskokwim river. This was about 11:30PM.
Turtle pace.
This is about 12:30am, and the light is slipping away quickly. Luckily they found our friend's fish camp in the dark at about 2:30AM.
Greg jumped in due to the heat.
Standing on the log raft.

Cutting up "the cannons."



The kids are so happy to see daddy and uncle.

Their Home...and Did They Get Logs! Part one.

This picture sums up how we felt about them being home. They looked really tired. The fun was just getting started when they made it to this point. This was about 5:15pm. It took until 1:00am to cut and haul it home. Kristy and I helped to haul the logs up to the boat to haul back, but after the first run home, this super nice man told us to use his truck to help move things along quicker. Later in the night when we thanked him, he said "that's what neighbors do. " And speaking of neighbors, our neighbors (The Whites) came by the river, and took our tired kids home to their house at like 11:00pm. Not to mention Kristy and Andrew breaking their backs to help us. Makes me feel really grateful to live amongst such generous people.
They made it back on a good day in Bethel. The water was calm on the Kuskokwim river. They told us that it took 14 hours to get down the Kasiglak river, and luckily they found our friends fish camp at 2:30AM last night. Their fish camp is about 1 hour (on our boat) from Bethel. It took from 10:00am until 4:30Pm to make it to Bethel. Greg said "we were going so slow, it would have made you cry."

Some of the log raft.




A big boy log.




Pretty rainbow, while moving wood.
They are tired but I thought a litle delirious. Below: the last log at 1 am.