Functional Cabin

On Sunday, Bryant and I finished the last step toward making the cabin functional for winter activities. We painted the OSB on the floor. While we still have to do the inside trim, paint the outside trim, put in some type of cooking area and a few other odds and ends that could take years, none of these jobs interfere with our ability to use it this winter. In between coats of paint, Bryant sighted in his new gun. Surprise, surprise, I decided to take a few more pictures of fall. Sphagnum moss bog

Highbush cranberries

Denali (Mt. McKinley) viewed from South Big Lake Rd. on the drive out to the property

Falling into Winter

It's that time of year again, yellow cottonwood and birch along with a some lower scrubby bushes and fireweed stalks that turn red. It is definitely not the Midwest/Northeast fall color show, but we are well aware that the season has changed, shorter days, snow on the higher peaks, cooler and darker mornings, but we are still awaiting our first frost. The colors peaked this past weekend and after a few more days of the wind like we are getting today, I suspect we will be down to bare trees before long.

Most of the summer and fall, we've been successful in our goal of getting on our bikes on a regular basis. Nothing long or furious just turning the pedals for a little bit of exercise after work. When we left today, I promised Bryant I wouldn't bring the camera. However, I did get in a few clicks from yesterday's ride.

Silvers - Part II

Well, we still aren't slaying the silvers especially considering the time we've been putting on the water, but we are catching a few. This weekend we ended up with 6. Two Saturday - Bryant was the lucky fisherman

Two on Sunday - Gus had a turn.

Then, I caught a little one.

And two on Monday . . . .

We were on the water by 8:00 a.m., but didn't catch our first fish until 10:30 a.m. So much for those who believe silvers bite early and in cloudy weather. It was both!I can't complain about Monday's clouds because most of Saturday and all day Sunday were absolutely gorgeous. After we finished fishing on Sunday morning, Bryant and I decided to hike up above treeline on Mt. Marathon, which turned out to be about 1800 feet above sea level. The views were phenomenal!

For more pictures from the weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/jillcaho/LaborDayWeekendSewardAlaska?authkey=Gv1sRgCMTkmsL9-5iCjAE#

Alaska State Fair

540 lb. pumpkin

It was actually enjoyable this year. I spent most of the day there with my 2nd grade class on a "Barn Safari" field trip, and since it was an all day admission, I decided to meet the kids later on that day. For once, I wasn't dodging crowds of people. My two favorite sections are the the big vegetables and the fried potatoes chip/zucchini /onion ring food booth.

Slaying the Seward Silvers

Bryant caught the first fish out of Seward last weekend.

. . . at least we wish we were. So far we've managed to get three. Two that were nice fish and I earned the bragging rights to catching the BIGGEST one.

The biggest silver ever caught aboard the SOL SEARCHING.

Even Wyatt thought it was a nice fish although he wasn't impressed until he noticed that others at the fish cleaning station had much smaller silvers to fillet. This is our first season ever fishing for silvers out of Seward and that is only one reason for our limited success. Other reasons include:

1)We don't like to burn a lot of gas chasing fish, so we've limited our range of where we will fish.

2)We don't like to get up early to fish or for any other reason on the weekends.

3)We don't have long attention spans when fishing isn't very good.

4)We get distracted into sailing when the wind picks up and the sun is shining.

Not as big as yesterday's fish, but I sure wasn't going to complain.

Bryant brought the boat down to Seward the last weekend of July while I was in Michigan. Since then, we've made our way down there for three different weekends. Two years ago, we bought this boat from a guy who kept it in Seward and this is my first time back. Seward is a town of about 3,000 year-round residents. Other than a state prison, most of its economy is summer tourism. There are quite a few fish charter operations, tour boats into Kenai Fjords National park, and the big cruise ships also use Seward as a drop off and pick up point for passengers heading to Vancover Britsh Columbia.

Seward Boat Harbor

Next weekend, we need to make a decision about whether or not we should leave the boat in Seward through the month of September. It sounds like the weather may be a limiting factor as precipitation increases.
A charter deckhand filleting or butchering a Salmon shark.

We witnessed someone's 308 lb. halibut.