One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

Fish are pretty amazing animals.  It's always interesting to note the wide color variation among fish--even within a single species within a single water body.  Josh and I caught these two rainbow trout this afternoon within a couple hundred feet of one another. 

Of course, mine's a bit bigger . . . for once.

Midnight FMF, part deux

In an effort to not fall too far behind on my blogging, here is a series of pictures from the past couple days.  I normally prefer to sit down with a couple beers and wax poetic (is that what I do in this space?) about the day's adventures, good friends, or whatever else the six readers of this blog might find interesting--but it's after midnight on a school night so you'll just have to deal with a bunch of pictures.  Cheers!

Although the fishing has been slow, our good friends Sam and Liz joined us on the water yesterday.

Since we didn't even leave the house until 3:00, The Wife got to spend all morning gardening and still made the fishing trip.  "It's like having two days," she says.

This time, Josh grabbed a hold of the first fish.  Once again, it was the biggest by an inch or two.

The Wife's ubiquitous feet shot:

Couldn't get Karta to sit still long enough . . . although her stick is well represented:

After losing every Midnight FMF in our boxes, this evening was time to reload.

A forty percent chance

Josh and I got out for a few hours this afternoon.  It was warm and sunny so the rivers were calling a bit louder than the mountains ...

Karta has had a bum wheel for the past couple weeks so this was her first return to action.  It was very exciting for her.

As we drove out of Anchorage, Josh commented that we each had about a 40% chance of catching a fish today.  I generally agreed with his assessment and, for whatever reason, as the day wore on with nothing more than sticks and rocks pulling on my line I started to calculate in my head the odds of both of us getting skunked.  A 40% chance of catching a fish is a 60% chance of not catching a fish ... if two people are fishing and each have the same odds ... what did my old GRE studies teach me? ... 0.60 times 0.60 equals ... Fish on!

And not five minutes later:

'cause there's no weak sauce in Alaska

So Josh came up for what's becoming an annual visit.  The snow was looking good and we decided to harvest some fresh corn.  We'll keep this light on the verbiage, and heavy on the pictures.  Enjoy!

Josh got in on Thursday; by Friday we were skinning up the local peaks under cloud cover . . .

. . . but the clouds didn't hang around for long.  Everything cleared up just as we made the final push.

From the top:

Too busy skiing to take pictures, you'll have to take our word that the down was every bit as fun as you might imagine.

Turning the page to Saturday, we worked our way up North to practice some flexible rod sampling.

Of course, they call it "fishing" and not "catching" for a reason.

With clear skies and a distinct lack of fish willing to take a (our) fly, it was back to the mountains.

Once again, the views were terrible . . .  looking West into Cook Inlet at low tide:

Putting away the skins for the down:

Austin taking a turn:

That wasn't so bad.

And Josh, pooped at the end of the day:

"No good deed goes . . . "

Back when we were in Wisconsin visiting The Wife's family a couple weeks ago, I was conscripted to build a cold frame for my mother-in-law.  Well, "conscripted" might not be the correct term here since, you see, I knew that Jan would accompany any project of this sort with ample quantities of top-shelf domestic macrobrew and, if it's early enough in the day, the occasional bloody mary.  I was quick to volunteer for the task.

Having grown up in the West, in places where nobody is really from, it's always fun to visit central Wisconsin.  If you grow up in rural Wisconsin and move 50 miles, it's a big move.  If you go to, say, Alaska, you might as well be in another country.  My brother-in-law, and good friend, Tyler is one of those locals with deep roots to Marathon County.  You need a used window?  He's got a guy who's got a dozen for you.  You need some lumber on Saturday when the local yard is closed?  He's got as many clear 2x10s as you might need.  Tools?  Forgetaboutit.  If Tyler wasn't such a nice guy, you'd think he was part of some Wisconsin Polish mafia.

With materials and bloody mary in hand, Tyler and I made short work of building the cold frame.

The sides are 2x10s cut to the appropriate length and width and joined like a log cabin so it can be disassembled for easy transportation or storage.

The window is on a hinge for easy access to the inside. 

And an updated picture with the fresh planting:

Of course, now that we're home and things are starting to warm up, The Wife is going garden crazy.  She's already sourced a bunch of old windows and, as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.  She just better have a bloody mary waiting.