Putting up Salmon

Every year during the month of July the Red Sockeye Salmon stream past the lake in front of our home.  They were born here four to eight years ago and left to make their way to the Pacific Ocean.  When they are full grown they swim through Bristol Bay, up the Kvijack River into Lake Iliamna, then up the Newhalen River and into Six Mile Lake where we live.  The fish that make it past the thousands of fisherman trying to catch them find the spot they were born and lay their eggs and then they die.  Up until that point they are silver on the outside and their meat is a deep red. Before they die they turn a deep red and their meat turns almost white.  They are one of the healthiest things you can eat and we praise Yhwh for his provision for us.

Getting the jars ready for the salmon

Sometimes we put our net out right in front of our house and sometimes we take it a ways down the river.

Abigail gutting the salmon

Everyone helps as we catch and process the salmon.

Deborah cutting the salmon to fit them into jars.

The seagulls eat well during the salmon run

The fishbox keeps the salmon nice and cold as we process them.

We (mostly Abigail) put together some video clips so you can see all the fun we had catching and processing our salmon this year.  Enjoy!

July and August catch up.

We have been so busy lately Mom hasn't had time to post for a while so I'll do a catch up post. 

We got back from our trip to Canada the middle of July.  We started putting up fish as soon as we got back. 

Sarah loves helping:)

 Dad was busy flying all summer.  He didn't have time to help with the salmon much but one of his jobs was taking people bear viewing.

If you click on this picture you can see there are a LOT of bears.

The first week of August the five older kids went and spent a week in Iliamna with the Clark's for basketball camp.  It was a lot of fun:)  After we got back I had my 17th birthday.

I got knives for my birthday:)  Three pocket knives.

We had a pretty cold summer but the few nice days we had we spent swimming.  Most of our swimming started out as a mud fight and ended with us jumping in the lake with our clothes on.

Even Sarah had to join the fun.

  We tried towing behind the boat with a little round sled.  I actually worked pretty good.

 Right before we left we had Josh Armstrong's 14th birthday.

Well that pretty much catches us up till the start of our big trip.  More to come:)

Trip Note from Susan: Yes we are on another trip!!! We are on our way to Israel.  We are going to spend 2 1/2 months there touring and studying while helping some farmers in their vineyards and olive groves. We are in North Dakota right now at Grandma Effie's house.  We are traveling from coast to coast to take advantage of the much cheaper tickets to Israel on the east coast.   So far the trip has been wonderful, it has given us a chance to refocus from the buisiness of our normal lives to concentrate on what God has in store for us next.  Pleas take time to pray for us over the next few months.  We'll post as much as we can.

Salmon Run 2010

God has graciously provided us with another years worth of Salmon. The run this year was about three weeks late. We are already done putting up all the fish we need and finally the big run of fish is here. It worked out nice though, we got just the right amount of fish to handle easily each day.

Below we are drying and smoking some fish. That process took a few more days than normal because it has been so wet and cold.

The first thing Paul did this year was build a new cutting table and fish box. Below Myron and David are helping him put it together.
Sarah wanted to go out in the boat every time it went out, she always wants to go. Caleb is checking out the fish in the fish box. Notice the height of the water in the fish box and you can see in the later pictures how high the water in the lake rises from all the rain. In fact, the fish box is totally underwater now. We had so little snow this winter, I never thought it would get as high as it did, but the rain really made up the difference.

Below Anna is gutting a Salmon. She has helped every year, but this is her first year gutting fish.

Below Abigail and Deborah are cutting salmon to put in the jars.

Abigail is an expert at untangling fish from the net.

Below Paul and Abigail are working together. The little boys are quick to pick up any fish that drop in the boat and put them in a tote.

One evening Paul came home after a long day of flying, the Martin's had checked the net earlier in a cold driving rain, so I convinced Paul to take me out with him and we'd go check the net together. I had never gone to pick fish out of the net before as I'm always inside canning them.

Abigail, Joshua, David and Lavonne came along with us.

Below Lavonne and I are posing for a picture while Paul and Abigail are doing all the work.

All went well until we were straightening out the net. We had the flat bottom with the jet engine with no reverse. It made straightening the net difficult and the net got stuck in the prop. We pulled ourselves to shore and untangled the net.

Below we're headed home with our fish after getting the net all straightened out.

The seagulls hang about waiting for any scraps.
Below Ryan is helping Regina get fish out of the box. Regina got back to Nondalton just in time to help us with the last of the fish.
Below the martin's are returning from picking the net one last time before we took the net out of the water for the season. We could tell the main run of fish was starting to pick up because by the time they got back out to take the net out of the water there were eight more fish in the net.

We moved the net several places around the lake this year. The last place we had it was right out in front of our house. That was great because the kids could paddle out and check how many fish were in it. If you look in the background of the picture below, you can see two buoys marking the ends of the net.

Between us and the Martin's, I think we put up about 270 fish this year. Some smoked in jars, some fresh in jars...

and some frozen fillets.

Grandma Effie Visits

Paul's Mom returned home to North Dakota last night. She was here for two weeks and it was a busy but good time as we put up our salmon harvest. Grandma Effie pitched right in and took charge of sharpening the knives.

She also supervised the smudge pot. She made sure the little boys kept enough wood chips and leaves chopped to keep the smoke billowing over the salmon we were smoking.

Grandma Effie, Deborah and Abigail are planting Nanking Cherry trees that Effie brought from her yard in North Dakota.

She also brought some strawberry plants that we are going to try and get to grow here.

Grandma Effie is great with woodworking. So, even though she didn't have much experience with windows she wasn't afraid to get us going on replacing the girls window. She got things ready for Paul and then he helped her put the new window in. It's one of those projects we've been meaning to get to for a long time.

David, learning to use the pneumatic stapler.

Paul, putting the window in. The girls now have a window that doesn't rattle in the wind or let the wind in. Thanks Grandma Effie!

Benjamin helping out.

Saying good-bye to Grandma at the Airfield...
Paul flew his Mom to Anchorage and then she caught the all-nighter home to North Dakota. Other than not being able to sleep on the plane, she had a good flight home.

We can't wait to see you next year Grandma!