| Went to NY state for a wedding party for my cousin Emily. We flew into Dulles. I have to say with all the bombings I was eager to get out of there and was watching my surroundsing. On day 1 we stayed with a friend, Smiley, from Bolivar who lives in VA not far from Dulles, where we flew in. He had whitetail deer and cheese sandwiches and great company. The next day we headed to sister Julie’s in Pittsburgh. Sara stayed and I took nephew John with me to Bolivar the next day. He changed his mind several times on wanting to go or not. We drove to classmate Pat’s place. John fished in Jeff and Sue’s pond then we went to dinner at Carl and Amy’s, who sell our fish and own a beautiful little farm that looks over much of Allegany County. It’s been dry and they needed rain. The next day John shot a .22, .25-06, some pistols, and a 16 ga shotgun. Pat is a good coach, and soon John was regularly hitting the clay pigeons with the shotgun and Pat inviting him up to deer hunt. John fished again at Jeff and Sue’s ponds, then we headed to Short Tract and Geneseo. John fished the Genesee River at the turn to Angelica for about an hour while I got gas. At Paula’s, Glenn made a great meal and we got outfitted with sister Paula for our trip the next day to Lake Ontario for a fishing date with Bill, Dave and Rick. We traveled there the next day, met Dave and set up a tent, then fished for bass till after dark. John caught 1 and Dave one or 2. We had a campfire and ate some bass and perch and venison and cheese dogs from Smiley and some hot dogs Rick brought and talked to the early morning hours. Bill has worked and lived in our hometown for most of the past 35 years so caught us up on gossip and history. One kid played football at Davidson and was Steph Curry’s roommate for 4 years and SC was in his wedding. Another kid was a bodyguard for a recent US president and had dinner with the family. Bill was also floored to find out a track star – Blake Eaton – was my cousin as he’d known and watched him succeed in high school and at Penn State. We saw the only rain in a week in NY for 5 minutes on the way back to Paula’s, where we stopped for dinner with John, Maggie and Eaton. We traveled on to Olean, where we met Sara and Julie and lots of family in town for the wedding receptiion. The reception was fun, with great food. This is the first family gathering I’ve noticed that mom and all here siblings are gone and my cousins and my siblings are quickly becoming the family elders. John relentlessly asked everyone he could think of to take him fishing. The next day I went looking for fresh corn and found it outside Olean. The clerk asked if I was taking it somewhere, and of course, when she heard my name – well, she was my cousin from Portville. So we caught up on her family. I’d left the sausage at cousin George’s freezer, and he was gone when I was ready to collect it so I went out to his parents to get the spare key. On the way, I stopped at cousin Polly’s when I saw her sitting outside her house and caught up with her. I got the key, got my meat, and took off for VA and arrived at Smiley’s in the early evening in a 6.75 hr drive through 90+ degree weather. I didn’t leave till late the next day, but had to air freight the meat, corn and a rifle I’d bought for John, and I didn’t know how long it would take. It was not pretty. A contractor at Dulles for Alaska Air cargo had a crabby rep, which made me crabby. We both settled down and managed to get my goods booked and I just hope they end up in Juneau and in good condition. I had to travel down to see Dad before going back to Juneau and would have had to pay several times for the rifle to travel so found it best to send it air freight along with the meat and corn.  Back in Juneau Thursday and 4 trips of whale watching today.  The gun, meat and corn made it in just fine and we ate corn and sausages last night and I handed out corn to other friends.  So good to be home.  Don’t plan on leaving for as long as I can.   60 and rain suits me just fine. |

This was a full weekend. I drove whale watch boat as usual on Friday, and was asked to help out on Saturday as well. I also had to schedule a fish delivery that day, so did 2 whale trips till 2 pm then Sara helped me deliver fish in town. I went to the cabin in the evening. I picked a bit on Saturday evening then picked most of the day on Sunday.

The blueberries are still peaking and starting to drop some of their berries, and the blue huckleberries are still coming on. I picked about 15 lbs – 44 cups. I brought home the berries and got 5 of the 8 jars sorted last night before I called it a night as I also did all the billing for the Saturday fish delivery. This morning I started sorting the remaining 3 jars at 430 am and timed it. It takes about 50 minutes to sort the leaves and worms from a gallon of berries. It takes about 2 hours to pick a gallon, so about 3 hours total per gallon. I got them sorted, vac packed and into the freezer. That’s the last weekend of picking for awhile so glad we’ve got a good stash of berries in now. Beautiful weather again – in the 60’s and just a touch of rain. Hopefully the red huckleberries will be plentiful and ready when I get out again in a few weeks.

I’m pretty much drowning in firewood wood from all the free trees we got recently. Matt has wood at our place because he was maxed out his space. But when I saw free firewood on Craigslist yesterday. Well, free wood is free wood. I didn’t need more. Matt was down south. Erik had soccer with Jack and not much room anyway. Jeff didn’t want it. So what to do with it. I was first on the list so of course I said I’d be out to get it. Then I remembered. My neighbor KJ, who I split wood for because his doctor said after his shoulder surgery he could split no more. Maybe he’d want it. “Sure!” he said. So off to the valley to collect it. The wood was mainly spruce. Some unsplit 2 inch diameter stuff and some ready to burn larger split stuff, along with some old cottonwood rounds I’d keep for smoking. It took every inch of the truck bed up to the canopy top to fit it all in in one load, but I made it. The old 250 diesel hardly knew it was there. KJ looked like he’d opened a Christmas present when I pulled down the truck tailgate. Now he’s set for wood and my splitting for him taken care of. At least most of it. Maybe he can take another load, but not much.

The blueberries are in their prime right now at the cabin. I picked 30 lbs Sat/Sun and Sara helped me vac pack 19 packs of 4 cups each packages when I got home. My sciatica hurt so much when I started picking this morning I didn’t think I’d get a day in. But I came back to the cabin, popped some ibuprofen, drank some water, and rested for a spell. Then back out for more and then another rest. Finally, it let go and I was good for the rest of the day. It was perfect weather. 60 degrees and although lots of people over for the holiday, I didn’t see a soul.

The blue berries take nearly twice as long to process as the salmon berries. I use a berry rake to pick, so that collects quite a few leaves and green berries that have to be picked out. Plus it leaves lots of stems, but I learned I don’t have to worry about getting all the stems because they soften up and you don’t know they’re there if you are cooking the berries. Then the berries have to go into water to make any worms inside come out. Then it’s taking the berries handful by handful into a colander a from the water to remove any berries or stems and the worms. This part takes nearly as long as the picking. It was 8 hours for 15 lbs today, and I think it’s maybe 5 for salmon berries. In any event, we’ve got lots of berries now in for the  year. There were a pair of wrens hanging around the porch of the cabin where I was processing the berries like they had a nest nearby but I could not find it. Ravens squawking up a storm like they were fighting over some kind of food, too. After the berries were done, I made blueberry pancakes and had a hearty lunch as it was my first meal of the day. The blueberries were nice. Then I packed things up and headed for the boat. I got to the boat about 6 pm and it was tided. Called Sara because I didn’t see my tide book. She said the tide was going out for another hour, so I headed back to the cabin. I ate some leftover cured Yukon chum salmon leftover from John Cox’s dinner. I fried it in some canola oil and salt and it was excellent. Although almost anything you cook at the cabin tastes good.  After puttering around the cabin for an hour, I got back to the boat about 815 and it was dry but the tide flooding. I got on the bow as the tide floated the boat, waiting for it to float. There were oodles of little hermit crab and other crabs that looked like spiders that came out in the blue mussels as the beach turned to ocean. The kids would love that.

The boat finally floated. I idled out, got on step and came around the spit where I was surprised to see some 30 people on the beach for the 4th of July. Never heard them even though I was just on the other side of the spit. Funny.  A great weekend at the cabin.

So, here we are 4 days after the fact, and I and I think others are still riding the high of the perhaps once in a lifetime dinner we had last Sunday.

Sara’s Amazing Retirement Dinner

One of Sara’s former students from her earliest days of teaching came up this past week with a chef friend of hers, John Cox, from Monterrey. I think she met him when he came in to her shop for coffee. He’s interested in local wild foods, so Hanni said “I’ve got a freezer to show you”. John opened our freezers and Sara told him what was what in there. John said – “there’s nothing bought from the store in here, is there”. Sara said – yes – the 2 Costco pizzas and a sleeve of bagels”. John showed me how the cambium layer – the layer between the bark and woody part- of devil’s club is edible- and it’s actually good. Tastes like licorice/anise. So he and Hanni and Sara put together a menu and supply list and I just did what they told me and took care of Hanni’s 14 month old son, Ames, who was quickly dubbed Ames America because Ames sounds close to Haines. John collected some yarrow and Labrador Tea and got some fresh beach asparagus and morel mushrooms from Rainbow Foods. I think that’s all we bought. Hanni had me collecting blueberry and salmon berry stems, had me cut a small crooked branch off a tree at the cabin, and other similar duties for her decoration of the event, as that’s what she does. I was literally hung over today. Even though as the designated driver I didn’t have any alcohol. It was like a Thanksgiving meal hangover. I realized today John cooked us a meal even the wealthiest can’t get – at least not easily. Anyone can get the wild king and chum salmon – both of those are commercially harvested.

The wild black tail deer and moose are meats that can’t be legally sold so can’t be bought in trade – doesn’t matter how much money you have. The appetizers were king salmon tartar, cured chum salmon strips, chum salmon roe, smoked salmon brined in salmon berry juice (I did that one), black cod butter and some spruce infused salt with some nice thin slices of tasted bread from the good Wild Oven bakery here in Juneau. If you didn’t know, tartar is raw salmon. The king salmon was the fish I’d caught in Craig a few weeks ago. It was incredible. When seconds came around, everyone dove in. Forgetting we had multiple course to go. And so it went. Next, bowls were set before us with crab meat in them. Then John came around with this cool pitcher of Saras and poured dungeness crab bisque on the crab meat. “Oh my gosh this is good” was murmured and murmured. When John came around with seconds, everybody held their bowl out. Next, John and Hanni served up deer and moose. The deer was back strap that he’d marinated in some Birch Syrup we had from the days we used it for our smoked salmon pouches. He grilled it on the outside to sort of braise it, then sliced it pretty thin, and put it in the oven. The middle of it looked almost raw, but when you sliced it with the butter knife, it easily parted. And, he topped it with a compote made of red huckleberries and Labrador tea. Incredible. More seconds. Next was biscuits and gravy. The biscuits had cheese in them I think, and were real thin. The gravy was moose burger and morel mushrooms. More incredible. More seconds. He also had a vegetable of kale, squash and potato. Great. Then came the flan topped with cherries from Roy and Brenda’s cherry trees in Haines, America. What a finisher. The rest had an apartief of burbon and other stuff but like I said, I didn’t drink anything so I could be the driver.

It was, by far, the best meal I’ve ever had. And almost all from our freezer and cupboards. How does someone put it together to taste like that. We all felt like this was something we might never experience again and how lucky were we that we got to eat it. I told Sara’s sister and her husband, who were responsible for much of the meal in one way or the other: “I figured it would be good. But in no way did I know it would be this good because it’s the best food I’ve ever had. Had I known, we’d have flown them up her for the dinner”. It was that good. Some people have a gift. One of those is John Cox. Another is Hanni Lilidahl. Boo Yeah.

For some reason, slugs are one of the creatures that makes my stomach turn.  I used to work out in Sand Point- located in the Shumagin Islands – where there’s a monster salmon berry patch behind the boat harbor.  Slugs actually were inside the berry, so everyone you picked, you had to check inside first before putting it in the bucket.  Here, I’ve rarely seen them inside a berry, but they are on the bushes and occasionally fall into my bucket with the berries.  I noticed them more on Douglas than on the Juneau side of the channel, especially the last time I picked at Sandy Beach. Yesterday, I saw rain was coming after several dry days, so went over and picked before the rain.  With the bushes bone dry, I didn’t see one slug.  So that’s what I learned yesterday.  I only picked for a couple hours before I called it quits.  I put the berries in colanders in a bowl overnight to drain off the juice and got 15 cups of berries and 6 cups of juice.  That puts the berry and juice total to about 70 lbs for the year and I might call that good and move on to blueberries.  I picked 4 cups around the back deck two nights ago and they are coming on.  The huckleberries don’t seem to be on at all yet.