Flippin’ Busy

Wow I’ve barely had time to breathe this week!  Up at 5:30 and down to the river by 6:30, and then a second trip, and sometimes a third, if the fish are really running.  We’ve pulled a lot of fish with our new net and share half the catch with Grandma.  She’s been canning up a storm but I haven’t yet had time to do any.  I did manage to smoke 18 sockeye and today we have the st’wan (dried fish) shack almost built.  I already have some of the fish cut and ready to hang but it just got way too darn hot to keep going.

Our new net.  It’s 30 feet long and 12 feet deep.

The first morning we pulled 30 fish, we’ve never got that many at once in our old nets!  Two mornings in a row we pulled 33 so I think this net works great!  I always split the morning pull with Grandma, and one morning with my BIL Doug, but we keep the second one because it’s much smaller.

One day we spotted a Blue Heron on the rocks near where we sit.  Twice I’ve had a large black bear run up from the river, cross the road in front of me and lumbar up the hill but no luck on getting a pic of him.  Friday morning Mikey (my nephew) and I had two deer trot out in front of us and slowly make their way up the bank but I didn’t have my camera with me (what was I thinking??).

The Blue Heron flew off and I tried to track him but I guess I need practice with flying birds.  These birds are huge with a wingspan of 66-79 inches!

Coming up last night I couldn’t resist stopping and, using the truck door as a tripod, taking a shot of the glow of the sun.

Well that’s it, that’s all I have time for. :)  I’m cooking dinner and then heading off to the river tootsweet.  Have a wonderful Saturday!

I’ve created a Facebook Photography page on Facebook and if you’d like to join please click the icon on the right side of my blog, Facebook will open and then click “Like” while there.  I find I’m putting pictures up at Facebook and Flickr before I get to my blog so if you’d like to see them earlier please join me at Facebook. :)

For a more pictures of the Blue Heron and our fishing visit my flickr site:

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Random Stuff

I finally caught some pics of the big buck!  We were heading to the river for fishing and he was on the road we take.  Around here you don’t often see one with such large antlers and he would be considered a “4 point” in BC.

More wildlife… a toad under our willow.  The kids loved finding him!

After quite some time we are finally smoke free, although I don’t know for how long.  There’s a huge fire out Yalakom and more fires around which has been causing a lot of smoke in our area, sometimes it’s so smokey you can hardly see across to the mountains on the other side of us.  This pic is the sun setting when the smoke was pretty bad but not as bad as during the day.

Sydney and I were standing in the garden listening to the thunder when a huge bolt of lightning came down and started a small forest fire just up from our driveway.  I immediately called Forestry and they had a chopper on it within about 20 minutes.

The chopper landed near our pond and dropped off a few crew members.

The fire burned itself out and the rainstorm after the thunder and lightning sure helped I’m sure.

More excitement during the week was a motorcycle accident on Hwy 12 towards Lytton, about 10 miles from our house.  The owner of the bike hit the guardrail and was ejected over it while his bike stayed on the road.  RCMP, Ambulance, and Rescue attend the scene.  A monument dedicated to another rider killed in the same spot a few years ago stands near the ambulance.

RCMP take belongings off the bike while rider's friend looks on. The rider was taken to St Bartholomew's Hospital in Lytton.  The Officer walked me up to the scene explaining what happened and allowed me to take pictures, all the while asking me about my camera and chatting up a storm, super nice guy! :)

Another rush of excitement (boy I seem to be saying that a lot!) was another fire at Bridge River in Lillooet.  My understanding is a power line came down and sparked a fire.  The Lillooet Fire Dept. responded until Forestry took over, who quickly extinguished it with two choppers bucketing and a small crew on the ground.  There were road closures and immediate evacuations of a few homes as well as everyone fishing at the mouth of the Bridge River.

Sydney and I drove in and parked across the river to see some of the action.  Normally I wouldn’t have driven in that far at suppertime but I had just got my new camera and wanted to try it out. :)

Well that’s it for now because this blog post is becoming much to long.  We’ve started fishing again at the river and bought a new net so I’ll be posting a few pics of that soon.  To see more pics of the buck, toad, accident, and fire stop over at my flickr site and have a great Sunday! :)

I’ve created a Facebook Photography page on Facebook and if you’d like to join please click the icon on the right side of my blog, Facebook will open and then click “Like” while there.  I find I’m putting pictures up at Facebook and Flickr before I get to my blog so if you’d like to see them earlier please join me at Facebook. :)

For a more pictures visit my flickr site:

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