What a Trouper

Our friend Jeanne drove up to Winchester Bay from Park Sierra to do some crabbing with the RoVing Rods. She's traveling alone so we asked her to be part of our "family" and park her rig perpendicular to us forming a good wind break. Having arrived about a week ago, she has had bad luck at bringing home any crab. Faithfully each morning she walks over to the Crab Dock to check her trap, and re-baits it because the small ones get in and eat her bait . . . in fact she checks the trap several times a day. She's only been able to trap females and ones that are too small.

Today, as she half-heartedly sauntered down to the dock I hollered "If you bring one back, I'll cook it for you!" Well, look at this smile—here she is so excited to bring one in which was nearly 7" across and a feisty one at that!

After she cleaned it, the pot of steaming water was waiting in my kitchen for the mighty critter. Good for you, Jeanne!

Here's a picture I swiped from Mary and Elaine's blog of the Crab Dock at Winchester Bay, where this blog takes place. The water is so smooth this morning . . . not a common sight!

This crab was the most feisty crab I've seen. He was ready to fight looking up from the bottom of the bucket.

Jeanne was brave (with her gloves on) to grab and show off her catch!

A Crab Favorite

Tonight was another potluck. This time we were asked to bring a Mexican dish, so I decided to make Crab Enchiladas Verdes . . . yummo, one of our favorite ways to use our crab. (I still had two packages of crab from last year that I wanted to use up and it was almost as fresh tasting as if it were caught today.) The tasty sauce is made from tomatillos, onions, garlic, cilantro and green chiles. When its all simmered for about fifteen minutes, it is cooled and put into a blender to make it a semi-smooth sauce. Some of the sauce is added to the crab along with grated cojita cheese and this mixture is the stuffing for the corn tortillas which have been "wilted" in a bit of hot oil. A cup of the sauce is spread on the bottom of the pan. After the enchiladas are formed more sauce goes on top, covered with foil, and baked for ten minutes, then removed from the oven to add more cheese and sour cream on top—bake it for another ten minutes— sprinkle chopped green onions on top and—voila! Ready to serve! And oh so delicious! It was a hit . . . not one bit left over. Of course, this group of RoVing Rods love potlucks, and they have big appetites after pulling traps and cooking crab all day.

Twelve fit nicely in a 9 x 13 pan

Once the sauce is made, they're pretty simple to throw together.

Life is Good . . . especially when sharing yummy crab recipes!

Fun Around the Campfire

We have the honor of having a friend who can play his guitar and sing just about any standard country/western song from the 50s on through current times. His name is Ed Bonham and we met him four years ago when we joined the RoVing Rods at Winchester Bay. He's an amazing man, not only knowing the tunes on the guitar, but being able to remember hundreds of lyrics. I wish I knew the lyrics to a tenth of the songs he knows! I love to sing with him and, likewise, he loves to get me up to sing with him. Trouble is . . . I don't know but maybe the first couple lines of the songs, so I feel foolish . . . but, being my Daddy's daughter, I have a great time singing when I can. Here are some pictures K got of Ed and me singing "Red River Valley."

We had just come to listen but our friends, Mary and Elaine, coaxed me to get up and sing with Ed. So rather than make a scene . . . I did!

Here we were singing a sweet love song, which I sort of knew the words (but right now, for the life of me, I can't remember what it was—oh Lordie), so I just sang a split second behind him and it seemed to work. He has such a cute sparkle about him.

I'm not sure what we were laughing about, but we had lots of fun singing together. Now I've got to think of some songs that I know so I don't feel quite so foolish next time.

Life is Good . . . especially having fun singing!

Down, But Not Out

The Zodiac is still down, but with the help of friends we're not out of commission. This morning K went out with Mary to check the traps. (Our Zodiac will be out of commission until Tuesday.) K brought in six pretty good size crab this morning, which he took up to the cleaning counters set up in the campground. I went along to get some pictures of them before they were prepared for the steaming pot. The big one was 8" across . . . one of the biggest we've ever trapped. This evening a couple other friends from our RoVing Rods group went out to check our traps and brought in two more crab. So far we've brought in 27 crab.

K was pretty excited about this big guy. The measuring device shows you what the minimum size (5 3/4") of the crab must be to keep. The keepers must be male .

Here he is at the top of the pile.

And here he is with his buddies on the cleaning table. One of his buddies lost his big claw, fighting with the others in the bucket!

This is a pretty good shot of him. Sure wouldn't want him to get a hold of me with that giant claw! The meat in that claw is the sweetest tasting!

And here they are after steaming for 20 minutes.

Life is good . . .
. . . especially with some yummy crab in your belly!

Slim Pickin's

Tuesday afternoon K noticed the Zodiac was looking a bit limp on the port side. He decided to fix it in the morning and would wait 24 hours for the patch to dry completely. It ended up to be a very windy day and the water was too choppy to go out anyway.

He's had to do this before—a couple of years ago. Sometimes, when the traps are lifted up into the boat, loaded with crab, the door falls open and the wire "attacks" the surface of the inflatable boat which ends up puncturing a little hole . . . not a good thing!

A not too happy looking Zodiac.

After discovering the location of the puncture he let the air out completely so that he could patch the hole. He found the patch kit but the adhesive jar had a problem. 1. It had a shelf life of one year and we bought it five years ago, and 2) K and several others tried to get the lid off and it was stuck. He went into town and picked up two adhesives from the hardware store that he thought should work. After applying one of them and waiting an hour (the directions said it should dry in 20 minutes) he checked the seal of the new patch and it pulled right off.

See the little slit that caused the leakage.

Exasperated, he called around to various nearby towns to find a replacement jar, and they all told him he'd have to go to Portland to get the adhesive for a Zodiac! (Apparently Zodiacs are made of something special and, therefore, need a special adhesive.) He called and had them "overnight" it to Winchester Bay but it was 5:15 p.m. so, of course, we didn't get it today. It should be here tomorrow.

Gary went out this morning with our good friend Mary, to pick up last night's traps and brought back only TWO crab. He re-baited all the traps. K went out with Mary (Mary and Elaine are the two that got us into crabbing in the first place four years ago.) and they checked both our six traps and Mary and Elaine's three traps . . . skunked! Not one!

K and Mary heading back to the dock empty handed.

Nothing in that bucket . . . not one!

Elaine picked up Mary at the boat ramp to haul their boat back to camp. They love those little wheels that K turned them on to a couple years ago. The snap up the back of the boat when it goes into the water. Pretty neat!

But even with today's slim pickin's we've brought in and steamed and picked 17 crab.

Life is good!

First Full Day in Winchester Bay

Sniff . . . sniff . . . sniff . . . Mmmmmmmm, what's that I smell? It's freshly brewed coffee! That's what woke me up after a great night's sleep. I fell asleep to the sound of the fog horns and the water lapping on the pier posts —and didn't wake up until that wonderful smell espresso brewed by my sweet husband. K had made the espresso and I jumped out of bed to enjoy a nice cappucino to start my day.

Then I got dressed and went outside and he was setting up the new table we bought for our Dutch oven cooking. It also worked fine using our new burner to cook up some bacon. We bought that burner especially to use with the pressure/canner because the burner we use for the crab pot is too high in BTUs to use with a pressure/canner. Oh . . . so much to learn and I'm thinkin' we're never too old to learn somethin' new!

The next project for the day was to put together the set up for the crab cooker.

He and Gary each set up three crab traps so they could start the adventure for which we came.

The Zodiac need to be inflated. Here he is putting on the wheels that lock in an upright position when the boat is in the water.

Ready to pull it down to the water. They have a blast in that little boat. I just love the grins on their faces as they set out to drop the traps.

Here they are leaving the dock with half of the traps in the boat. There's only room for three traps and the two of them.

Here they come back for the second bunch of traps. Look at that grin on K's face!

This is a beautiful place along the Oregon coast which is famous for their Dungeness Crab, who got their name from a town called Dungeness in the state of Washington.

The Roving Rods week hasn't officially started but there are probably twenty to thirty rigs already here.

After a delicious dinner prepared by Cecile (Corn and Crab Chowder) they head out anxious to see if they got any . . . they came back with one keeper. There were lots of females and babies to toss back along with "tons" of seaweed.

And the sun sets on our first day in Winchester Bay!

Life is good!

And We're Still Good Friends!

We've spent the last six weeks with the Thompsons here in Camp Cascadia. We've organized and made plans together, we've worked hard together, we've worked hard at our individual tasks, we've discussed and came to compromises, we've shared wine on the deck nearly every evening after a hard day's work, we've taken turns providing dinner each and every night, we've played Pegs and Jokers nearly every night . . . and we're still good friends! I don't know any couple we enjoy spending that much time with more than the Thompsons. Tonight we celebrated our friendship by having dinner at The Point . . . the fanciest restaurant in Sweet Home, Oregon. Tomorrow we go crabbing!

Life is good sharing with good friends!

The Pegs and Jokers Work Party's Over

We're really finished and packing up to go to the coast for some much-looking-forward-to crabbing! We (our foursome) drank our last bottle of wine out on the deck last night, enjoyed a wonderful grilled wild salmon for dinner, played a few games of Pegs and Jokers, and went to bed exhausted but pleased with our six-week's of hard work.

Here are the last of the "Standard" sets of our Pegs and Jokers adventure.

When I bought the wild salmon at Safeway yesterday the butcher asked me if I had a kitty at home. Of course my first thought was "no," but quickly I remembered that for the last six weeks we HAVE had a kitty . . . "Mittens" . . . the Thompsons new cat. So as the butcher was slicing my whole salmon into steaks he saved the "kitty tidbits" which I poached for Mittens so she could celebrate with us. When Mittens came six weeks ago, she was quite timid and kinda freaked out when brought into the pole barn. But, now —outside of Cecile and Gary— I think I'm her next best friend. She ate that salmon up so fast, and then licked her chops for an hour afterward.

Here she is in July, a picture Gary and Cecile sent to us. I couldn't get her to pose after I put down the dish of salmon . . . she was much too interested in gobbling it up than looking cute!

Life is good with someone else's kitty to enjoy!

"Good Morning!"

I swear that's what I heard this morning as I went out front to pick some blackberries for my cereal. I was all by myself today as K took the truck in for some brake work, and Gary and Cecile went to visit their son and daughter-in-law in Portland. So I was foot-loose and fancy-free hunting for berries when I was looking down to see where I could put my foot without getting tangled up in the long thorny brambles and noticed a grasshopper sitting on a leaf. She said "Good morning!" and I said "Well, I'll be!"

I was about to step around her when I noticed she was carrying her baby on her back. At least, that's what I think it was. The "momma" was only about an inch and a quarter long and the "baby" was half that size! The tiniest grasshoppers I've ever seen. So I wondered if I could get a picture of them and my camera, of course, was back in the trailer. I decided to give it a try. I backed out slowly and ran (well, not really) to the trailer as fast as I could, and when I got back down to where I was, the grasshoppers had moved . . . only to the edge of the leaf, though, and I slowly and quietly crept up to capture the moment. Take a look!

Good morning!

I used the Macro to get this shot . . . isn't it cool!

Only Two Days Left

. . . until we start packing up Camp Cascadia to go on to our next adventure of crabbing in Winchester Bay. We like to take about three days to pack so we feel no pressure. BUT we still have to get about fifteen standard sets of Pegs and Jokers done if we want to meet our goal. I'm not sure it that's going to happen but we'll all give it our college try. Here are a few pictures of today's progress.

These are the boards that I worked on today. Actually I have three sets of these almost finished. They have already been sold! We got smart and bought spray paint to paint the pegs for the Standard Sets. The pegs for the Designer Sets have to be painted by hand since there are so many colors to their palettes.

Pegs and boards at various stages of completion.

Completed boxed sets waiting for the insertion of decks of cards.

Cecile painting and placing the reinforcements used to designate the key holes on the boards.

Boards which are waiting to be painted and varnished.

This is our Pansy Designer set.

This is our Fish Designer set. It would be cute for a kid's set, it's got a cartoon feel to it.

Just a close-up of a cute fish!

Cascadia Crafters Hit the Newspaper

Last week a reporter from the Sweet Home newspaper, The New Era, came out to get a story on the Card Boxes we're making at the Cascadia Bible Church. Here is a picture of "our" story in this week's edition.

That's me with my back to you.

Summer Fruits

The end of summer is creeping up. And with that time of year comes the last of the abounding fruits of the season, such as the apples we picked from the trees over at the church (from which an Apple Crisp is baking in the oven as I type this!)—and the berries I picked just this morning from an area only three feet from the back of the trailer—an area we've hardly ever been able to pick from in past years because of lack of sun. Well—this year it seemed to have enough sun to ripen hundreds of berries.

Enough for cereal in the morning!

Apples from the church's trees!

Speaking of seasonal harvests . . . here is the "harvest" of the wood-shop production for the past week . . . a huge container of sawdust!

K was wondering why the suction had slowed down!

Life is good!