My Three Sons

Nate, Doug, Nate and Andrew....my buddies...and they know how to stage a pic eh? Once a year the guys try to get together here at Mile 14 for a camp out and a trip for silvers. This year the fishing reminded me of my high school basketball career, it was interesting. We had lots of nibble, nibble, nibble, jerk....no fish. We had lots of nibble, nibble, nibble,nibble, jerk, fish-on... fish off. We had quiescent period of two full hours....But we ralleyed a bit late in the day and got a decent catch for supper. Leave it to Nate to grab the 'petite' model from the box, trust me there was a bigger salmon he could have used for the pic. These guys love the time together and for me its the best of the year, we talk sports (Red Sox guys ), we talk Vegas, we talk family.....and how many guides get a gift of a Maine license plate for the collection and a 2 pound bag of licorice?  Thanks guys and I'm going to try the Pai Gao poker for sure...

There must be something to it here at Mile 14 because these two guys, Hans and Kurt come all the way from Frankfurt Germany just to stake claim to that picnic table and bank fish for a week. They caught their limit of silvers on a trip with me but they also caught some gorgeous salmon right from the bank....who needs that guide anyway eh? One day they caught 5, pretty darn good I'd say. When they were here last time Hans confided to me that Kurt had lymphatic cancer and the trip was his swan song. Well they show up and Kurt tells me he's beaten the cancer and for all the friends I've lost I'm just over joyed to see a win....very cool. They come every two years so stay healthy guys and we'll leave the light on.

I'm kind of the caretaker of Geno / Pauley's boat and yesterday it was time to put it to bed for the winter so MP and I figured we better run the boat and maybe catch supper while we're at it. So we run the boat 2 miles upriver where Nate and us surrounded the salmon the day before but the boats were all anchored and lined up so we troll around them. Walla, it takes exactly 5 minutes and MP has this salmon on the end of her line....its magic. We land him, project finished, when we get home we'd only missed two innings of the Boston - Tampa Bay game....speaking of which Nate, The way that series went its a good thing your team is at Baltimore today, couple more Tampa  games and it could be 'lets wait for next season'.

So we had an 'All Alaska' supper. One fillet I put a little wasabi mayo with dill on it ( dill is a great spice for salmon if you ask me) and the other fillet got a nice basting of garlic olive oil with basil.  I grill them babies meat side down for a bit and then turn them to the skin side and apply my toppings. then we have a fresh cole slaw from the garden and I cut up some tomatoes and cukes as well....oh baby.... As I was cooking I got to looking around a bit and even though most of the flowers and veggies have run their course theres still surprises here at the boat launch. I noticed these strangely purple flowers that MP says are kind of rare thing called a shoe-fly and of course the blue flowers on top are lobelia.

And thanks to my friend Harry Thomas from Massaschuttes ( hope spell checker gets that one for me) who sent us the seeds we have several gorgeous sunflowers. They're kind of the story of Alaska summers I'd say. They're really impressive but difficult to grow, then they don't last long once they flower and they seem to want to tip over, ya know they're just difficult and like Alaska they look....well....unusual, just different.