Sciatica, I got it . For the life of me I don't know what I did. I'd been feeling soooo good, I have my weight down to where I've wanted it for years and we walk 3 miles everyday and...oh. it's excruciating. Once I get moving it's not so bad but in the morning after I stretch I can't lift my left foot to put my pants on without a severe stinging running down from my left kidney to my butt. I spent 2 days getting my boat out of winter lay up and I guess I just did to much....but ya know , in this day and age if a little back pain or even a lot of back pain is your biggest problem that's a pretty good deal. I'll take it.
BUT...having said all that I gotta ask and you know I'm a guy that does everything himself and never asks for help but this is different. I just can't do the shoveling to get the winters silt off the concrete boat launch surface like I always do and we'd really like to get the boat launch open as soon as possible. So if any of you guides or Kenai people that use Stewart's Landing read this and can pitch in MP and I would really appreciate it. When I do it alone it usually takes about 2 or 3 hours and this year it's not as much as usual...
I googled ' funny pictures for back pain ' and there weren't any....guess it's kind of a hard thing to make fun of.
So me and MPeasy have cabin fever on about an 8 on the 10 scale so the other day we decide to walk the beach in Kasilof and have ice cream for lunch at the Mercantile along the way, my favorite....chocolate chip cookie doe. Oh baby, it was the first ice cream we've had since going to the movies in Mazatlan in February, made my lips tingle. We pull up to the parking lot at the beach access and see this memorial, I was impressed. It was made of welded aluminum channel and situated in one gorgeous location on gods green earth , for forty seven years now that beach just always gives me pause and this certainly helped that along.
Now the Agates that we all collect aren't exactly gem quality but what they lack in clearness they make up in quantity. Mp , she likes the unusual and the darker colors, me I go for size, it's the fisherman in me no doubt.
The Agates might not be gem quality but the ice sculptures are . They're going fast, it's springtime in Alaska.
So we end up on the Kenai flats looking for those thousands of Snow Geese that used to have a layover here every year. I don't know what happened to them but mother nature is kinda quirky, back then we had thousands of Geese and few Cranes and now it's just the opposite. I call the Sand Hills Pterodactyls cause they kinda look like them and make that dinosaur sound, really loud cackling. Here's the best pic I could muster using all the zoom I had....guess it's one of the ' ya gotta be there ' deals.
So tomorrow is May day and the boat is ready and we'll be salvaging and fishing real soon. This year the ADG+G is actually going to let us start fishing with a slot limit for keepers so all of us river people are excited....but ....in a really trying to be optimistic way. After the last 8 years of having to explain the vagaries of our fishery to customers I'm glad that I don't have to deal with this new era but I worry for all my friends who need business and yes , we're in the Kenai up to our necks and would like some business here at Mile 14 as well. I just don't see people from the 48 coming to fish and quarantining for 14 days before they do and then again when they get home. So, come on Alaska...let's go fishin ! Here's our new neighbors at Stewart's island.
Speaking of guiding. I've been cleaning out my office, so many pictures, so many thank you notes and letters.... the workings of my life's business. I decided that I needed to burn all my client info and banking info and thought it would be kinda hard to do, erase my life's work . But ya know when I started that fire in my drive way it was a moment....it was moving on...it helped me see the future and know that we, me and MP still got a lot to do. So take it from me, if you're retiring from something you loved, something that defined you the mechanical process of moving one helps...it was kinda fun...adios to the old, hola to the new.
And...my song of the week... I decided to save them for last,mmmm,,,, but maybe there's a good chance I've already lost some of you and an even bigger chance that I'm fixing to , so here goes. I can't figure out why the guitar sounds so tinny , I tried it on the Martin and it was just as twangy. Guess I need a better way. Ty gave me a Go Pro a while back so I really need to get better with that which is the right equipment.
how fast seasons change here, I'll never get used to it. All of you that read this regularly know that a week ago we still had freezing weather , a frozen river and 3 ft. of snow. Well about 5 days ago it got to be in the 40's during the day and the high 30's at night and never mind that during this time of year we gain 7 minutes of daylight everyday, think about that, in seven days we have an hour more sunlight. We've had an open ' lead' at the launch for a week but this series of pics is the last 3 days taken from about the same place.
Below is last night as the break up was occurring. The open water pushed all the ice onto the shallow riff below the property and stopped the current. We watched the water level rise a full foot or more.
And then this morning it had released taking all the ice and water with it.
Last night as it jammed up I took this short 16 second video. At first the ice crunched so loud we could hear it at the house. MP and I hung out at the launch after supper hoping it would release so I could get a video but no such luck. It must have happened shortly after we climbed the hill though.
So this morning as soon as it was light and even before we ate we hustled down to the river to see what it looked like. I found my first treasure of the 2020 season in exactly 2 minutes, the river had washed up this gorgeous K-14 Kwikfish...I was a little excited so when I handed the camera to MP she said I needed my ' O ' face.
So now the season will start in earnest. I don't know what is going to happen and I expect the launch will have few if any customers.....BUT, I'm anxious to get on with some fishing of my own and outdoor work like cutting all the beetle kill spruce I can handle. We've been home from Mexico a little over a month now and it was a long one...but I gotta say we kept the faith and didn't miss a single day of getting our 3 mile walk in, and I do 45 minutes on the stationary bike every morning. Some of the days walking fell into that ' ya gotta want to do it ' category.
It's been a little wet eh ? Hows about the Peninsula's biggest mud puddle, brought to you by the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce, I personally think it's a promotional shot and should be sent out with every request for info from people who are thinking of moving here. I'm standing there in the middle.
This year we took a a Fire Stick to Mazatlan as our building continually cuts back on services like television. Our internet wasn't as good as it could be to run it flawlessly but it did run it well enough to know we need to use it in Alaska where we do have good internet. We had left our Dish Network service on for our house sitter and low and behold it was blanking out and not working right. The Dish people said the satellite had moved and I needed to have the Dish re- positioned.... Nope, considering we have no live sports and the service cost some serious $$$$ I decided I was cutting off the service . With more than a little time on my hands I researched Over The Air TV and almost ordered an antennae from Amazon when I came across the do it yourself approach on YouTube. Unbelievable how good it works, I built an antennae for both TV's and now get 18 channels Over The Air. They are all 5 major networks in high definition as well as some I've never heard of before but with that and the Firestick we've got all the TV we need, for about a hundred bucks less a month. Here's pic of one of the antennas being made and then installed ( we're close to the broadcast tower )
And my song of the week....I put this up on Youtube a while back. But tonight I'm going to sit down and record a new one so I hope you come back...In the meantime I hope you all stay well, keep smiling. 😎🐟💚🎸🎵🚤
Boy howdy...and I thought the days blend together in Mexico ! So like just about all of us I've been looking for things to do. Life here at Mile 14 is kind of unique, we have wilderness so we can adventure outside whenever we want...but...there's still 2 ft. of snow. So you know how I loves list's, they give the appearance of organisation to a decidedly unorganized life and I haven't done one for a while so here goes...
Things I did this week
1. Learned to play Farkle
2. Learned to play Farkle frenzy
3. Found the Kaminsky Method on Netflix
4. Finished the Kaminsky Method on Netflix
5. Built a T.V. antennae
6. Found a recipe for Menudo ( will report back )
7. Read three books... The Farfarers is going to take me bit Willie ( will report back)
8. Watched the 1998 Daytona 500
9. Paid bills...all out come and no in come.
10. Took sauna
Speaking of the sauna....years ago as MPeasy and me headed down the hill on the 4-wheeler she being the astute one in the bunch pointed out that we were breaking every single safety recommendation that was prominently posted on the machine. Yikes....well, we still are.
I did a smart thing and stocked the wood for the sauna before leaving for Mexico last October and that was a good thing because you'd need a Huey Helicopter to get the job done now. But we had a great fire that hit the optimum 180' within about 15 minutes and had about 3 ten minute sessions at 180 before going up the hill to fall asleep during The Curse of Oak Island....Ya know I tell people they'd better be watching because you wouldn't want to miss it when they find the treasure, well, wake me up when that happens eh MP...?
Now I'm going to take a chance and publish this sauna photo just so you can see what we're dealing with on our historically late break up / lasting snow / frozen river / etc...and of course there's the fact that I'm an unabashed egotistical ....well, let's say I'm comfortable in my own body and thought that people who know me and know how hard and long I've tried to get to 185 pounds might get a kick out of seeing what it looks like. 😎
You've noticed I've been trying to publish a few songs lately....it's medicine for me. So you're going to have to suffer through another one. But, I promise from here on until life gets semi-normal I'll try to keep it to just one week. This on here is one I searched out about 35 years ago when the fog had just started to lift for me... I HOPE ALL of you are doing well and keeping your spirits up, remember what we say here at Mile 14... &%$#* &>* I just FARKLED again !!!
Well the editorial staff here at Mile 14 hasn't got any of those three things going on. The traditional Alaska break-up is late, we'd love to break out of the house but we can't and with all this ice you gotta be damn careful to not break your leg...just like Mexico when we do our daily walks you spend the entire walk looking down so you don't hurt yourself, the good news is that when you look down you find things like a nice pocket knife the other day. In Mexico this season I found a nice bracelet, a cell phone ( which I got returned tot he owner ) car keys ( which I got back to the owner ) and a couple years ago I found 2 american C notes, yahtzee. Here's pic of MP on our walk yesterday so you non Alaskans can see what we're up against snow wise.
We walked 8000 steps which was an hour and 15 minutes. Of course we talked about what everybody is talking about so we take our good cheer whenever we can find it, Soldotna's most cheerful fire hydrant.
My friend Dan sent a picture of the river open and flowing below his house 20 miles upriver from us. Usually when the river ' goes out ' we wake up to the sound of Ducks and Seagulls but like everything now days, 2020 is acting different. It's moving our way and the open leads we're seeing are sort of news but by jiminy it's open water and we'll take it.
With break up also comes clean up. The roads are sanded so often that tons and tons of it has to be collected. The street sweepers kick up dust that's just horrible and until the job is done just the everyday traffic creates a dust storm, it's one of my least favorite things around here... tree hugger alert ... there's got to be a better way , look at all of this that ends up in the River we all love under the bridge in Soldotna.
The first week of December 2001 Toby Keith was in Alaska and added a show at the Kenai Auditorium. He was new on the scene and just had the red album, Dream Walking out. We were on our way to Las Vegas as we routinely went to the National Finals Rodeo to watch Country music acts so we bought cheap seats on the balcony and listened to Toby... he was great and played this song for all of us that were experiencing post 9 / 11 . I think it stands up today.
Today is the day after we got the news. People like me all over the USA are playing John Prine songs one way or another, here's mine.....damn.
Mile 14 on the Kenai River, well, its a special place on earth. I tell people the Kenai river is like my first girlfriend, always changing, fickle, unpredictable but absolutely gorgeous. This place is the major league of salmon fishing, and you'll see why. No politics here, well maybe a little fish politics, just plain simple fun and adventure.
I have been a fulltime guide on the Kenai River here in Alaska since 1981. I'm a fishing machine between my summer job and surf fishing in Mazatlan Mexico. I've been married to the best person I know for 32 years. I'm a musician , health nut and I like to have fun. Mile 14 is where I live on the Kenai River. So this Blog will be my views, experiences, huge catches and adventures right here from Mile 14...and most of them will be true.
