Deadliest Catch

Now that we are official grandparents you probably thought that this blog would migrate from cruising-sailing-around-the-world to all cute grand kid pictures, all the time. Wrong – not a single picture of the grandkid in this entry. We’ve been hanging out in Ferndale, Washington, just north of Bellingham, for the last few months. Mostly doing the good grandparent thing, although Chris now is on her second trip to Tanzania working on a maternal-neonatal HIV prevention education project for local midwives.
In the photo above I’m headed out with son-in-law Tyler into the rough and tumble Puget Sound to set crab pots in the desperate search for Dungeness crab on opening day of the season.

Here’s the pull of the first pot. It was lunch-bag-let-down. They are all Rock crabs. Too early in the season to set the pots this far north for Dungeness.

Here’s the view from ‘Baker Farm’, Meghan and Tyler’s (daughter and son-in-law) front yard of Mt. Baker. The property is about 5 acres and we have 21 foot travel trailer on the property that we live in while here. Can you say trailer-trash?

Life in the country…To keep busy I’ve been taking care of the pet Nigerian goats. The green platform is the fine goat furniture that I built for them. They like to sleep on something high to protect themselves from the predators.

Here’s a couple of the coyote predators caught eating the dropped pears and apples in the backyard.

Gotta water the gardening each evening too. The vines on the right are hops for fall beer brewing.

There are other animals here besides goats. This is Bubba. Bubba is an adopted ex-tomcat – well not really. Bubba is actually a dog who was born in a cat’s body. He is the only cat that I have ever had a real, meaningful relationship with. he loves to hang with his humans and comes when he’s called… sometimes.
This reminds me of some of the jobs I worked on in the past.

Making gallons of pear juice for cider, starts iwth the wood chipper...

Then to the press to produce the raw juice.

Boiling the juice before the yeast is added and fermentation begins!

More critters- this is a Pacific Tree Frog guarding the flower basket on the front porch.

The next project to take on was rebuilding this long abandoned out- building on the property. The initial job was to tear out all the rotting and smelling insulation. A dusty ugly job, which required wearing appropriate protective gear.

Behind the walls and insulation were some odd fellows. This possum must have climbed into the wall as his last rights.
Progress is being made on the bloke shed. Love those air tools.
I promised that this post would not have any grandkid pictures and this is not a grandkid pic. This is a picture of the interior of our land home, the travel trailer, with paid models in the foreground to spice it up. This shows pretty much all the living space.

OK, I lied. Here’s one more grandkid picture. We’re here for a few more months to watch her put on some more pounds, then its back to New Zealand…

Paul