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1 to 15 July 2024 16 to 31 July 2024

Monday and Tuesday, July 15 and 16, 2024

Natasha must be in a growing phase. She has been eating like crazy for over a week.

Just ordinary days filled with laughter.

One of the nice photos daycare sends us every now and then.

A sleepover with grand-maman, in her bed for the movie.

Wednesday, July 17, 2024.

Jeremy and Mike went fishing at Kitty Coleman this morning.
I went just before they came back to take some photos.

A fish cleaning station is available at Kitty Coleman. It is a very nice one.
The seagulls are fat here.

The boys are at work.

Natasha goes to the pool with grand-maman after daycare.

Can you tell what we are having for supper?

Another night with us!

After Natasha went to bed, I went inside to help Jeremy tie some knots on lures.
Jeremy and I laugh a lot because I am not good at tying knots.

Thursday, July 18, 2024.

Jeremy's friend from work came with his two daughters to play with Natasha. They had fun in the pool and on the trampoline.

Tomorrow morning, Jeremy and I are going to buy a smoker.

Jeremy is preparing the three salmon fillets for smoking.

We have two bowls like this to smoke tomorrow.

Natasha is helping dad make some brine for the salmon.

This is all the salmon soaking in the brine. It will soak for 12 to 18 hours before we smoke it.

Kristin arrived from Borden around 10 p.m.

Friday, July 19, 2024.

We were at Canadian Tire shortly after 8 a.m. to buy the smoker.
Jeremy is doing the assembly in just a few minutes. This is a Bradley Smoker.

We transferred the salmon from the brine to drying racks for the next 4 to 5 hours. A light coat (lacker) will form on the whole salmon. This will help in the smoking process.
First, we are smoking only half of the salmon we prepared. It will be smoked with apple wood smoke. The second half will be smoked with hickory wood smoke.

Jeremy is programming the smoker for the next four hours.

After three hours, we checked the internal temperature of the salmon. It will need another hour before it is done.

Natasha's pool developed a hole. Jeremy is very good at fixing stuff like that.

We smoked salmon until about 10:30 before we were done.
It is very good.

Saturday, July 20, 2024.

Yesterday, Jeremy made a castle out of cardboard boxes for Natasha.
Natasha is very happy to have her own castle.

Jeremy and I were back on the water by 7 a.m. this morning.
We got two more Chinook salmon today.
Jeremy has not decided what he will do with the salmon, freeze them or smoke them.

Sunday, July 21, 2024.

Jeremy and I took a drive to Campbell River to check out the river. We heard pink salmon were running the river.
Nope! No salmon. We saw this rig ready to go camping in the wilderness.

Her hair is getting long enough to make ponytails.

Natasha is having a sleepover in the trailer.

Monday, July 22, 2024

We are back from fishing by 4 p.m. Here is our catch.
Here is how today's fishing went.
We got on the water by 1.45 p.m. We saw more than 30 boats fishing where we were. Nobody is catching fish.
About an hour later, there is chaos in our boat. Jeremy catches a few salmon, but we cannot keep them because they are too small.
Me ? I caught only one small one again. Jeremy catches one we can keep. We are pretty sure it is a coho. We have no down time. As Jeremy puts his line in the water and starts to drop it to a depth of 150 feet, at the 50-foot mark, a salmon bites the lure.
It is the biggest of the two you see. It is a Chinook. Jeremy caught 6 salmons total in less than 25 minutes. My arms hurt from reeling in the salmon. Why ? Because when Jeremy catches a fish, I have to reel it in because he has to drive the boat and not run into one of the other 30 boats in the area. Also, once the weight (12 lbs) of the lead ball is out of the water, the boat still wants to turn because of the ball on my line. So, I am the one reeling in the fish.

Jeremy's Chinook weighs 9 pounds.

It is fun to go fishing, but now we have to rinse the boat and equipment with saltwater residues.
We even have to run or flush the motor with fresh water running through it for 5 or 10 minutes.

Jeremy ordered an Elsa dress for Natasha.
The dress arrived today. Natasha is so happy.

Tuesday, July 23, 2024.

Kristin is on a course for the next three weeks. It is an online course. She does it at home.
This changes the house dynamics a little. Everybody has to adapt.

I took a walk around the military housing. It was 3 km long.

Wednesday, July 24, 2024.

We are fishing again today, but in a different way.

We are river fishing in the Campbell River in the town of Campbell River. By the way, Campbell River is the salmon capital of the world.
This is a view of the river upstream and downstream.

Jeremy was fly fishing today.

What a beautiful day at the office!

The salmon are not quite running up the river yet.

We had overnight rain and even lightning and thunder. We need the rain in the Comox Valley.

Thursday, July 25, 2024.

Jeremy has an appointment for the Audi in Nanaimo after lunch.
I am going with him.

We took a few minutes to shop at Cabela's. Jeremy did buy some small fishing gear.

After Cabela's, we dropped off the car at the dealership.

We had lunch at the local buffet restaurant, the Hong Kong House.

The food was good, and we ate like...

Once the car was ready, we headed straight back home.

Michele took a photo of Natasha from the door of the trailer. She is at daycare.

It was a tiring day, even if we did not do all that much.

Friday and Saturday, July 26 and 27, 2024.

Friday was just an ordinary day.

Saturday, me, grand-maman and Natasha went to Canex (the convenience store on base) to buy some treats for Natasha's sleepover tonight.

We had to stop at the red playground on our way back. We stopped for about half an hour.

Natasha is with us in the trailer after supper. It is sleepover time.
Grand-maman received some ballerina stickers for Natasha. She is putting a few of them in her bedroom in the trailer.

She is watching a movie in our bedroom with grand-maman. Treats are required too.

After the movie, it is story time before bedtime.

Sunday, July 28, 2024.

Natasha has breakfast with us in the trailer this morning.

We are out for a bike ride.

Jeremy missed the last step coming down the stairs and hurt his foot badly.
The funniest part was that a few hours before, he was doing downhill mountain biking in a ski resort without any injury, but a stair!

Monday, July 29, 2024

Natasha is becoming more and more bold on the trampoline.

Jeremy is on leave this week. Sometimes he goes fishing with friends and sometimes with me.

Kristin prepared a very good spring roll for supper.

It was good.

Tuesday, July 30, 2024.

Nice days outside

Jeremy and I prepare three pink salmon for smoking.
They have to soak for over 12 hours in a solution of 6 parts brown sugar and 1 part kosher salt.
No water has been added, but the juice you see is the water being drawn from the salmon.

After soaking for 12 hours, we wipe them with our fingers and place them on the smoking racks.

They stay for 2 hours on the counter with a fan blowing on them. This forces the formation of a "coating" on the surface that will help in the smoking process.
Next, they go in the smoker for about three hours.

Wednesday, July 31, 2024.

Jeremy is going fishing by himself. Michele has an appointment at Beltone for her hearing aids.
She also has to do the yearly audiogram.
The audiogram is good, with little change in her hearing.
Next, we head to the massage place for her other appointment.
The massages are having a positive effect on her neck pain. It is reduced.

Corn season is here, and it is very good.

Jeremy had bought a barrel of beer for Michele as a joke. We are drinking some of it tonight.

It is a Czechoslovakian lager, and it is good.

Until next time.

Life is good...