Fish On!

This was tonight's catch.

DH went fishing after work tonight and brought home these two beauties.

Prior to this year, I was a "fish snob" of sorts. My favorite salmon is Sockeye. Sadly, these fish are not Sockeye, these are Pink salmon--specifically females.

This year there are no Sockeye salmon to be had. I find myself excited now that we have any fish at all--even if they are Pinks! My how things have changed. Earlier this month we were in Skagway, Alaska and enjoyed a Sockeye Salmon barbecue. This is our chef serving up this yummy salmon.

This fellow had a wonderful sauce that we added to our salmon on the plate. It was delicious. When asked, he was able to produce a copy of the recipe from his pocket.

In double boiler melt 1/2 lb butter

stir in well 2-3 cups brown sugar

add 1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup pineapple juice

Note: For pork chops or ham, add: 1/4 cup soy sauce and garlic salt

I am sure this sauce won't make our Pink salmon taste like Sockeye. However, this is the first fresh salmon of the season and I am sure it will be enjoyed just the same when we cook it up for supper.

What has happened to the Sockeye? Read the following borrowed from the CBC News site, published on August 13, 2009.

Scientists and others are scrambling to determine what happened to millions of sockeye salmon that defied their predictions and failed to return to the Fraser River this summer, leading to the closure of all the sockeye fishing on the river for the third year in a row.

After two of the leanest years on record, scientists had predicted a healthy return of sockeye in 2009. But the most recent numbers show this years' Fraser River is only expected to be 600,000 fish, about seven percent of the original prediction of 8.7 million, making it perhaps the worst return on record.

The original prediction was largely based on the strong spawning year in 2005 and the salmon's 4 year life cycle, but was considered to be accurate only 50 percent of the time.

...the cause of what is now three years of low returns is unclear.

Some experts blame warmer ocean and river temperatures, and declining food supplies in the open oceans for failing salmon runs.

But warmer temperatures can not fully explain the demise of so many fish.

Scientists, environmentalists, politicians, and fish farmers have been arguing for years about the impact salmon farms are having on young salmon fry, with many opponents of fish farms predicting sea lice from the industrial operations would decimate wild salmon stocks.

One thing is for sure, you can always count on the optimism of a fisherman. My DH is hopeful that next summer will yield the return of the elusive Sockeye.

Quilt Guild Show and Tell

Last Wednesday night was the first meeting of our Quilt Guild for the 2009-2010 year. We were treated to two small quilt shows that night. The first, presentation was "A" is for Applique by Judith. Judith has been nominated for CQA (Canadian Quilters' Association) Teacher of the Year. Judith's presentation was part slide show and part trunk show with the actual quilts.
The second treat for the evening was a show and tell of projects made by some of the members through the summer. Someone commented that we had enough quilts in our show and tell portion of the evening to hold a quilt show. I was sitting in the second row of the audience so some of my pictures are partially obstructed. Sit back and enjoy the show, just as I did on Wednesday night.

And of course, the best part of show and tell is the "train" of donaiton We Care quilts that forms around the room at the end of the presentation.

Post Card from England

A couple of weeks ago, back in August, I received this fabric post card in the mail on the day we were getting ready to leave for our cruise to Alaska. This is the first fabric post card I have ever received!

By the picture on the front of the card, I had assumed that the card had travelled to me from England. I flipped over the card to find out that my suspicions were correct. I had received this wonderful little gift from Chris in England. She told me in her message that the name of her quilt group was on the front of the card, the Sew and Sews. I immediately wanted to write back to Chris but there was no last name or address provided. Who was this mysterious quilter named, Chris?

We had received the mail that day literally minutes before we were ready to head out the door on our holiday so I didn't have any time to investigate the source of the post card any further. I had suspicions that the post card was either connected to Leslie or Patricia (both members of my Tuesday quilt group) since they are both from England and still have family and friends there.

Last night I received a phone call from Edna (also a member of my Tuesday quilt group) filling me in on all the details. Edna had just received her post card from England yesterday and told me that she had been "responsible" for starting something with a group of quilters from England. This group was connected to Leslie through Leslie's sister. There are 10 quilters in the England group--the same number as in our Tuesday group here in Canada. Edna has all sorts of plans for us to do some exchanging with the English quilters. Leslie's sister is due to visit Canada later this month and we are scheduled to get together with her and work out the details of the exchange. How exciting!

Brief Visit From my Brother

This is a picture of my brother taken at my parents' house. This was one of my brother's brief visits where if you miss dropping by my parents' house during the two or three hours he stops by, you will miss him. We see far too little of him. And yes, he usually is as happy as he looks in this picture! "Mr. Easy Going"!