Berry-licious

Went berry picking today in the rain with Calli and her mom Rae, who just moved up to Petersburger. We picked a native berry called Salmon berries that are both red and orange. I thought it would make a lovely picture but I don't have the camera because my lovely hubby took it with him on the fishing boat. Fear not I will pick them again and you will see a berry beautiful treat (cheesy I know, can't help it I'm from Wisconsin and we are very cheesy).

Adventures in Kayak Land

My latest love...Kayaking! I may be obsessed. They are great pesonally I feel they are way more stable than canoes, though I have been strongly debated by my one true love on that point,

Yeah, he's not convinced...

However there is no debating that these nifty little floaties are the perfect solution for traversing shallow waters and we would never have gotten this far back if it hadn't been for our transportation device of choice!

We also wouldn't have gotten so close to the baby ducks that were running on the water and to the B-E-A-U-T-IFUL water lillies that were in bloom...

Hiking the Pipeline

One fine sunny day Mat and I actually had a day off together, a very rare occasion! So Mat asked around about some fun hikes to do and it was suggested by our friend Silas that we hike the pipe line. The pipe line happens to be the way that all of the cities water gets down from a mountain lake as well as how all of the electricity for Petersburg gets produced. This is one of the things that I think is totally awesome about Petersburg, this place is pretty eco-friendly. All of the electricity is produced by a renewable resources, everything is super close by, gas is pricey so everyone shuts there cars off if they are waiting in line at the coffee stand which is all awesome!
This led Mat and I into a very thought provoking conversation...Why is green an option? Shouldn't everything we do be environmentally friendly? Really what is the point of not using our renewable resources? I mean sure Arizona can't use hydro-power, but they have the sun and surely they could use that to produce there power. Prairie states may not be able to us hydro or solar power but what about wind- generation. It seems illogical to me that we continue using non-renewable sources of power when clean sources that we will never run out off exist. Seems silly to me, but enough about my eco-rant.

Another neat thing about this day was that the pipeline starts right next to the Crystal Lake Hatchery. This is where local salmon babies get their start. These salmon hatcheries are the main reason why Alaska can keep up with the demand for wild salmon. You see if these didn't exists most of the babies would be eaten before they even had a chance to grow up into delicious wild salmon for our palate purposes. What happens is the big salmon swim up the stream where they were born and into a hatchery "pool" they lay their eggs here and die (which is exactly what would happen in nature). Then the eggs are collected and incubated in the perfect conditions so that the optimal about of the eggs hatch. They are then transferred into bigger pools were they are kept and fed until they are big enough to have a better chance of survival. Then the plug is pulled and its back into the stream that the parents come up from and out to the ocean they go. Travel safe little guys...

Come see my potato patch...

Those were the words that I heard from my best friend and sister in-law one fine day, so I headed over dressed in my mud boots and sweat pants because I oh-so-sillily assumed that this would be just a quick visit. When I got there we headed up to see this potato patch in the back of their house and we then decided to walk the old logging trail behind there house. We soon came to the end of te trail but noticed a animal path off to the side and decided to follow it, which led us to a steep hill side which we decided would be worth shimmying down to get to the river below. When we finally got down there it was like stepping into a fairy tale forrest with moss covered trees and all sorts of little waterfalls. Calli and I started following the river and eventually came to a waterfall that was roughly 20 feet high or so. At this time we had already hiked about an hour and were not about to turn around but up on walking to the edge of the waterfall we promptly realized that the only way down was a devil's club infested hill, a tricky terrain to traverse indeed. It took us another 1/2 hour or so of us not being quite sure where we were at exactly before coming to the road a few miles from Calli and Jesse's house. We spent the rest of our jouney home giggling about how our husbands would probably be less than happy about our decision to hike a river to no where upwind from any possible bears, but at least we were on an island and getting lost would have been slightly more difficult. The moral of this little adventure is however dress for a hike if your friend ever asks you to check out her potato patch... Does this look like a potato patch to you?!?!?!