good morning beautiful

Sorry, it's taken me forever to update the blog. I've been working like crazy and the Internet has been super spotty. The biggest news to date is the porcupine hunt last night. We were all sitting in the living room and then we saw it cross the front of the bunkhouse. We all ran out and preceded to hunt after it. We successfully killed it and are having porcupine this weekend. Ill be sure to post about that experience. :) Its been beautiful today, we were wearing short sleeves outside and even got a little color to our skin. I was so happy to see the sun all day and hopefully it'll stay like this the rest of the week. I cant wait to post all these pictures I've been taking. I'm transferring to a bigger hatchery next week so I can experience egg take and harvest. Possible overtime at this hatchery too, so that'll be great. I'll update again when something worth posting happens. Until then I'll just keep working hard!

An eagle, her baby, and the porcupine

Well, these past few days have been busy busy busy... Sunday was a relax/laundry/explore day. It sure was a good day to explore because as I was walking down to the flats, a huge ball of quills passed in front of me. It was by far the largest porcupine I had ever seen. The next day I worked super hard. We loaded four 15'X15' rolled up nets into a boat from the floating fish pens. Each net was a couple hundred pounds a piece... while we were loading the nets I heard a baby bird cry. When I looked over I saw an eagle flying into the trees and there was her baby waiting to be fed. It's so good to see bald eagles all the time being that the areas around Starkville only house a few eagles and they are hard to catch a glimpse of. After we loaded all the nets up and loaded the rock bags on to the barge we headed back to the hatchery on the skiff. After that I was taken in to the "boiler" room even though it's not hot in there at all. The whole incubation room is kept super cold for the salmon when they were hatching. We no longer have any fish in the hatchery, it is mainly clean up time to prepare for next season. I climbed up a twenty foot ladder on to the top section of the boiler room that holds three huge water tanks that i had to climb down into, pressure wash and scrub to look like new. Then the rest of the afternoon we loaded thousands of pounds of fish food into holding trailers to save for next season. Today I scraped off the silicone from the dam boards in the top of the troughs in the ceiling and cleaned all those. Then I dried everything off and re-siliconed them into place. Then I was sent to check all the fry screens and make sure they were sound to use for next year. If not, I had to replace the deficiencies and put them back in the right stack. Keep in mind there are over 900 fry screens to go through... we've gone through probably 200 of them so far... It was a pretty easy day today besides being in the ceiling most of the day but tomorrow starts the real work. We're breaking down the incubation trays and taking them out one by one. There are 8 modules of 2 rows stacked 6 high and 6 trays long. Ill have to update this tomorrow if I'm not too tired... lol have a great one :)

Exploring the last frontier

Well it's my first day off and first off I have been lazy as all get out. It's been amazing to relax in this great atmosphere. I probably went to sleep last night around 1945 and woke up at 0445. I worked out a bit after work last night then passed out. So far today I have done a little bit of exploring and taking pictures. It is beautiful and sunny. This morning there was also another surprise. One of the guys, jay, got a black bear last night. I got some great pictures of the hide and skull. It was amazing to see that. I'm sorry I can't upload pictures right now but as soon as i get to anchorage or back home I'll upload them to facebook. Probably here in a few I'll go explore the back section of the hatchery with the lake and tsunami shack, as they call it. Last thing on the agenda is to work out then relax some more. It's nice to be able to catch up on all the lost sleep from this past semester. :) I think tomorrow, the other temporary worker and i are gonna carry the canoe up to the lake and hes gonna try his luck at some fishing... wish i would have brought my fishing pole now... i know what to bring for next time though. Pretty chill day today but hopefully tomorrow ill  have some good fish tales to tell you. Supposed to get some new workers in the next few weeks so that should be interesting in itself.

16.5 million fry

Well, they have sure been working me hard these past couple days and it's been a blast. The flight over here was amazing. We were on a float plane and it was definitely a great experience. We saw a group of seals resting on a little island near the hatchery. The hatchery is deep in the woods and in order to get to the pens of fish you have to take a john boat out into the water. Ill try to post pictures soon, but this wifi is anything but dependable. Yesterday was the first official day of work and we had orientation to get better acquainted with our surroundings and the job site. Our first project was to clean the remainder of the incubation room. We had to clean hundreds of fry screens (they protect the drain so the baby fish don't get in the tubing headed for the creek) and then we had to take out all the tubing and screens from the fronts of the incubators and clean all of them. (I'll have to post a picture eventually so you can see what I'm talking about) Around 1030 (high tide) we went out to the floating pens where they had two pens of baby pink salmon. We had to untie the net from three sides then go to the side still connected and pull the net all the way across releasing the salmon into the water. The most amazing thing was to see the adaptation of a species of cod that have been waiting around underneath the fry until we release them and began heavily feeding. Each fry is tagged so that when they return to spawn they can see how many of the millions released by the hatchery actually made it to maturity and returned. After we finished with that we went back to cleaning the incubation room and just have a few more rows to complete. We will start with that today... ill try to update it again tonight after work.

Anchorage

Well, it's 0400 in anchorage and I can positively say it is amazing here. I got here around midnight last night and the sun was just beginning to set, then after a few hours of sleep, stretched out in the airport chairs, I woke up to the sun rising at 0300.... amazing how much sun they have in the summer. The flight up here wasn't that bad at all, the only thing I would change is not being in the middle seat... ;) It was also the first time I had been to Utah and it was beautiful there as well. I got to see just a little bit of it before the sun went down- the mountains there were a sight to see. Ive got a fifty minute flight to cordova in a few hours then being taken to my hotel for the day/night. Tomorrow I start orientation and work! I'll update again tonight after I explore cordova throughout the day.

The day is drawing near...

Well, the day is soon approaching that I will be embarking on one of the greatest adventures of my lifetime. I'm headed to Cordova, Alaska to work at the Prince William Sound Fish Hatchery for the summer. These are the moments I am so thankful for the tight knit family that the CFR allows us to have and the awesome opportunities it opens up to us. I have been running around like crazy these past few months and now I'm trying to move while training everyday with ROTC for our cadet AT. However, I know that come next monday all this hard work will pay off and I will be enjoying every minute of this experience for the next 7 weeks. I hope you enjoy reading my day to day activities throughout the summer and I will post as many pictures as I can. See you in July!