The summer months is maintenance time here at Big Creek Hatchery. Only 9 of the 30 ponds are being used. Five ponds hold fingerling Spring Chinook salmon, also called King salmon.  They will be released in November. Three ponds of Coho (Silver) salmon fingerlings, and one pond with fingerling Steelhead. Over a million fish total. They produce a lot of poop, so Ross and Mike are sweeping it out.

We have our share of maintenance too. Couldn’t decide which picture to post of Connie on the John Deere so here are all three. She loves mowing…except emptying the grass catcher! Ed used the Cadet Zero Turn and did his share of mowing. We’re asked to put in 20 hours each in exchange for living in this beautiful place with full hookups. Everyone is very friendly and we enjoy the work.

Grand daughter Faith is visiting the week of June 29 through July 6. She loves it here and enjoys exploring the area. Only fell in the creek behind our house once and couldn’t wait to show us where. Grandma loves having her around. Grandpa too of course.

The 17 mile trip in to Astoria seems to get shorter as we run in often. We love Fort George Brewery and the Wet Dog Cafe and Brewery. Nice view of the Columbia river from the Wet Dog table.

Faith and Connie found the High Life Adventures Zip Line a fantastic way to spend 3 hours on Friday afternoon (July 1). The zip line, Fred Meyer (alias King Soopers, Smiths, Frys, City Market, etc), Home Depot, and a variety of other well known stores are located in Warrenton, just across Youngs Bay from Astoria. Astoria is great, but more tourist centered. Ed passed on the zip line and visited the Fort George for a Vortex IPA instead. Saved $ to boot.

Saturday (July 2) was a great laid back day, but we did venture up Big Creek to seek out what berries we could find. We are surrounded by the native blackberries, but they need to be on the bush a little longer, so looking for some that might be ready now. We found some wild raspberries and native blackberries (dewberries) to pick. Delicious. A fun outing, but Faith didn’t care much for the spiders, so her picking was limited.