June 21: That expanding heart feeling

I just started thinking about the second day of my birthday and felt that big heart feeling again and my eyes got wet. I don't know how to be happier than I was for the second day of my birthday. That feeling is sharpened and deepened by the simultaneous feeling of bottomless sorrow I carry, more acutely as we approach the first anniversary of my younger son's accidental death.

We started the day with ... corned beef hash and poached eggs!! That will stick to a person's ribs for hours. And off to town. Our first stop was the post office where we found a tool David ordered for us. It's a socket wrench with the wrench part able to accommodate many different sizes of nuts. Have you seen those decorative items where you press your hand against hundreds of little rods that conform to your hand on the hand side and poke out on the other side in the contour of your hand? (Why didn't I get a photo of it??). I'm always so glad when a practical application is found for a novel invention or piece of art. The Bathtub crew found and then tackled the repair of the Evinrude 25. Josh had thought ahead and ordered a service manual with the parts that we needed - for a little help in figuring out how to replace them. But after receiving it, he found that it was a service manual for the outboard's accessories and did not, in fact, contain a single picture of the outboard itself. That's fishing. Our friend, a drifter named Ralph, thought the water pump is actually in the shaft part of the outboard, an idea he confirmed with more expert neighbor and that we confirmed with Roy, the expert on all things that move. Maybe on a few that don't move as well.

Ralph had a hard time reaching his neighbor because the phones here are somehow affected by rough weather, and today's weather was rough, building to a gale by the end of the day. As night started to fall (as much as it does at this time of the year), we watched the tide come in, all white caps. (Harry calls them "white horses.") That's a rough tide. OK, I admit that I was glad we weren't fishing in it.

Once in town, the Ambi crew tackled the kings in the back of the truck. Rohan and I cleaned the salmon while Luka vacuum sealed them and stowed them into the freezer. We did run into problems with the vacuum sealer - we've thrown breakers all over camp with that machine. It takes 13 amps. (I don't really know what that means or whether it's a lot, but I sort of think so, since we're always shutting down the power by trying to use it.) We've found that the fiberglass shop has an outlet that is usually adequate, and Mark, the fiberglass man, is always very generous, letting us get in his way with our industry.

Most of these photos were taken by Rohan, who has much more patience than I do. Honest, I’m working on it!

This is the back and belly of a flounder that Rohan saved out for dinner a few days ago. We looked up online how to fillet a flounder and read about a T-cut on the back and then on the belly. For all the trouble, they produce remarkably little meat. I thought that would be the end of his flounder experimentation. But a few days later, he spied a big one in the boat and offered to clean it. I knew we had a lot of other work to do, so I discouraged the idea for now. But maybe later…

This photo shows a beautiful red salmon that some grateful drifter gave Roy. We too are grateful to Roy so when he mentioned that he had them, we were quick to volunteer to clean and seal them for him - we were all set up and for all that he does for us, I am happy to be able to do this small thing for him.

This photo shows a very large king salmon that we saved for our home pack. We save out all the kings, partially out of habit, partially because we love them so much more than the processor does. In the past, when we might get $.70 per pound for the sockeye (red) salmon, the processor would pay $.25 per pound for a king. I couldn’t make myself sell such a glorious piece of spirited meat for $10, so I got in the habit of just taking all the kings home to share with people who do appreciate it. This isn’t really a criticism of the buyer. The kings are different enough that they require different treatment than the reds, and our king run is really too small to make that commercially viable. They just don’t really have a way of dealing with them. Eventually, the buyer – or maybe just the beach gang – began to allow us to include the kings in our red brailers, giving us the red price for it. But really, even that wasn’t enough for me, and I knew that the kings still didn’t really have a place in the buyer’s process, so we still take them home.

Here is the same king, partially filleted. After removing the head, I locate the vertebral column and make a cut right above it, angling down toward the bone. The best cut is one that gets the closest to the bone. This was a good cut. The next cut starts right below the vertebral column with the knife angled up toward the bone. Finally, the belly bones are sliced out of both sides, again, leaving behind as much meat as possible. We then rinse off both sides of the fish, scoot it into a vacuum bag, seal it and freeze it. We have reluctantly thrown away the heads and the roe, but now we have a friend whose family wants the heads so we are happy to save them for him. I can’t quite bring myself to enjoy boiled eyeballs, but I’ve heard about their deliciousness from many people of many cultures. I’m just squeamish.

If you are interested in what is inside a salmon, here is a female (see the roe?) and a male (see the milt?) It was only after looking at this 1000s of times, thinking about the struggle of these salmon to find their way out of their natal stream into the ocean and then back, dodging all the predators that make their living on salmon – humans being only a fraction of them – that I began to recognize that these animals are protein delivery systems. They are mainly meat, with the internal organs needed to keep the meat alive and moving through the water to their predators and back to their natal streams where they can reproduce and make more meat. It was upon this realization that I was able to leave behind the internal struggle with killing all these salmon. I realized that in the role of fisherman, we are part of the cycle. The bears, seals, belugas, and eagles can get their own salmon. Because of the way we've organized ourselves as humans, most humans need someone to bring them their salmon, as I need someone to bring me my garbanzo beans and spinach. So in catching salmon, I feel like we are almost on a par with the other animals and even though I don't enjoy what I imagine is the suffering of the salmon as they die, I no longer struggle with the question of whether we are doing the wrong thing. In fact, we are doing nature's thing: life and death. But our process is a little different from that of the bears and seals in that we are bringing this food to others. Since the recipients are separated from the harvest process, I think it is particularly important for us to harvest with the greatest of care and respect. These salmon that we are pulling over the roller and out of the net aren't just 5 dollar bills to us, they are the generosity of nature and the opportunity to provide hundreds or thousands of meals for a hungry world.

Rohan got this photo of me working my way through the salmon. Someday I may try to figure out how many salmon I’ve cleaned. Even though in any one year it’s far fewer than a typical cannery worker, I’ve done it every year (except two) since I was 13. That’s a lot of years and a lot of salmon!

Here is one of the salmon we cleaned and sealed for Roy.

This series shows the growing pile of salmon, cleaned by Rohan and me...

and bagged and sealed by Luka and Rohan.

During this process, the Bathtub crew was struggling with the Evinrude 25, I think with growing confidence that kept pace with a growing awareness of how difficult it would be to disassemble the shaft of the outboard, as old and corroded as it is. They reported happily that Roy stopped by and confirmed that they were on the right track; they just needed to do more of it. They were doing just fine without me. Luka and Rohan knew what they were doing.

So I headed back to the cabin to prepare my birthday dinner. Before anyone is upset on my behalf because I made my own cake and most of my birthday dinner, please realize that I do that because it brings me such pleasure to create food, especially when other people who mean so much to me will enjoy it. It is part of the joy of the day for me. If I had asked - or even hinted ever so indirectly - I know this crew would have sprung into action to prepare me a feast. But it was a pleasure I wanted for myself (with their help, as it turned out).

We invited my brother, Harry, Makenzie (Harry prefers if I refer to her as his daughter, but I like to refer to her as my niece), and Daniel to come down to celebrate, as well as Roy and our beloved crew of the Goat Roper, Skipper and musical lead Phil, first mate, vocalist, and son, Tom, and deckhand and vocalist, Trevor (a different Trevor). According to the urban dictionary, a goat rope is "A total freaking mess...An unorganized disaster." Of all the names on all the boats in the Bay, theirs is the one that I'd bet everyone who fishes can relate to, though not all would have the boldness to claim it.

Not long after I arrived home, Luka and Rohan arrived, asking how they could help. Since we were having company, I asked them to straighten out the cookhouse (that is reverting to crew-cabin, first by Josh, followed by Rohan and Jeff). They did a magnificent job. It was so immensely encouraging to walk into the cabin and see the table and floor. As they were doing that, I prepared the teriyaki marinade and trimmed the salmon Jeff cleaned for me earlier and got it soaking.

Then they came over and chopped vegetables for the Greek salad and couscous salad as I prepared the batter for the chocolate chip orange cake.

Phil, Tom, and Trevor arrived a little early, Phil packing bratwursts, a concertina, and guitar. Oh joy! After giving a short concert with the concertina (I love it), Phil plunged into the dinner preparation process, chopping scallions and parsley, and making the dressings for the Greek salad and the rice.

When everything was almost ready, he stepped out to grill the brats, undaunted by the gale force winds. But when he got back in, for the sake of not burning down my cabin (we don’t have many more to spare), we decided that pan frying the teriyaki salmon would be delicious.

Here is the salmon cooking in one of two frying pans (I couldn't keep track of more than that). But salmon cooks pretty quickly.

Here it is, ready to eat. I was so happy that even though I cooked about six lbs of salmon, I didn't have to get out a new plate to hold the cooked pieces.

Accompanying the salmon and brats, we had a rice dish with pistachios, scallions, currents, parsley, and a dressing with olive oil, lemon juice and ... cinnamon!

... and a salad that David and Sarah discovered with Israeli couscous and cucumbers, tomatoes, red pepper, scallions, and parsley with a simple olive oil and vinegar dressing. I realized this morning that I forgot the lime finish. Sigh. No one complained.

We are all fans of the Greek salad they make at the D&D Restaurant in Naknek. I've been trying to duplicate it at home. This one gets pretty close. It uses green pepper, red onion, tomato, cucumber, feta cheese, and a dressing with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic, and dried oregano (except we didn't have that so we used other dried herbs and ground oregano).

Our plates are more like pie pans with nice, tall edges. Here is a moderate plate.

Now comes the expanding heart part. As we were all eating dinner, Jeff gave me a card that all the crew wrote on, and what they wrote made my eyes wet. Usually I am completely happy to only feel love for the people I love, regardless of what comes back. Really, that feeling is enough. But this evening, I felt their love back and I thought I would pop with all the sweetness flowing around and between us. Then, with the traditional chocolate chip orange birthday cake (with orange curd filling and chocolate glaze on top), the singing began, first as Happy Birthday songs, and then an inspiring collection of sea shanties. Harry, Makenzie, and Daniel needed to leave early, worried about their wooden boat in the gale. Tied up at the dock, it could be banged around and ultimately crushed and broken by the big aluminum boats fished by much of the rest of the fleet. (The Janice E is a wooden boat, so the wood dries out and shrinks up over the winter. To soak it out, Harry ran a hose in it for the three days they were here, getting it ready to launch. But it wasn't enough. When it launched, it started to fill with water, faster than the bilge pumps could pump it out. They ran back to the slings and when they were lifted back out of the water, the boat was like a fountain, returning gallons of Bristol Bay to the river. They treat the faithful old boat with the reverence and care us senior citizens need.)

Skipper Phil, in this photo with guitar in hand, led us in sea shanties, joined first by Tom and Trevor, both of whom had prior access to the Goat Roper's Handbook of Mandatory Sea Shanties. But it turned out that Roy, also in this photo, next to me, also knew many if not all of them. Roger, to the right of Phil, is getting ready to sing along.

I'm not positive about this, but I think Phil might choose his crew based on musical ability. Tom, possessing said ability has a secured spot, and Trevor, their new deckhand, has a beautiful and bold voice, and a very smart ear. Tom (on the left) and Trevor (as yet unphotographed by us) dazzled us with their vocals and knowledge of the songs. Jeff on the right, is dazzled...

... and Josh, who wrapped up the sea shanty extravaganza with a contribution of his own, is happy. But not as happy as I was. It was extraordinarily sweet, substantial, and filling. And I realized that the joy and sweetness I was feeling did not need to be diminished by my simultaneous awareness that in not even two weeks, we will mark the first anniversary of Alex's death. It is a remarkable experience to feel bottomless sorrow and bottomless sweet joy at the very same moment. I believe that that is life, at its fattest.