September 24, 2009

It's a Party!

Hi everyone!


Today is our Blog - O - versary! Can you believe it, we have been blogging for a year!



I am so grateful to you all for continuing to follow along on my blogging adventures. I have made great friends, both in person and over the interwebs. Blogging is a wonderful way to meet people all over the world. Thank you so much for making me feel welcome in your lives.



To celebrate this momentous occasion, the doggies had a little party. As you can see in these snapshots, fun was had by all. Some had a bit too much fun...ahem...Charlie!


Ollie was dancing up a storm!







Honey was watching a having a good giggle at Ollie's dance moves.




Charlie got ahold of the camera and, well, you can see the results.




Charlie finally gave the camera back and I was able to get this shot of her relaxing.



Thank you so much for sticking with us! Talk to you soon!
hugs,
puglette
:o)

September 8, 2009

A Learning Experience

Hi everyone!

I hope you all had a very nice weekend. We had a quiet weekend at home. Well, it was mostly quiet. On Sunday we had some thunder storms roll through our area. It was quite cool and very rainy, we had our first hint of fall.


I want to share an experience with you and hope that you will learn from my mistake. This is another lesson learned on our little green boat.


On my previous post I shared a story about fishing in the Puget Sound. While we did take the little green boat out into the Sound, we used it on rivers more frequently. Our area of Western Washington is blessed with many beautiful rivers. One of our favorites for a quiet day of fishing was the Cowlitz River. We loved to fish near the salmon hatchery. It is a beautiful and very popular place. The fish are plentiful and the access is easy.


We decided to spend a nice summer day fishing on the river. We were just going for the day so we packed our little boat into the SUV and brought a picnic lunch. The weather was clear and warm. Since it was so warm we decided to stay near the banks of the river in the shade of overhanging trees. The fish like to hang out in the shade too so we felt this was a good idea. It also prevents me from turning into a giant red lobster!


We had a small anchor tied to our boat that we used to keep us in place. On this day Hubby decided that it would be good to tie the anchor to one of the overhanging trees so we could just float gently in the current and also stay under the trees. Being the good wife that I am, I agreed with hubby and tossed the anchor over a large branch that was nearby. We spent several hours happily fishing and enjoying the day and our picnic lunch.


We finally decided it was time to go home and started to pack up. One of the last things to do was to retrieve the anchor. We had to pull ourselves a short distance back to the large branch and I tried to get the anchor and rope untangled from the branch. This was becoming quite troublesome! The nylon rope was catching on the bark and the weight of the anchor was working against me. What to do...what to do...

I know! Stand up and reach over the branch to get the anchor and pull it back in. Well, I am not the most graceful creature on this planet. The idea of standing up in a small green boat and pulling an anchor up should never have crossed my mind. I would have trouble doing this if we were on solid ground, much less in a boat on a river. Add to that, the overhanging trees were kind of low. I am sure that by now you can see where this is going.



I reached up and put one hand out onto the branch to steady myself and just barely started to put any weight against the branch. The next thing I knew that branch had snapped and I was flying over the edge of the boat! Splash!! Face first into the river. I still had an arm around that darn branch and I was looking down into the water. I was submerged about halfway, about to my waist, still sitting in the boat. My other arm was flailing around trying to get ahold of something to pull my self up. I grabbed onto the arm Hubby offered and he helped my up.


Up I came, spluttering and shocked. Thank goodness I came up with my glasses still on! The anchor was still around that branch so we had to untangle it and get it back into the boat. While working on the rope and anchor we finally noticed that the branch was dried and rotten.


So there is the lesson for you all...Do not drape your anchor over a dead and rotten branch. It will break and you will not be happy.


Take care! Talk to you soon,
hugs,
puglette
:o)

September 2, 2009

Skating in the Puget Sound

Hi everyone!

Today I thought I would share another adventure with you. Several years ago my husband and I owned a small boat and we had a lot of fun with it...and also some more exciting adventures. I know, you thought I was going to talk about roller skating, but no, it's a fishing story!

We actually still own this small, green flat bottomed boat but have not used it in years. We took this boat out fishing and down many rivers when we first owned it. It's a small but sturdy little boat and we could, with some effort, heft it into the back of our SUV and off we would go!




On this particular trip we took our little boat to Point Defiance and launched our boat into the Puget Sound. We were off for a nice sunny day of fishing and having fun on the water. I enjoyed fishing in the Sound as the salt water is full of odd and interesting sea creatures. You never knew what you would catch, a salmon, a small shark or even an octopus! We would catch and release just about all of it, except those yummy salmon!




So, off we go...just puttering around in our boat. It's only about 10 feet long and 4 feet wide. Just big enough for two and a picnic lunch. We only had a five horsepower motor on it so we didn't go very fast. We were catching the usual assortment of fish and snags, old snarled up fishing line. Unfortunately the Puget Sound is full of old fishing lines and tangled up bits of nets and junk. We were of course, hoping for that yummy salmon. Pretty soon Hubby had a hit! His fishing pole was jumping and bobbing up and down. We were pretty excited!

He started to reel in his fish but it was putting up quite a fight. Hubby was struggling to reel in this fish! We were thinking it had to be a huge salmon! They fight pretty hard. On and on this went..and pretty soon we noticed that we were being pulled away from the shore. We tried to stay near the beach so I could jump out and run to the bathroom.

Before we noticed we had been pulled by this fish quite a distance and still the fight went on! We started to move out into the deep water where the bigger boats hung around. I started to wave my arms and ask for help as Hubby was getting worn out. We kept drifting along and were totally ignored. Of course, a crazy blond woman yelling and waving her arms about was not a big deal, just another partyer out on the Sound.

I tried to talk Hubby into cutting the line and letting go of this fish but he wouldn't hear of it. He had a big fish and he wanted to land it!

On and on this went, we were being pulled along and Hubby kept working on this fish, trying to reel it in. We were being pulled from Point Defiance to Vashon Island. Once we got to Vashon Island we started to go along the outside of the island. I was sure this darn fish would pull us out to sea!

Finally after hours of drifting and reeling Hubby finally felt the fish tire and start to come up. Now, we were in deep water. The South Puget Sound has areas over 1000 feet deep! And up comes this MONSTER!



Hubby had caught a Longnose Skate. This thing was huge!! The wing span was nearly as long as our boat! We were stunned! There was no way that thing would fit into the boat. As this huge fish came up out of the water against the side of the boat, we both backed away from it. Holy Cow! Hubby shook it free and off it swam. What a thrill!




After we recovered from the shock of what Hubby had caught he finally noticed how far we had gone. We were now at least five to six miles away from where we had started. Now was the long boat ride back to the boat launch.

What an adventure! This truly is a fish tale to share with family and friends. We had many, many adventures in this boat. I will share some more of our fun and excitement another day.
Talk to you soon!
hugs,
puglette
:o)