#salmondreams

[connieddunn]

I cooked salmon in the air fryer on 375 for 18 minutes with garlic, salt, mustard, rosemary and a dollop of creamy bacon fat, and it came out with a crisp, delicious skin, tender, and lots of flavor. #catchofmyday #salmondreams #beblissfullyfit (at Highland Park, Los Angeles) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0UY-AZF-3D/?igshid=e0zfvqn9vjbe

[lionesslair77]

Winter preparations are almost complete. Family and the husbands continued recovery from surgery haven’t put us off track too much. Canning is pretty much done. I did get some relieving news from my family, their tomato crop overwhelmed them and they have tons of tomato for me. Looks like I’ll get one more round of sauce before snow flies.

My last two fishing trips have been busts. You can’t always catch ‘em all sadly haha. I didn’t succeed in gathering any brook trout, but my stocks of rainbow and brown trout should last the winter. I also have a surprising number of blue gill, many fellow fishermen/women may wonder why I bother keeping any medium to large size bluegill but they are quite good eating. If you enjoy perch, you would probably enjoy bluegill. I had a dream last night about ice fishing kokanee salmon. I suppose that is a sign I need to begin thinking about a trip to the mountains for the kokanee run. Although, I should secure use of a smoker beforehand. Last year I tried cooking the kokes like you would any other fish, blatantly ignoring all advice not too, and got horrifying results. The land locked kokanee salmon don’t mature nearly anywhere close to their anadromous fish cousins size, and their meat becomes mushy when cooked. At least when you catch them during their annual run they do, thanks to the morphological changes their body endures. So smoking it has to be then. I suppose I should be thankful for the opportunity to even fish for salmon in my landlocked state.

The husband leaves for his mule deer hunt in about a week. He seems to be totally healed from his ordeal. Luckily this hunt he will have his brother and a friend accompanying him, that eases my worry a bit. I’ve been fighting the urge to volunteer to go with him on his late season elk hunt. His friends can no longer go and its looking like he’ll be on his own. He’s hunted on his own successfully for many years, but never that late in the season. I know it would be the absolute worst, there will probably be snow, and I have no desire to camp at 9,000ft in the Rocky Mountains in November. Anyway I’m on the hunt for a cheap deep freeze. There is no way we can fit a whole deer in our freezer, much less possibly even an elk at the moment considering it currently holds the meat from a whole bear, plus my fish, our turkey raised earlier this year, and random packages of goose/duck meat leftover from last years water fowl season. I open it preparing for an avalanche of meat. Any tips on finding a inexpensive chest freezer would be appreciated.

I really need to get out on a relaxing hiking adventure before it snows.  Family, work, and financial stress are really taking a toll on my mental state at the moment.