Ice fishermen almost hidden by fog on Sunday afternoon

December 15, 2014 - Monday

37 degrees/clouds/fog/calm winds

Pentoga Road

It has been an unseasonably warm last two days. Actually, we've enjoyed the forty-degree temperatures. The drive is clean, excess snow has melted from the roof, and for the first time since mid-October, I haven't had to continually shovel wood into the stove at a neck-breaking pace.

I began Sunday grading final papers that had arrived during the night. Quality for many is just so-so this semester. A few are outstanding, but others are ho hum. This makes my seventh term teaching since retiring. Some semesters have been diamonds, others coal. All papers are due by midnight, tonight, Alaska time. I'll spend all of tomorrow morning grading before uploading the final grades and closing this semester. 

I wanted to take advantage of the warmer temperatures and clean the fish outside that have been stored deep in the snow behind the woodshed. We really like canned northern, but as anyone who has ever cleaned one knows, they have a gooey layer of slime that seems to cling to everything when one is handling them.

I set up the portable cleaning table that my son, Matt, gave me several years ago in the the barn. 

Much later, I moved inside to filet the bluegills and crappie after I lost all feeling in my fingers from handling the frozen fish.

The next step was to stuff the chunks of northern into four pint canning jars and finally, place those in the pressure cooker over the propane burner in the garage.

Why pressure cook the fish? Northern are very bony and unless one catches a really large fish, it's almost impossible end up with a bone-free filet. Pressure cooking/canning causes the bones to disintegrate.

We enjoy our canned northern fixed as one would tuna salad.

Four pint jars of canned fish among the 35 quarts of bread and butter pickles put up this past summer. Hopefully more northern will be caught this winter to add to the pantry.

I spent the afternoon muttering as the Packers lost to Buffalo.  I don't know... about the time I think they are a real Super Bowl contender, they play a bonehead game like today's. Green Bay is going to have to win their final two games to emerge with a home field advantage when the playoffs begin. At this point, I'm hopeful, but not overly optimistic. Oh well, as I say at the end of every season, there's always next year. 

Sargie and I made our usual Sunday afternoon drive into town, grabbed a Coke each, then took our time coming home. She's spent all evening wrapping presents. I've been grading papers as they've filtered in with an ear on the television. 

Sargie's back to work tomorrow. I'll spend most of it grading finals. I'll begin uploading grades in the afternoon and hopefully, by tomorrow night, will be able to close out the semester.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...