{"id":76,"date":"2011-10-09T13:49:23","date_gmt":"2011-10-09T21:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/?p=76"},"modified":"2011-10-09T13:49:23","modified_gmt":"2011-10-09T21:49:23","slug":"still-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.redalderranch.com\/?p=76","title":{"rendered":"still here!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s been a very busy summer this year, and I’ve fallen far out of the habit of updating this blog. But as fall and winter hours are approaching, I’ve been thinking more about it. Then when an Elderhostel<\/a> client mentioned last week that she had actually read my blog, I decided I’d better update it. When I logged in, I realized that my long out of date WordPress software<\/a> was now rendering unsightly error messages, so this morning I finally sat down and installed the latest version, and now all is well again. <\/p>\n

Some updates:<\/p>\n

Alice is off to college. She finally chose Lewis and Clark College<\/a> in Portland. We took her over there in August and set her up in her dorm along with about 700 other new freshmen moving in all at once. What excitement! We’ve already been to see the first theater production, only a month after school started.<\/p>\n

Shannon and Opal moved out of the house in town after all this time, and moved back in here in Skamokawa. Some remodeling was in order and honestly, this worn out old mobile home could use a LOT more. But, it is what it is. All this change got me to get back out into the shop again and start cleaning and remodeling that space, so I have an office and “man-cave” again.<\/p>\n

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I bought a tractor! After all these years of borrowing tractors, I finally had to admit that I had an ongoing and frequent need for a tractor in my life, so we applied for a loan at the credit union and I went out and bought this awesome Yanmar 3220D diesel 4WD tractor, and a couple of mowers. I still need to find a tiller, though.<\/p>\n

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I had a decent summer salmon season this year, keeping several kings and silvers, and catching fish nearly every time I went out. I also went to Brian’s<\/a> “MAN-TITS” event down in Oregon, where we launched our kayaks into the ocean and fog at daybreak and spent hours trying to catch king salmon from the kayaks. Two were actually hooked and lost, but not by me. No, instead of a salmon, what I hooked, and finally released, was a very annoyed sea lion. Wish I had some pics, but I was a little busy at the time…<\/p>\n

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This year was the fifth and final Lower Columbia Kayak Roundup<\/a>, here on Puget Island. It was the biggest and best yet, and according to some, the most jam packed BCU<\/a> symposium that has ever been held in North America. I finally got my L2 Coach assessment done, passed the Moderate Water Endorsement and took my first Five Star prerequisite, the Open Water Navigation class. I also got to co-teach the three day Sea Paddler Training course at Ilwaco and Seaside.<\/p>\n

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The weekend after all of that BCU stuff and assessments was over, I led a short coastal play trip back at Ilwaco. It was pretty choppy and fun, and we ended up not traveling a great distance, instead just playing around the base of the cliffs at Cape Disappointment, under the lighthouse. Taking video in these conditions was a bit challenging…<\/p>\n

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