I think if someone told me that I was no longer permitted to work directly with fish, at least some of the time, I would be looking for a new job. This is what keeps me connected to the work and makes all the frustrations a little less intolerable.
It’s Thursday, day two of a three day workshop that’s two days in a classroom setting, punctuated by a day on two creeks for some chum collections and spawning in between…and finishing up with some hands on demonstrations of specific techniques for sockeye….using chum as surrogate fish since we don’t have any sockeye broodstock available to us at the moment.
We started with a morning sort and egg take on Snootli Creek at a single fence, walking participants through techniques and sharing our knowledge….while also learning new things from them too.
Then it was back to the hatchery to fertilize the eggs we’d taken, put them to bed in their incubators, have lunch, and head back out to Saloompt River to repeat the process at a double fence.
And then it was back to the hatchery again, to fertilize and incubate.
After it was all over I wandered back to my room to spend the next few hours working on my slides for Friday’s classroom session and discovered a bouquet of flowers from my very thoughtful guy. It made me happy-cry, particularly when I was told by someone at the site that was a first. This is not a place with a lot of amenities….and flowers were the last thing I was expecting. Our not-wedding anniversary is tomorrow, and I was feeling bummed that I was not home for it. It’s 38 years since we came to Vancouver and moved in together. August 8th is the date we’ve long celebrated as our anniversary, even though we were married in February 2009. We celebrate that one too….but this one is our private anniversary. He’s definitely a keeper 🥰
