We are up at the cabin again. We tried for Friday evening, but got stuck harvesting the Basil plants and making them into a pesto sauce. It’s a tedious job of hand picking hundreds of leaves off the stems and washing them before throwing it all in the grinder. Something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

Saturday morning we made it up here to the small hamlet of Samak. With the wind blowing we decided to hitch up the sailboat and head to Jordanelle reservoir for a day of sailing. Oddly enough so did a thousand other people have the same idea on this Labor Day weekend.

Sunday we all did a trip to Strawberry reservoir for more crayfish catching. Hank brought the chicken legs and we the pots and pans for cooking them all on the spot. We heard from some locals there that a commercial group of Chinese were there the week before and took out two large coolers filled to the top. I was wondering if there would be any left then? We chatted with the local there and found out that they lacked the Swedish cooking finesse with dill, spices and porter beer. With them it was straight into the boiling water………yuck !

At least we would put them in three clean water tubs to make sure the creatures were cleaned out, if not who knows what you would be eating!

When we arrived the wind was howling, making it a challenge to get the large pots of water to boil. This most likely added to the time it took to get half a cooler filled. Still with all the kids and some other friends each with a chicken leg on the end of a string, they were able to bring in a good haul. We had a large family group down the shore from us trying to do the same thing. Each of their kids had a net in hand, splashing around in the water in a futile attempt to lure the crayfish. It wasn’t working and they seemed perplexed as our group was bringing in the catch just fine. The secret was to quietly place the chicken out in the water and wait ten minutes or more, and then they would all congregate around the meat. With a slow hand movement you could pull the line in and get your basket underneath them before they figured out to release their grip.

Hank took to charge of the cooler and will freeze them in for a future dinner party. With the last one I missed out, this time I want to make sure its at our place with me there!

Richard Boyer