Lifestyles Cover

We'd heard we had become celebrities, but were really surprised when we found the magazine sitting on the end table in the customer lounge of a Saturn dealership!

New Pictures of Brayden

Caryn sent some new pictures (and new movies--I love what a digital camera and the computer can do!) It looks like Brayden in on the move! He's seven months now and sits, crawls, eats avocados, and is a very happy baby.

Brayden

I can sit up all by myself now, and look at my teeth.

Crabbing in Florence, Oregon

Once you get to a place you have to figure out how to spend your time, and we discovered that crabbing was something we could do. Rent or buy? We decided to buy because we'd be here long enough to crab more than two or three times. We bought a crab trap, licenses (out of state), and bait, and more bait, and another trap, and more bait. (Those things eat fish, chicken thighs, turkey legs, and canned cat food!) Our per crab cost is now about the same as those free glasses we got at the casino!

The Old Town bayfront of Florence is the first place we went, a quaint little harbor area. We have also tried the crabbing and fishing dock out on South Jetty (the wind there blows about 50 miles an hour and it's cold). No matter where we go, you bait up, throw out the traps, and wait.

Crabbing

You don't just sit and wait, you watch the people (there are a lot of people to talk to too!), watch the seals (the one in the first picture is doing the back float--click on the picture for a close up), and when about 15 minutes have passed you pull up your trap full of crawly, pinchy crabs. Toss the little ones and the females back into the water, and measure up the big guys (they are all more than 6"). Actually, in Oregon, they have to be larger than 5 3/4 inch (use the green crab measuring tool). Mitch has made some wonderful crab cakes and crab stuffed mushrooms. He's still experimenting. We also bought five kinds of local mushrooms from a little farm/flea market at the wharf and Mitch made mushroom soup to die for.

Fun Stuff to Do

We also crabbed out of Winchester Bay, just south of Florence. As you can see it was another hard day. This crab was the biggest we have caught, filling up the whole bottom of the five gallon bucket.

And we play bingo just for fun!

Chowder, Blues, and Brews

Although crabbing has taken up a lot of our days we still have time for other things. The Chowder, Blues, and Brews Festival was a lot of fun. We had an opportunity to taste and judge nine different chowders from local restaurants. Then of course we had to try out the beer from the local breweries, and listen to some very good blues bands. And again we meet some really nice people.

We also decided to visit the local casino since we had some "free" money from the casino to spend, and Mitch managed to be in the right place at the right time and he won $300. We actually came home with money!