Living Off the Land

It's been a rainy one. All week has been soggy, cloudy, and chilly. (Is it just me, or is soggy is a gross word?) And since the flowers and trees are just now blooming up here, that means allergies are finally catching up to me. I knew they were lurking around the corner, just waiting to attack. So, after their long awaited appearance, they've hit me on the rainiest week yet (which makes me feel even ickier). Yet, I'm not complaining. It's really been a great week with a long, exciting weekend vastly approaching.

So here's my tale for now:

A couple weekends ago, Patrick was asked to go fly fishing. I consider my husband as an outdoorsy guy, but not the fishing and hunting outdoorsy type. He's more of the hiking, camping, nature-lover kind of outdoorsy-man. Needless to say, he knows next to nothing about fishing, but being the adventurous sport that he is, he gladly accepted the invitation. He traveled about two hours north of here (which is straight-up wilderness) and jumped in a canoe on a cold, rainy Saturday to fly fish his little heart out.

And he didn't do so bad. He caught five brook trout (the biggest one jumped back in the water...so he says), which I would consider a success for his first fly fishing trip.

Don't you think the shirt is fitting? We wore our seat belts to a hockey game and got these XXL t-shirts. It goes nicely with our collection.

His friend was nice enough to gut the fish before he brought them home, but it was still a gross job on my end. After a short Google search, I figured out how to cook fresh fish (I only buy the cheap frozen kind when it's on sale).

I mixed up a little flour batter, buttered the pan, and fried it right up. Besides painstakingly picking out the spine and pin bones, I've come to conclude that fresh is definitely better than frozen.

Not only did I learn how to batter up a fresh brook trout, I learned that if we ever get lost in the cold, moose-filled wilderness of Maine, thanks to my huntsman of a husband, the Horton's could certainly live off the land.