And Other Random Things

Some days are better than others, some days are the same.
Rather than always writing about every little emotional and/or messed up experience we have, we just don't. You can sift through over two years of our writing to get a good idea of what life is like.

We're going to Minneapolis, Minnesota next week for four days. We're pretty excited. We even found a decent hotel that'll let us bring the cats. Yes, we're that crazy cat lady.
Actually, we're just cheap. Thrifty? Hmmm...
Why pay $100 in boarding fees when you can just compromise on a hotel and bring the little beasts with. Should be exciting. Nice restaurants, a pool to swim in, museums. It'll be nice to get out of this cultural void we've been in lately.

We heard word about the whole immigration petition denied/paperwork mix-up. Apparently in October the agency that handles the letters forgot to send them, and thought they had, so there was a load of people who got that same letter James got. There was probably some panic around the United States last Saturday. Cruel that it was on a long-weekend too. All the panic and sweating waiting for law offices to open on Tuesday; at least it'll be cleared up, they re-opened his case, and now we wait for the interview date to be re-set.

Today we took a little drive to find the park where there's fishing areas, scouting for Spring fishing. Everything is still terribly slushy, snowy and dirty, it'll be at least another month before we can bring the poles to waters edge; it'll be about the same time we start preparing the garden spot in the backyard. Spring is near, and we could not be more excited to grow our first garden. Hopefully we don't kill it. We have whatever is opposite of a green-thumb.

And other random things...a picture from today, we found them in the park, some friendly deer...not sure why they are in a pen though...poor deers, poor dears. *slaps knee and laughs*

From River to Plate in Under Four Hours

After a hot sweaty muddy four hours at a river, resulting in being browned to the color of a baked turkey, we managed to catch four catfish to keep (James 1: Frankies 3)!
Finally, keepers. One got tossed back because it was too small, so after we gingerly removed the hook from his mouth, being thankful he hadn't gulped it up like the previous two, he was released into the muddy wild.

James got to catch his first catfish ever, finally, after we convinced him to
a) use a worm instead of luncheon meat (our local catfish aren't high falutin) and
b) standing on our lucky rock, where we had caught all four of our catfish in under an hour, after attempting other spots...and had abandoned completely upon our second major snag and losing our second bobber of the day.

So...what did they look like?

Meet Kevin the Catfish, James' catch...yeah, he named him...right before I gutted him.

And this was ours (*ahem* the biggest one of the day)...

The two smaller ones did not get photo opps.

So, what did we do with those lovely creatures of nature?

Deconstructed Catfish Tacos with a Simple Slaw

After you have cleaned the fish (find your own YouTube video, we didn't like any of the ones we saw, and none of them did it like we do), including removing the skin, cut the fillets into 1-1 1/2" strips, and soak them in milk.

Soaking them in milk extracts some of the "muddy" taste that some people taste in catfish (we have never had a problem with it, personally). Make sure the liquid covers the fillets.

We soaked ours in a mixture of milk, salt, pepper, hot sauce, and a lime-honey mustard we found in the fridge, for an hour. 

Then we made a breading out of cornmeal, flour, salt, pepper, onion powder, parley flakes and dried oregano flakes.

There are literally no measurements. You're the boss here.

Fry those babies in just under an inch of hot oil, drain, and add to your dinner.

We made a quick slaw with red cabbage, green cabbage, white onions, mayo, sour cream, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper. Served it with flour tortillas (corn is preferable) and some sliced tomato. James added mayo to his, while we opted for the spicy kick of Sriracha (a Vietnamese chilie garlic sauce)

A Sriracha funny from the humorous The Oatmeal (http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sriracha)

It was a good day, playing in the mud, playing with worms and pulling in some catfish.

No, we're not Southern.

It was fun to see James eat something that had been in a river, swimming around, a mere four hours earlier...and being gutted on the kitchen counter in under two. It's the first time he's eaten something that fresh (he's fished, but only European carp, which is "sport fishing", so he's never had to gut a fish).

He may have been a bit weirded out by it, but he's has to get used to it...the eating something hours after it's been alive, we're going to be farm dwellers by next year this time, and eating animals we raise...with a little added luck, anyway. We're still in the patience portion of real estate Hell.

Today was just what we needed.

Because Love

 <- That's what we did today.

We also caught a carp that we decided not to keep, (they are not generally good for eating, but we're going to try it sometime anyway) and one of those stupid goldeyes again. 

We were supposed to hear from our real estate agent today regarding a recent property offer...we're apprehensive to say to much right now. We're sure James is being driven crazy with our constant chatter about the farm, at least fishing helps distract from it.

Basically we'll be spending days fishing, enjoying the summer sunshine...we can almost feel summer hitting the turning point as July continues and our birthday approaches...until we can get ourselves onto our farm, then ... renovations, and cleaning, and all sorts of other fun.

It's been a great summer so far. Last year at this time we were just about getting fired from our second-to-last job, and getting ready for James' first face-to-face visit with us (we met him on Twitter, you know), and just getting our head above water with managing our "mental illness" and each other, again.

So much has happened since then!

We're almost done with all the stuff James needs to have completed to be a resident of the United States. Then a few months, an interview with government, and over $5000 later he'll be ours to keep (for at least 10 years, at which time he will have to renew his papers) - hopefully. There is an off chance he won't be approved, but it's such a tiny chance, there are other things to worry about.

We think he's a little crazy; but he's awesome, so we'll forgive the crazy, like he does for us.
Because love.

Fishing and Other Things

Not our actual fish, but that's a walleye face!

Went fishing yesterday, it was awesome to get back on the water. It'd been about 5 years since we were able to do that. We caught seven walleye, five to keep, two to release. James didn't get his fishing license until today when we went fishing for channel catfish - which is our favourite type of fish to catch. We didn't catch anything but for three goldeyes (James caught nothing) which are crap fish, unless you smoke them, which we were not prepared to do this week.

James got to watch us gut two of the walleye last night, making it the second type of animal he's gotten to watch us hack away skillfully at (the other being the deer from last fall).
We're just a load of American sexy resourcefulness, ya know.

Meanwhile, James is ill again, even though he braved it trying to fish with us today. We're taking him to the doctor tomorrow because it might be an infection from his vasectomy two months ago, as it's been reoccurring since then...which, if the case, is easy to fix with some antibiotic. *crosses fingers*

He loves it when we talk about his "junk" with people. Really.

Other potential good news on the horizon. We dare not mention it. One of us tends on the superstitious side (which is stupid).

We're teeting on the cusp of something awesome though!