Fishing For Our Supper

 One big benefit of living on the river is the easy accessibility to fishing. The boys have really been making use of this opportunity this summer and we have been blessed by it.

   Fish is quite good for you and most of us (Ken not so much) enjoy eating it very much. Having the kids catch fish is a great deal with meat being so expensive.

   The boys have been able to catch fish from the bank, in the canoe and also have been able to go out fishing with our neighbor in his boat a couple of times. Our neighbor has also blessed us with fish a couple of times from his catches as well.

This was Aaron's first fish caught in the summer. He caught it while out with our neighbor Merle.

Merle helped him clean that one but Jonathan has taken care of the cleaning ever since.

Jonathan caught one a couple of days later just as the kids were heading down to a river campsite for a picnic. They took it along and cleaned it there and cooked it over the fire (on a leaf!) and they thought it made a very tasty addition to their lunch of hotdogs.

I am so glad that Jonathan seems to enjoy the cleaning of the fish as well as the catching.

 In late June the boys friend (and 2nd cousin) DJ came to spend about a week with us. He loves to fish and the boys spent many an hour fishing.

They caught quite a few too. We were able to feed a bunch of people fish on Father's Day thanks to their fishing. (And also what Mara and her group had caught - and we had frozen - from the "Take a Kid Fishing event the kids went to.)

The boys worked together to get them all cleaned. It is so cool to have a fun and handy way for the boys to work at adding to the feeding of our family. This addition to our diet makes for one more thing that we don't have to go out and buy. Pretty cool!

 One thing that I have been meaning to pursue more is the use of the fish parts we don't eat. So far we have just been digging a hole and burying them but old stories of course talk about them making good fertilizer and then I have been thinking about cooking them and then feeding them to the chickens to stretch their food. So many things to think about but I don't always have time to do it all so we do what we can.

 Does your family like to fish? Do you have any favorite ways of cooking/eating fish? I would love to hear your tips!