Project Update: It’s Fishing Season!

Here at Kingdom Magnolia, we know we’ve made it through winter and that spring has arrived when we hear the omnipresent sounds of Prince Paddy, our creative and benevolent overlord. He greets us every evening from our Mesa Buff mud puddle with his deep, resonating bellow, announcing the seasonal return of his lordship. Although his constant croaking is likely not for us, but for his many female companions, the resonance of Lord Prince Paddy’s vocal sac reminds us the spring season has begun.

For Tache, on the other hand, springtime means the start of halibut season. For sports fans, this is like baseball’s opening day. Ironically, opening day for me used to mean a day off of work and a bike ride downtown for the Rockies’ home opener (a couple of times, I was lucky enough for it to fall on my birthday). My girlfriends and I would enjoy the start of spring with a few $15 Leinenkugel Summer Shandy tall boys and hopefully, a few more home runs.

Side note: This year, my friends accidently FaceTimed me on their way to the game. I swished around in Kim’s back pocket, eventually making enough noise for her to realize I was there. As they were headed into the stadium, I was laying our second floor subfloor… almost like a lazy day drinking beer, enjoying America’s favorite pastime.

But, back to halibut season… Tache doesn’t seem to want to get up early to build this house for us, but halibut opening day is a different story. He’s somehow able to set his phone alarm and get out the trailer door before I can catch him stealing my coffee. On opening day, he was gone before I woke up and home just in time for dinner. Even worse, no halibut!! He went out again today – again, no bites and this time, a dead battery.

As Tache tells it, he hauled the boat down to the Cape George Marina and zipped over to the west end of Protection Island.

Side note: Protection Island is a National Wildlife Refuge, mostly providing an undisturbed nesting habitat for seabirds like puffins, rhinoceros auklets, and seagulls. Meg was sent there last summer for a grass fire that burned about 25 acres. Incredibly, Tache says it looks like everything has recovered! Here’s a great article about the history of Protection Island.

In Tache’s words: he bounced a herring off the bottom for a couple hours until he realized it just wasn’t gonna happen today and decided to head back. He went to start the big motor… and the battery was dead. He said to himself, no biggie (my words, not his), and switched the fuel line over to the kicker (my input: little motor). It started up just fine and he headed home… until he smelled something burning. The little motor was on fire!?! (my exclamation). Smoking (his response). The options at this point were to call his side-gig employer, Tow Boat US, or figure it out himself. He obviously decided to figure it out himself (my commentary). He wrapped the harpoon cord around the flywheel (nothing I can add here) and yanked to spin the motor. It took three tries and the big motor fired right up. My words: like a lawn mower? His words: yep, but cooler.

So, Tache made it back safely. No work done today. But, I will say, the days he does work, he works hard. Since we installed our second floor steel support beam, we’ve…