Live Your Dream Alaska...

     Life in SE Alaska...  

November 2008.....

Weather

Well it is November.  Usually the month of storms as the weather cools down rapidly, but this November has been unusually nice, with few storms.  Usually it is wildly windy, when we lived in a floathouse I often thought there was a good chance that I would wake up in Japan in the morning. 

Many people live here in the summer only, but we really love living here year round.  Summers are so busy with hunting and fishing and food gathering and working and entertaining that it is almost a relief when the weather changes and it is time to go inside and take a break. There is something deeply calming about going with the seasons.  Summer is the time for frenetic activity, the long days make it hard to sleep, and I find myself kayaking at 10 pm or working on my garden until 11pm.  Summer is short and there is so much to do.  But when November hits and the change of season storms hit, it is a time to light up the fire, get a stack of good books ready and to ponder life.  It is a great time to cook up banquets and catch up with friends, and to take on any new project that you have dreamed about but never quite found the time.  It may be cheese making, learning a new language, woodworking or creating jewelry.  You will find the time in winter, but the time you find will be a slower, more relaxing time, a time for more sleeping and slower, more thoughtful actions.  There is something deliciously alluring about letting life be ruled by the seasons, something peaceful and natural, where you can fall into a slight hibernation.  Modern day life can be so crazy and fast paced as all the reasons for rest have been removed, and it is a relief and a delight to find a more natural pace that fits with the seasons. 

Hunting... 

But there is still a lot to do outside in November, it is not over yet!  November is the time when the deer are in the rut, an easier time to hunt as all bucks are moving around looking for mates.  The meat tastes more gamey than other times of the year, but the locals don't mind it.  In fact, I was a vegetarian when I came to Alaska.  I was an ethical vegetarian, but after a little while I came to feel that hunting and fishing for yourself was the most ethical way of eating meat.  We hunt for food only, and if you are careful, and only take shots that are clear and easy, that deer doesn't have to suffer.  I started with eating non-rutty bucks which taste the same as beef, and now I don't mind the gamey flavor at all.  We can up our rutty bucks and freeze the meat from September and October deer.  You can hunt until the end of December, but the deer are harder to find as their coat changes color. 

Garden!

This is my favorite time to garden, what I call "making your own vitamins".  This is the time to gather stray seaweed that has blown up the beach in a storm or rake under alder trees for fallen leaves to pile on your garden beds for winter.  I also pile on compost and tons of animal manure (chickens, goats or rabbits will provide you with an endless stream of  gardening gold!).  This should all be covered so that the winter rain doesn't leach the nitrogen from the soil.  This is after, of course, you have dug up all your potatoes!  Potatoes grow really well here, and will even grow in piles of seaweed (imagine the vitamins!) and they don't seem to need too much sun.  I fancy myself as a bit of a homesteader, and one thing that I love about this place is the ability to grow or gather most of your food groups.  You can hunt and fish for your protein, you can grow your own carbohydrates in the form of potatoes, you can get your vitamin C from a range of wild berries (or plant your own apple and cherry trees), and your trace minerals from sea greens.  There is even a fantastic mushroom season, and there are lots of medicinal teas and plants that can be gathered.  November is the time to gather lowbush cranberries, a wild cranberry that makes for a delicious Thanksgiving feast!  It takes a lot of time to "do it yourself", but it is rewarding in a way that paid employment can't touch.  And if you are environmentally minded, if you put in the time and planning, you can provide a lot of your own food locally - a petrochemical free diet!

Livestock

Well, the chickens are not laying anymore.  This is very sad, for once you have tasted home-grown, rainforest foraged eggs, even the best from the store are a grave disappointment.   If you live on-the-grid you can add a light bulb and a timer, but we live on an island, and so we mourn for the days of delicious eggs!  Next year we will make sure we have a new batch in May, they will start laying in November if they are 6 months of age, regardless of the light.   It is also time to breed your goats, we just did that, and boy are those billy goats (now officially called bucks) smelly and weird!   

This is a November photo, and while the alders have lost their leaves (goats can be seen nibbling on branches), the weather can sometimes be quite charming!

December 2008....

Weather

I missed the first part, but of what I saw this December was a little different than usual with more snow and lots of bright, sunny days!  It was a little colder too, with the odd moment at 14 degrees, and quite a few nights at 25 or less.  Most of the days were about the same, temperatures don't vary much here between the day and night. 

Ok, I hear you say, it was colder than that in Northern California.  Most people think Alaska is just one step away from polar bears, but we live in a unique little ecosystem where the clouds and warm ocean currents from Japan keep the weather mild.  We have mild summers, a little cooler than most, and mild winters, not as chilly as you might imagine.  This is a temperate rainforest region, so we have lots of clouds that act as an insulator from weather extremes. 

Usually it rains, with a few short bursts of snow, but this month was a delight with day after day of bright sun and dry air.  I wanted to be outside nearly every day, I did not feel cold when I got moving.

Hunting

That was, until we went hunting...  I had relatives come to visit so we thought it would be fun to go out in the boat for a bit of a hunt and a fish.  We were out the door at the crack of dawn (err, about 8am) and launched upon the icy world with enthusiasm.  Well actually, it launched upon us.  You certainly don't need coffee if you plan on traveling in an open aluminum boat in winter...

Within minutes our faces had frozen into masks.  Within an hour my toes had petrified and I could feel the slow, painful numbness creeping up my feet and into my calves.  I personally lasted about 3 minutes fishing, fishing line required too much dexterity for the stiff lumps that were supposed to be my fingers.  Hunting was more fun.  We spotted lots of deer, but each one turned out to be a doe or a young one.  It was stunning and wild.  Just us, the ocean, the mountains, snow from the beach to the mountain tops...  Just us, frozen little us, in our small, open boat, nothing between us and the weather and the deer when...

A large, covered boat with a big outboard appeared out of nowhere and sped past us and into the next bay.  I had previously had warm feelings toward the gentleman in the boat, but, as if exposed to the winter wind chill, these feelings suddenly froze and cracked.  Perhaps it was the fact that I was half frozen in a slow, uncovered boat while he simply whizzed in, probably still warm from his bed and no doubt cozy in his very covered boat, or perhaps it was that he beat us by minutes to the only buck to be seen that day.  The hyperventilation that this vision brought on did help to warm me a little however.

So no deer for us.  A very lovely friend however did give us some fresh shrimp and crab, and even a delightful and rare piece of heavenly fresh King Salmon.  So there is fresh food to be gathered, even in winter, and thank goodness for friends...  

Garden!

Not much to report here, due to snow cover, but each storm washes in seaweed that I pile on the garden beds.

Livestock

The chickens are still freeloading, but my milking goat is still giving nearly a quart a day (one milking).  The main difficulty that pets present in winter is keeping them in water.  We live off-the-grid, so no water bowl heaters for us!  My lovely husband would get up every morning and trudge outside carrying water for all the wild beasts. I did not think of winter when I placed the goat pen at the top of the hill.  It feels a little suicidal carrying heavy buckets of water up and buckets of ice down, but hey, I don't need the gym! 

January 2009....

Happy New Year to you!  New Year passed with a small blast at the Hill Bar, pretty much the only bar on the island.  A local band played up an old rock storm, and many people who would usually avoid the bar popped in for the only bit of action for nearly one hundred miles around. 

Weather

Early January: Finally!  It is starting to warm up!  Weather is forecast to be in the 40s in the next week, snow is melting!  Of course, then it refreezes into a slick surface determined to give you a sudden back readjustment.  I have taken to wearing my "corks" (gum boots with spikes on the soles) to walk up the frozen expanse otherwise known as a "hill" to feed the goats.  And the chickens have started laying again, slowly.  The days are apparently getting longer, but you wouldn't really know it yet, and quite honestly I am enjoying the peace and short days...  You can semi-hibernate here, a much healthier way of living than running the rat race year round...

February 2009....

Weather

Another great month.  This month the weather has been quite dry, the skies clear and sunny a high percentage of the time, and not too cold.  I am quite surprised at how cold it is not, usually when the skies get clear the temperature drops, but the days have been surprisingly mild.  In fact yours truly has recently dragged the computer outside during the day to answer some of your emails. I am guessing that the days are in the high 40s, and the nights around 27.  Typically we would get a cold snap here, last year we had one around Valentines day.  

Garden!

Time to dream over seed catalogues and start planning!  You know, what I would really love is one of those outdoor wood burning furnaces.  We have one planned for future development, but imagine what you could do!  They burn poor quality wood really efficiently.  What we would like to do is run hot water baseboard heating through the floors, heated by this furnace.  If it can heat your house, why not your garden?...  So many problems with growing things here are due to cool soil temperature.  Perhaps a few coils running through the soil in the greenhouse would warm it up enough to start the season early.  We have certainly been getting enough sun lately, and the days are lengthening faster and faster.  It feels like a regular day now, sun up before 7am, setting around 5pm.

But it is so nice to work outside now, today we had a fire on the beach and just enjoyed the serenity...

Livestock

The chickens are laying well and the goats looking more pregnant (but not milking).  You can let the chickens out all day to forage, they are fabulously entertaining things to watch around the garden, clucking and scratching and making a whole array of weird bird noises.  They get to know you too, whenever they see me walk outside with a white bucket they race over to me, these fat, stumpy things waddling madly on short legs.  That was kind of cute when they were younger, but now that the rooster has spurs it is not quite as funny...  Chickens put themselves back to bed in the evening, you just have to remember to lock up the cage. 

The goats are not quite as easy to let roam.  Goats are not forest friendly creatures.  They will happily strip the bark off your most beautiful trees, and will find anything that you really love (like fruit trees) simply irresistible.  So I cannot let them free range, but I do take them for walks in the sun (they just follow you, they are a herd animal), or sit outside and read a book while they browse.  You don't get much reading done, they will come and give you an exploratory nibble once every while, just to check that you have not suddenly become edible. 

April 2009

Weather

Sorry I have not written in a while, March was a crazy month for us!  But a lot has been happening.  The days have been getting longer, quickly and crazily.  Sometimes I find myself serving dinner at 8pm or later, having taken my cue to start cooking from the sun rather than the clock.  On sunny days it feels quite natural to keep working or playing outside until the sky starts to darken, and then to head inside to get started on house chores.  It gets harder and harder to guess the time, this is the time when the days are lengthening the most rapidly.  It is the last week of April and last night there was still a little light in the sky at 9pm.  It was a beautiful night, the sun had set, there was a gentle glow to the west and a tiny slip of a fingernail moon had risen on the horizon.

You may get a little wind now, as the season is changing and things are warming up.  Today is a gorgeous day, clear and sunny and bright.  There is something about the colors here, they seem so alive when the sun comes out.  I love our cloudy days, they are moody and romantic and cozy, always seeming to hint at some great secret or mystery in the way that the clouds will drape themselves dramatically around the mountains.  Our grey days are broody and sensual, but our sunny days will send your senses into overload.  Brilliant blues and dark greens, hints of gold in the cedars and in the big yellow flowers that grow in the muskegs.  It is on a sunny day that you can not help but appreciate the majesty of the environment.  I am sitting on my deck right now, sleeves and jeans rolled up (it is hot - maybe 60 degrees!) listening to the ocean lapping below, dazzled by the brilliant blues and the bright snow capped mountains in front of me.  All is silent, except for little birds in the forest, and the odd seal mating or river otter family making a splash as it swims by. 

Fishing

Just starting to think about fishing soon, it is about time to get your rods and reels ready and to head out.  A few people have been heading to the outside waters, but I like to wait for it to get easier.  The freezer is empty and some fresh fish will be a real treat! 

(If you do fish here, please be gentle and respectful and take care of the fish future!)

Garden

It is time to start the garden.  Some gardeners will have started seedlings inside, but most don't plant outside until mid or late April.  Potatoes grow really well here, I am not much of a gardener, so at the moment I am just sticking to potatoes.  I grew about 300 lbs last year without too much effort, just some seaweed and some digging.  This year should be even better, I have been adding lots of compost to the soil, endless animal manure and any seaweed that washes up on the beach.  My potatoes were more delicious than any organic potato that I have purchased, and far more interesting!  Potatoes that do especially well here are the All Blues (yes dark purple blue all the way through), the All Reds (yep, you got it, they are red or pink all though), and the delicious buttery Yukon Golds or German Butterballs.  But basically any heritage potato that I poke into the soil grows like crazy, and the harvest is a delicious cornucopia of brightly colored delights from the soil.      

Livestock

Goat babies due any day!  I have been watching and watching my fat goats, so far they are 2 days overdue...  Stay tuned... 

This is the first hoof coming through.  There should have been two.  You can see the nose in picture 1, and in photo 2 you can see the head and foot.  The water had burst already.  As this was our first birth we did not know how it was supposed to be. 

This was a difficult long birth, where I had to play James Herriot to deliver this baby, then my friend came out early the next morning and played James Herriot again to deliver a dead baby.  It was quite horrible and I may tell you the whole story later.  All the goat books said that births were usually easy.  All I can put it down to is that I should not have fed them grain in the first 3 months of pregnancy (except for the first part if they are still milking) as the babies grew too big and got tangled up inside.  If they are not laid right they can't come out.  Both babies were late.  They are supposed to pop out on day 150, but Nellie had hers at 155 and Bonnie at 159.  Ron and I had happily convinced ourselves that Bonnie was having a false pregnancy.  Then one afternoon she got that look in her eye...

If you have a  pet emergency  here, you can call our visiting vet Elizabeth Wolfe if she is in office or the vets in Ketchikan.  They can all write prescriptions over the phone and you can pick up the medicine from our pharmacy here.  In this case, the vet in Ketchikan sent me over some antibiotic vaginal suppositories for Nellie that would not affect the milk or the baby.  She likely could have died otherwise from infection from such a difficult and invasive birth.  So I was worried but the vets put my mind at ease, sent me some medicine over ($20) and Promech (float plane) picked them up from the vet ($20 - Promech will pick up or deliver anything in Ketchikan for $20) and delivered them here ($7).  So for $50 my goat was looked after!  

So a HUGE THANK YOU to all the wonderful people who helped with this difficult time - Dr Wolfe, Dr Nicole Deal, Cathy, Heather, Sally, Kim, Jenny and Carol!  Oh yes, and my wonderful husband who played midwife perfectly!

It is a girl!  The baby after momma had cleaned it up a little (we helped a bit).  This is the most wonderful part.  The baby makes a squeak and the mother turns around in surprise.  Then, no matter how tired she is, she gets this look of blissed delight on her face and totally falls in love with the slimy little bundle at her feet.  Then you get to watch a love fest, it will bring tears to your eyes...

The next day, checking the baby while momma still works.  This little girl had trouble feeding and needed assistance for the first two days. It was definitely helpful having my mother-in-law around for baby advice for this one!  Notice the goat books for beginners in the foreground and all the ringbarked trees...

After, thank goodness, everything is alright.  And doesn't momma look happy!

What a sweetie.  She is half Oblerhasli and half Alpine.  We called her Lulu after an island here, after all she is an island baby.  She looks like an Alpine, but her fur is soft like an Oblerhasli.  She is super strong and vigorous, I guess it is that ol' hybrid vigor.  I suspect she will be a great milker, her mother is excellent and she has hybrid vitality.  After only a few days she was zipping around at high speed, jumping and trying to pull aerial 360s.  Forget TV, I try to complete my jobs in the morning so I can just sit around in the afternoon watching them!

This is Bonnie, very pregnant and well, becoming un-pregnant.  This baby had the bag with fluid all around it, it was hard to see if the feet were in the right place but we could tell that there were two, thank goodness. 

This baby just popped right out, just like the books said.  It took about 45 minutes, it was so quick that I actually missed it popping out as I ran down to the house to get some more warm molasses water for momma!

It is a boy!

He is not a typical Oblerhasli, they are not supposed to have the white markings, but he is so sweet and cuddly that I am totally in love with him.  Hmm, this guy was supposed to be meat...:-(  I called him Spud.

Awww, is this bliss or what?  Why doesn't everyone have goats and chickens?  There is no more a delightful way to pass an afternoon...

May 2009

Weather

We have had the most wonderful May weather!  Now most people talk about the weather because they have nothing more interesting to say, but here people talk about the weather because it really is an interesting thing!  It rains a lot, (it is a rainforest) and we love it. There is something soothing about low pressure systems.  But when the sun comes out all the locals get really wigged out and excited and just have to share the share the news with everyone.  It is as though confirmation is needed that this warm and sunny thing really is happening.  "Wow, great weather hey?" "Oh, yeah amazing..."  

Gathering

 May is the month for gathering black seaweed!  This delectable sea green grows on rocks on the outer waters and is so much fun to find!  It is springy and stretchy and quite the tactile delight!  Take a pillowcase, a pair of scissors and a seaweed guide.  If you just trim the strands you wont hurt the seaweed plant at all, it will stay attached to the rock and keep growing.

Then take it home and spread it out on sheets in the sun.  If the sun goes away (as it did for me) find a space in your house where it can dry.  You will need to dry it quickly, in a day or so.  Keep turning until it turns black and crackly and hard and eats like some exotic and thrilling popcorn.  My ancient wood stove was not up to the task, so after a day and night of turning it had shrunk but still had a long way to go.  So I popped it in the oven at 140 degrees for about 10 to 15 minutes.  It does not take long to process a bunch.  Then store in gallon bags or canning jars and snack on it regularly to keep your thyroid in shape!  Lots of vitamins!

And black seaweed is not all.  We also collected dulse (not so yummy but aparently a good heavy metal chelator) and also some bull kelp fronds (photo on right).  Bull Kelp is one of the staples around here, more on that soon, but the fronds are an absolute delight!  Hang the strands on a clothes horse to dry in the sun or by the fireplace (you can finish this in the oven if needed too).  It just melts in your mouth.  Crumble it into jars and sprinkle over rice or just snack on it.  Truly delicious.....

Gardening & Livestock & Fishing

I am a lazy gardener and just like to watch things grow.  That is what I am doing now.  With all my potatoes planted at the end of April I am just watching the little plants pop above the surface.  I am also watching the baby goats grow.  They are just a delight, running about and head butting each other, jumping in the air and falling on their butts...  Some King Salmon have been caught, but it is still early.

I am overwhelmed with milk right now!  Two people do not need the milk from two goats!  The kids are drinking more and more every day but they will need to be weaned soon, and goodness knows what I will do then!  I am drinking the stuff by the pint (I never liked store bought milk though), every spare gallon gets turned into ricotta which turns into lasagna.  I invite over every friend I can think of, and we have homemade chocolate ice cream for dessert!

I give a lot away.  I cannot sell it.  The dairy industry made it illegal to sell raw milk when their factories got so big they could not keep the milk clean, thus pasteurized milk.  Anyone who wants to try to keep their milk clean, or buy it raw to drink at their own risk, is breaking the law!  This is what upset me in the first place and made me get my own goats.  I figured I was adult enough to make my own choices about the milk I drink but the ever domineering government decided that I wasn't so they made raw milk illegal.  I used to be able to buy milk as pet food, but they took that away recently too when they noticed people were using this loophole to make their own decisions.  Ridiculous when you think about the sugary breakfast cereals on the shelves marketed at kids, or about all the hydrogenated fats in everything out there, or about cigarettes or alcohol - but it is the raw milk that is dangerous and must be banned! 

Pasteurizing kills the enzymes in milk that help you to digest it.  That part of the reason why so many people are allergic to milk.  Homogenizing adds to the problem.  Because the cream on cow's milk floats to the top easily, it has to be forced back into the milk.  The final product may be sterile and smooth, but it has a cell structure more like that of plastic than of food. 

Anyway, that is my rant.  Remind your government once in a while that you left mommy's skirts a while ago and would like to make some adult decisions of your own once in a while.  Milk may not interest you, but it is just one of many laws that take your autonomy away.  Take some time out of your busy job and life (they do this to you so that you have no time to think) and think about the state of your society, your lack of freedom, the increasing loss of your freedom every day.  You may believe that working hard is a virtue, but this is a trick to keep you dummed down.  Stopping, doing less, is perhaps the best thing you can do for the world right now.  It is a little easier on our overstressed planet, but it will also give you a chance to see where we are going as a society.  Become a real person again.  Slow down, if you are not a rat then get out of the race and just live your life again.  Look at the trees.  Notice where the moon is and how it changes position every night.  Be amazed by all the colors in food and wonder where it all came from.  Sit down and actually listen to your kids.  Watch a sunset.  Breathe.  Relax.  Think.  You will be amazed. 

June 2009

Weather

I love June.  June is the month of promises and new beginnings.  It is the month where life blossoms; days so long it seems that they will never end, endless afternoons that meander on forever, so much light, no haste, time standing still.... Just you and the birth of nature, nature feeding, growing and exploding into life in this actually short summer that seems timeless as time takes a breath...

I love how the sun hangs out at 3pm for hours and hours.  There is no need to rush home, no need to rush anything.  Time has paused and you can take your time finally.  Life has stopped speeding by...  You can take a breath and think.  It will only be the gnawing of your stomach that tells you that the betrayer clock says it is 9pm and you are hungry, having missed dinner in order to keep playing, or working in the sun, just one more thing, after all, what is the rush...

I sit on the beach.  On one shore I watch a momma deer with her fawn, grazing in the long grass.  On another shore I see a momma bear and her cub turning over rocks, looking for treats.  In this cluster of islands you can see all these things taking place at once... 

Gathering

Get your sea greens!  Get your sea greens now!  Natural ocean minerals going cheap!  Forget farming, these greens grow perfectly in great fields without any human intervention.  All you have to do is go out and pick them! 

Sea asparagus:

1.  Ask around town for a good sea asparagus patch.  Take note of low tide.

2.  Find a friend, grab a clean bucket and a sharp knife. 

3. Cruise on out to some beautiful place with a gently sloping beach.  Sea asparagus look like mini asparagus stalks, but grow like grass, and can cover a whole field.  

4. Find a nice clean patch that does not have much sea grass in it, after a storm is usually good.  Walking around chatting while inspecting different beaches is part of the fun and should not be rushed. 

5.  When you find a nice patch, sit down, chat and cut handfuls of the sea asparagus.  It is best to take your time and pick it clean, it saves bother later, and really, when you find a job that involves sitting on a beautiful beach surrounded by islands and mountains and ocean, it should be relished.  This is an easy job where a year's supply of asparagus can be picked in no time at all, so efforts must be taken to stretch it out. 

Sea asparagus can be pickled via water bathing, or canned in a pressure canner.  Both are easy and delicious.  The pickled sea asparagus is wonderful with cheese on crackers or in salads, and the canned stuff is a real treat in stew or casseroles.  You can stir-fry it fresh, or steam it, or heck, just pick it and eat it off the beach! 

The trick to finding a good recipe or learning how to do it is to ask around town.  Just offer your services to help someone put away their year's supply.  You will find that your assistance is quickly accepted as good conversation is a necessary ingredient to a day's canning efforts.  At the end of the day when you have rows and rows of gleaming jars in front of you, you will feel a sense of delight and satisfaction rarely experienced in an office setting.  And for next to no money you have put away some of the healthiest and most delicious food never heard of on the mainstream market!  

Sea Plantaine (or Goose tongue)

Another delight.  Goose tongue is ready a little earlier than sea asparagus, and takes a little longer to pick, but is so unusual and delectable that it is totally worth it.  It looks kind of like aloe vera plants growing along the beach, you can find good patches of it in areas.  Yes, it looks a little like a goose tongue, i suppose, although come to think of it I have never seen a goose tongue...  This is such a delight it is best pickled with dill weed and dill seeds, or eaten fresh or steamed in salads.

Other...

Fiddlehead ferns are delicious, and can be found in forest groves, but they always look so delicate I can never bear to pick them, and yarrow flowers, dry them for tea, very medicinal, just get the right ones!

The best way to learn more about any of these things is to go to the local bookstore, they specialize in books for this area.  Otherwise, keep an ear out, there are always courses teaching people how to can or pickle or how to make seaweed relish or salsa or so on.  This is an island of hunter gatherers, so just ask around.  It is also a small community, so it does not take long to find what you are looking for.  Just ask...

Fishing

Ok, the fishing is fantastic, you know that, but it pains me so much to see all the people who go out and catch their limit of everything every day, pack it in the freezer and then forget about it.  Fish freezer burns so I suspect that much of it gets thrown out.  So I can't talk about fishing much.  Catching and releasing the huge King Salmon in search of an even bigger one is horrible, I suspect most of them die.  These fish go through an incredible battle before getting caught, the only way you catch them is when they are exhausted.  They cannot recover quickly from a fight like that.  They will be hooked with two big hooks, if they are hooked in the gills they are dead for sure.  It is a huge battle for them, and not one to be taken lightly. 

A better way to fish?....

Last year, we were working a lot, but every Friday we would run home, throw our camping gear together and head out to our favorite camping island, right near a nice fishing spot.  We mostly fish on the inside waters instead of the outside waters, a slower method for sure, but it wastes less gas, and is more gentle, just calm flat oceans usually, no need to battle the wind and the waves.  We would fish in the evening, and the next morning, enjoy a campfire and the sound of whales at night. We would pick up a King or two, then head home, freezer pack it ourselves, or if we were too tired, take it to one of the fish places in town to package it professionally.

Fishing is addictive, it really can be fun, so it was hard to stop after a bunch of weekends camping and fishing, but two people only need so much fish, and even professionally packed it looses a lot of flavor by January (after that it is great in Thai curries and so on).  Coho (silvers) are fun to catch, they are smaller and more lively, but once you get a taste for the super oily Kings it is hard to fish for anything else.  But any fresh fish is good, especially if you look after it: bleed it right away, then gut it and put it straight on ice.  It really makes a ton of difference to the quality of the meat, and hell, if you have access to the best fish in the world, give it love!

Halibut fishing is not so much fun, that is more like hauling up a dead weight from the bottom of the ocean rather than fishing.  I do recommend the medium size fish, the huge ones are the breeders and they take a great many years to get to that size, and we need to keep the breeders for future generations.  You will not catch the big ones without huge hooks so this can be avoided.  Also: catching the big ones is bad for your health!  They are bottom feeders, and that is where the mercury is, methyl mercury that is extremely toxic.  It builds up in the bodies of bottom feeding fish, the bigger the fish, the more mercury.  Also, the meat of the big fish is grainy and not as nice to eat.  So do yourself and the world a favor, and leave the big ones at the bottom, and enjoy the smaller guys. 

Rockfish: another fish that takes forever to get to breeding age. I don't know much about this fish, but I heard that can take 20 years to get to a breeding age, so please try to learn something about what you would like take and be respectful. 

Gardening & Livestock

The potato plants are growing tall, you can keep hilling them up, piling dirt up on them if you have the time.  Other plants can be tricky, the long days trick many plants into going to seed, even if the heat and water is perfect. 

Ugh!  I killed a rooster!  As a city girl, previously a vegetarian, this was a big step for me!  Luckily the little bugger made it easier by lying in wait for me as I daydreamed my way down a path before launching a surprise attack.  I became a consummate rooster wrestler, I could catch him mid air, I could catch him by twirling around or in a face to face battle.  Then I would haul his ungrateful ass back to the chicken coop while my sweet but stupid hens would cluck and scratch around the coop, not quite sure what to do now that their "leader" had been restrained. 

But one day it was all too much, and I decided that seeing as my pampered ladies did not show any signs of wanting to give up their freeranging forest lives for motherhood, he would have to go.  And I decided that if I were to be a responsible meat eater, (as I was previously a vegetarian for ethical reasons) that meant that I had to take part in the killing. 

So I pampered him especially on his last day, but gave him no feed on his last night (that apparently keeps his guts cleaner and him calmer).  The next morning I went out with a big glove on one hand and a 22 in the other.  If you hang a chicken upside down they get really calm.  So I waited for him to be calm, then shot him in the back of the head.  This effectively bleeds him in the upside down position, better than letting them run around when the blood can run back into the meat spoiling it.  Some people slit their throats, but I was not that brave or confident that I could do it quickly and efficiently.  The shot was executed perfectly, but then I realized why my husband told me to wear the big glove.  Chickens do run or flap around a lot at death.  Ok, so I was not the cool calm killer, after I shot him, I shut my eyes tightly with my arm outstretched and hung on while he flapped around. 

Ok, so it took me about an hour to work out how to gut and skin him, my husband takes about 10 minutes.  Then conveniently (well really it was not) the freezer busted so we spent the day canning up all our frozen meat supplies, chicken included!  I made stock from the bones, it was delicious!  Haven't tried the meat yet, it was red in the legs, like beef, but after canning I am sure it will be tender.  I will let you know...

Coming next month...

Castrating kid goats

Fishing for red salmon

& Goats on float planes...

...