Driving when it's dark

This may seem weird to most people who live closer to the equator, but my kids have not seen it get dark outside until recently. And they rarely get to drive in cars at night.  Earlier in the week Nora noticed it had gotten dark before bedtime and asked if we could driving 'with the headlights on'.  So we did.  And, for the last couple nights anyway, it has become a routine.

We put the music on and drive the dark streets.  The kids like roads lined with spruce trees best - the headlights make the road seem like a tunnel.  We talk some on the drive out but on the way home everybody just listens to the music and keeps to themselves.

We have noticed that the moon has gone from just a sliver in the sky to almost a 1/4 moon.  And I explained to the kids that that meant the moon is waxing.  I explained that it would keep on waxing until it is a full moon and then it would start to get smaller every night.  And that a moon that is getting smaller is waning.

Tonight we drove up to the top of Pillar mountain.  Stuey thought it was a little scary and I must admit the spinning windmills and the whoooshing noise they made was a little disconcerting.

Patrick

Riding the river

A big part of the float trip was Patrick therapy.  Mike and Ray did a lot of listening, and I did a lot of talking.  But in its own way the scenery and river provided a cure of their own.  It's not an accident that river trips are a big part of literature - think 'Huck Finn' or 'Heart of Darkness'.  River trips have a beginning and an end and lots of adventures along the way.  And the journey is a good time to think things through.

Near the end of the trip we had a segment of 20 miles of winding oxbows surrounded by a swampy plain (what we called 'Morder')(click her for link to post that shows pictures of the area).  My canoe was more heavily loaded than the others and needed to be moving faster than the current to be controlled.  Ray and Mike wanted to loaf along with the current in the sunshine, but when I tried to go slow my canoe did spins and ran into the bank.  So I decided to paddle and go on ahead.  I told them I'd go ahead and have camp set up when they arrived.

So for 4 hours I paddled alone through 'Morder'.  The tall grass on the banks whispered in the wind, and my paddle splashed in the water.  Every once in a while I'd come around a bend and disturb an animal of some sort - once a beaver slapped its tail; a fox stood still, and looked and looked before he suddenly bolted off into the grass; a pair of swans beat the water as they honked and took off; Mallards, Green Wing Teal, and American Widgeons frequently gave me a jump when they raucously quacked and helicoptered off the water from behind a screen of grass.

It was a contemplative 4 hours.  I did no talking and no one listened, but the scenery just went on and on. If I'd had an ipod it would've been playing 'Solsbury Hill' by Peter Gabriel, but really the sound track of the wind in the grass and the running water was far, far better.

I arrived at camp an hour and a half before the others and set up camp.  I really did not look around much as I worked. Till suddenly I glanced up at a splashing sound that I thought represented the arrival of Ray and Mike.  And there was junior bear staring at me from the water's edge.  He sniffed around the camp perimeter and I held my ground with the pepper spray in hand.  Then I looked upriver and there were 2 more bears.  I realized I was surrounded by bears.  They were not threatening at all and I continued to set up camp in their company.  Mike and Ray did arrive a short time later and took pictures of these bears from their inflatables (see photos below).

That night I appreciated the electric fence around the camp perimeter.

Patrick

That's me in the blue canoe in the distance - pulling ahead for my 4 hours of alone time on the river

The 'junior' bear who first approached camp

Momma and cub upriver of camp

Meat for the freezer

One of the main purposes of our float trip was to bring back meat for our freezers.  Ray in particular wanted to bring back a lot of meat so that he would have enough to make sausages, bacon etc in addition to the meat used for normal stir-fries and roasts.

Our plan was to harvest deer, but there was also the possibility of feral reindeer and even the remote chance of a stray mountain goat.  So before we left we picked up mountain goat and reindeer registration tags.  But of all the animals, our top choice was to harvest a reindeer.

On a remote float hunt there are many meat logistic matters to consider.  First of how much meat can you fit in the rafts and how much can the plane carry on the way home?  We try to fly out as light as possible so that on the return journey there is plenty of space on the plane for meat.  On this trip the 3 of us and all our gear weighed a little over 1000 pounds which means we could harvest up to 500 pounds of meat (floatplane limited to 1500 pounds - but they like to keep it under 1400).

But weight limits do not mean we needed to skimp on food and drink.  Consumables do not go home on the plane so their weight does not matter at the start of the trip.  We even brought along 6 liters of red wine, and heavy canned food like corned beef hash.  Those items did not return home.

Another really important logistic is meat care.  The meat must be kept cool and dry.  If day one of the trip is a sunny hot day you probably should not try and harvest 5 deer - the meat would probably not keep for the entire trip.  We also like to keep our meat 'bone in' so there is less chance for bacterial growth on exposed cut meat.

We brought along an extra tent and numerous extra cotton game bags just to keep our meat dry.   After we harvested each animal we changed out bloody game bags on our return to camp.  We also cooled the meat on the ground inside the shelter.  At night we took the meat out of the bags and tried to get a dry 'rind' to form on the outside.

And then when we floated we put the meat into dry game bags and packed them into waterproof barrels and dry bags.  We found that contact with the bottom of the raft kept the inside of these containers cools (the bottom conducted the cool temperatures of the river water).  Then on arrival at a new camp up went the meat tent and out came all the meat onto clean game bags to continue the drying process.

Ray was the meat tender and he would constantly be checking on the meat tent to make sure there were no flies on the meat, to flip meat, and to just keep an eye on things.  He did a GREAT job and we returned to Kodiak with around 3 to 400 pounds of prime organic, wild-raised game meat.  Imagine trying to buy that at Whole Foods?  Cost for us was about 10 bucks per pound - but we also had a good time.  When you consider that we combined recreation with feeding the family it was a pretty cheap trip.

Just now when I dropped the kids off at school the ipod threw up (again) 'Tangled up in Blues' by Bob Dylan.  When we arrived at St Mary's the song was still playing and Stuey complained, 'this song is still playing!'  My sentiments exactly Stuey.  Patrick

Glassing for reindeer - we actually saw 2 white dots which turned out to be the reindeer we harvested

The only 2 reindeer that we saw the entire trip

This is all the meat except the ribs which are still in game bags - quite the haul!

Camps on the Landscape

The south end landscape is a stunning place and every single one of our camps was situated in a place that made you think, 'wow - look where I am'.  It is the kind of landscape impossible to take for granted.  And the weather cooperated.  We had great weather for the whole trip with just enough clouds and squalls to add color and contrast to the scenery.

We did notice that the fall colors are a little more muted than they were last year.  Perhaps it is because we were a week later this year.  But I also think the warm fall has killed things slowly - hence no quick, showy explosion of fall color.

Patrick

Patsa noodle alfredo with nettles on the woodstove

Nettles aren't just for Spring anymore

It has been a super warm fall and while floating the river I noticed that the nettles were putting up a second crop of shoots from their older summer growth.  Generally, I only pick and eat the tender new growth nettle shoots of spring, but I thought 'why not - they look good'. And so I picked a bag of nettles and this is how I cooked them.

 Lately I have been cooking a lot of pasta in the field.  I have discovered that if you just use enough water to cover the pasta then you do not have to drain it.  This is a big deal in bear country where you want to keep smells to a minimum.

Anyway I use a 1 pound bag of pasta to feed 3 people (but probably better suited for 4).  I like the multipacks I get at cost savers and have found that the variety of pasta does not matter so much - just be sure to use enough liquid to almost cover all the pasta.

Ingredients to bring: 1 Onion, 1/5 cabbage, garlic, salt and pepper, 'Italian seasoning' in a tube (from refrigerated section at Safeway), McCormick Alfredo sauce packet, 1 8 oz box of whole milk, 1 stick hard salami, 1 pound of pasta, 3 baby bell cheeses, Nettles or Fish, or whatever else you can gather.  I have also added morel mushrooms in the past.

1) I start (as I do for almost all my 'field meals') by cutting up a hard salami and onion into my big pot for the stove.  I then add a copious amount of oil and start it all browning on the woodstove.

2) For this trip I brought along home grown garlic, and since it is pretty weak I added most of a cluster.  We saved the extra cloves and later roasted them in my frying pan for desert. I cut the garlic up and added to the pan to brown.

3) Just before I add the pasta after all the onions have turned clear I add some cabbage.  I want the cabbage cooked but not overcooked.  Hence I add it last.

4) Boil a pot of water on side and add pasta to big pot.  Cover with boiling water so that it is almost covered but some pasta still sticks up above the water.

5) Add cheese, Italian Seasoning paste, nettles (mushrooms and fish and whatever) on top of the pasta and cover with a lid.  Rotate the pot on the stove and if too hot move to cool part of stove and vice versa if too cold.

6) Meanwhile add Alfredo packet to the box of whole milk in a cup and stir up.  After about 10 minutes add the mixture to the pasta and give a quick stir.  Let it sit for a few more minutes and come to a boil (or close anyway). Then remove from stove and sit for 5 minutes or so.

7) Add salt and pepper to taste and serve up!  Pasta should still be pretty soupy, but if you add too little water things can stick pretty badly to pot.

Enjoy!  Patrick

A big part of cooking on a woodstove is a big pile of wood

Getting ready for bed - that's me pulling my sleeping gear from a dry bag.  Note garlic toasting in pan on stove

Ray splitting wood

Hard Frost near the beginning of the trip - super glad we had a woodstove!

Ice crystals on the tent wall above Ray in the morning

Pasta cooking on stove

Luci light mood lighting

Potatoes all in

This afternoon after school Stuey and I dug up the last of the potatoes.  I had intended to do this a few weeks ago, but life events got in the way.  Stuey really got into finding the potatoes under the plants and it brought me flashbacks of doing the same with my mother when I was a kid.  There is just something about finding potatoes in the dirt, or even eggs under the chickens.  It is just satisfying.

The potatoes seem HUGE this year, and I was happy to see that in the last few weeks the slugs have not been as active as they were earlier in the summer.  In early September they were eating all the potatoes and that is why I had been in such a hurry to get them all harvested.  It seems I need not have worried.

The last couple of years I have been storing my potatoes in cotton game bags in the cool shed.  The game bags breath and yet don't the potatoes turn green from light exposure.  Seems to work well. This year I have 4 game bags full of potatoes!  Patrick

Back from the South End

 Friday evening Ray, Mike and I got back from our sojourn to the South End of Kodiak.  We barely beat a HUGE storm and all day Saturday it raged outside here in town.  The last 2 days have been a blur of puting away gear, meat care and Monopoly.  Ray, Nora, Stuey and I had a three hour epic marathon game of Monopoly yesterday morning while the wind and rain beat against the windows.

The South End, as usual, was stunning and we were blessed with good weather.  It was just the sort of elemental activity that I needed.  Life at its most basic is pretty simple - a warm teepee with woodstove, water from the river, and meat on the hoof.  One night we even collected and ate nettles for dinner.

We came back with around 400 pounds of meat.  So it was also a successful hunting trip.  I'll post more on the details of the trip in later posts.  On this post I'll just show some of the stunning scenery.
Patrick