Processing the Harvest

I have seen people starving and dying of simple want; also way too much creature suffering - This is one of the things I wonder about all the time, if there is so much suffering what can that mean? Eastern religions have it as retribution and also just ones lot in existence, with eternally being freed of the circle of life therefor being the greatest good. The modern secular atheist seems to think life is merely a chemical event and will be over when it is over so best to mitigate discomfort till the ex-nihlos takes you back. Now theistic religions seem to say that corporate suffering and death are not of huge importance except in that we are therefore given an opportunity to do good works by sacrificing ourselves to mitigate other's suffering; and that by doing good works we ourselves actually benefit more than the recipient because we were able to participate in god's goodness by being unselfish.

If everyone was going great, as were ourselves, it would be perfect in an atheist philosophy - the greatest good would have been achieved. In a Theist philosophy that would be dreadful as there can be no nobility, charity, sacrifice, without suffering. Therefore the baser acts would be there - but no scope for the noble acts. It would be the 'pig satisfied' world of Mill's Utilitarianism.

I tend to go with the theistic way, that suffering - although dreadful - is not of ultimate importance, it ends and is then gotten over because something else comes. I hope it is like some silly thing that was so important to our young selves, which after growing up we find was of no importance really. The snag of this way of thought is how massively poorly I am doing at being an unselfish person.

And the chickens yesterday; on a warm and beautiful day with Jack dog out for a stroll around.

 

I keep popping in and out - my wife is gone so am just doing odds and ends. But processing the harvest - which as you may notice is mostly fish now. I just cleaned some redfish, on my truck tailgate where I do most of my processing. Today we have those 30 lbs of shrimp to process - say about 55 - 60count, (counts are how many per pound) so 5000 shrimp to head and tail, vacuum pack, and will freeze most. Shrimp should sit for a few days in the refrigerator or they are bland and hard to peel; so are ready to process now. Then I have just fed the chickens and pond fish by netting some pogies and giving them out + cabbage leaves and a couple plums that got forgotten in the back of the veg drawer, and scratch grains, for the birds.

This is the spot under my live oak where I keep sickly plants or starting seedlings - and clean fishing gear and anything else - took these pictures an hour ago. It is a lovely shaded room because live oaks have low, long reaching, limbs.



I am really fast at cleaning fish, even redfish which are one of the most difficult till figured out - notice the diamond hone - I like to have a bit of an edge on my knives which really helps.



These heads and remains will go into my crab traps which need pulling today - should have a few. More seafood to process........... but we love the crab meat for soups so put some away for the winter when soups are really good and the crabs gone.

 

The chooks all look so contented. If the Lord bestowed favours on anything, anywhere, I think your chooks were on his list.
And you were Colne,
and so was I,
Jenny

 

Crabbing now, we had about 10 in the traps yesterday and put the redfish remains in them and threw them out.

I have spent a lot of time on the water in the Pacific North West, mostly Washington state, British Columbia, and Alaska - but a bit in Oregon and California too - and some of my best memories are the great big Dungeness crabs we would catch. I think the fondness for those crabbing times keep my drive to crab going strong. Clamming was also a big thing we were into there, and on the Atlantic from Florida to Prince Edward Island - that is something I really regret about this area, no clams to dig. Plenty of oysters here, but one needs oystering tongs, which are expensive - and then you have to go into the Gulf in your boat to the oyster reefs - and get the $10 recreational oyster license. (recreational crab license is needed for traps - it costs $5 and is good for 6 traps - limit one license per household.)

Here are the fishing regulations, best to copy and paste because it is a slow pdf - but I think interesting. The fishing is pretty good here - if you know what you are doing. like most places one has to know how to fish, but the laws and enforcement are good. Plenty of lawmen - actual marine police with guns and arrest powers - you will get checked if you fish much even wade fishing, boating, or from land, and if in violation will get a big fine and your fishing gear confiscated. http://www.dmr.state.ms.us/images/publications/reg-book.pdf

crabbing at my bayou



I am digging in lots of compost in some garden bits today and planting carrots, radish, and a selection of brassicas. I am trying carrots in my big pot that had cucumber - I was taken by some pictures of carrots virtually filling a pot and want to try it - the potatoes do so well in the same pots, mostly full of compost, leaves, and beach sand.

 

Still harvesting peppers and okra, and a few tomatoes. So the daily soup is usually:

3 banana peppers, couple mild, 1 hot

1 mild jalapino

half a bell pepper

4 okra

heaping tea spoon Knorr Mexican chicken stock powder (comes in 2 liter bottle for $7 because Mexicans use lots of chicken and tomato stock - which is also always sold too)

heaping teaspoon onion soup powder

handful raw, peeled, shrimp (used to buy them from the shrimp boats in the harbor - but now caught some ourselves - we love shrimp in the soup and always keep some around $3.50 a pound, (£2) with heads on. price varies a lot depending) (I freeze shrimp in dozens of packets, in tiny amounts - in cheap sandwich bags, and just throw the frozen lump in)

6 slices of smoked sausage (always keep some in the freezer for Creole dishes and soup)

Boil the veg in enough water for two bowls, add everything when veg is done, cook another couple minutes. I like it - and the peppers have lots of vitamins, the okra and shrimp are full of good stuff (wild, pure, shrimp - not that farmed stuff) This is the core summer soup and it varies with other additions.



This is a picture from earlier, take away the Cucurbitaceae and the peppers are still the same, and in large numbers and kinds The red bananas are over ripe but I dried them. This heat (with heat index from humidity, 38C, 100f - one is as wet from sweat if working as if you were soaked from hard rain. I love it though - hot nights to sit outside by the water and listen to the fish (they are loud! at night), massed frogs, and locusts - watch the night birds and bats) stops everything but the hot weather stuff like the peppers, okra, and some beans. Too hot for tomatoes although we get a few cherry ones.

And onions. I dried about 15 pounds of these spring onions - greens and whites, and I keep a jar of them in the cabinet and they always go into the soups. The bulk of the crop I let form small bulbs so more white and thick greens.



Then I kept a bunch of the little ones and just let them dry in the garden shed and will be planting them today for a crop in the spring. Called multiplying onions they were always grown by everyone here because they thrive and multiply like weeds for much of the year - and can be kept over the summer heat to replant in fall..



dried onions, carrots, dill from the garden.

 

All looks so very appetising Colne. I love your descriptions of sitting out at night with the nocturnal creatures,
Jenny

 

A funny thing - you know my main dog Flora? The 65 pound brain damaged lab - she is my main dog, but is a bit goofy from her fried brain, and way too anxious when out of my sight, which is not often, she goes everywhere I go - I am not allowed to get into the truck without her - so she takes Prozac.

(here she is with asparagus I dug up from a yard that needed cleaning up and am making one of my 4 asparagus beds - some are sending up shoots again now! but I am letting them grow - this being the first year)



Well last night I got up to take a sleeping pill in a bit of a daze and took one of her Prozac's instead. I saw I used the wrong bottle this morning - and have been dopey since waking . Now I will not keep her medicine with mine - the pills look identical but her's have a tiny blue band around the middle - same bottle but with a different colour cap.

 

It's easily done, taking the wrong pills Colne but I'm glad it wasn't something more drastic and you're not feeling to bad. Thank goodness it wasn't a dog worming pill!

 

Hi Jenny - It is like sitting in a mad factory out at night with the frogs belting out a massive chorus in rhythm, the cicadas rising and falling with their shrieking, machine like, song, the fish splashing and whooshing. Nights in the woods here are actually loud - I think when it all comes together the sound is similar in decibels to standing by a highway in full traffic - when the chorus frogs, tree frogs, leopard frogs, bull frogs, narrow mouth toads, and cicadas all are going in their mad songs. Each species makes a rhythmic chant that rises and falls in a chorus and all these songs, from a thousand throats or hind legs, together form a greater rhythm. I cannot find my recordings of it unfortunately.



I have to pull the traps, the rain was absolutely crashing down last night, and the traps may be swept against the banks by the current, I have to check. Our rains are spectacular with a wall of lightning - lighting up the night.

Time to plant the potatoes and carrots - I will go to the local grocery store and get a bag of purple potatoes, they do very well here and for $3 package they sell I get more than I can use. Unfortunately no white and yellow and purple carrot seeds left.......will have to plant orange ones - which have the best flavor probably only are not such fun, but will order more for the spring planting. (called carnival blend)



I love the bags I made up - thaw and dump into a pot and boil, they are parboiled 8 minutes before packaging to preserve colour and quality so need another 20 minutes cooking, more for the bigger, less for the small - then I roughly mash it all with some salt, butter, and dash milk. Delicious and beautiful.





sorry for the old pictures - but these are excellent - and I love the vacuum packer, it trebles the life of frozen things - but bags are expensive - only can be reused, I keep them.

 

Up till 1am last night bottling plum compote. I must be stark raving bonkers!

 

Madahh, tell us what your plum compote is - how it is used and made.

I heard the Spanish Mackerel are in shore and can be caught from the harbor now. I like them quite a bit - firm meat, mild actually but not with the best flavor - I give them a 6* out of 10 Their relative the King Mackerel is better only does not come in so close. The favorite way of cooking them here is on the charcoal grill but I am not very fond of fish cooked that way often - I like them best filleted and them baked with paprika, lots of garlic, onion, olives, and peppers, and tomatoes. One gets a nice fillet, they are a nice sized fish. Teeth like razors though, one touch and you will be laid open and wire leader is needed as they will bite through fishing like as soon as hooked.



(photo from web - too hard to find one of mine)

I have work to do today or I would have gone. Also the 'specks', or spotted sea trout are in. Most being undersized by a 3 to 1 rate, but a very nice fish. I net live shrimp and fish them with a float - I do need to spend tomorrow morning fishing for these two fish. With fish one must go for them wile they are in. Here is a picture from last year - but it completely fails to show how pretty they are - the one on top being the best example of how they look - because all fish soon fade once dead, and I took a poor picture...



Shrimping is still happening but the places to throw a net continue thronged. I should get a picture of a good place to throw for them and the crowd. One very good, but small area near here has room for 5 to each have their small spot to throw a net - and last night we went by to see it and about 20 cars and trucks - 40 - 50 people were there waiting for nightfall with gas electrical generators and gas lanterns - chairs and tables with umbrellas (most sit there from mid day on to preserve their spot for when the shrimp come in at dark) coolers, drinks and food - it is a big deal with families and groups of friends all sharing one spot - and 20 foot down at the next spot to throw is the next group.

But then shrimp is the basis of much of the cooking here (Creole and Cajun and Soul) so the people, most who do not have a lot of money, get it wile they can. Apparently a spot will yield 50 to 70 pounds of shrimp for a few hours of casting wile the shrimp are moving and they take turns and keep at it. A combination family event and getting meat for the freezer. And I must add how polite and friendly everyone is. Most of the shrimpers are tough, blue color Southerners, about half black half white - but rudeness is unheard of, or intentional rudeness anyway - and every one goes out of their way to be friendly. Southern politeness is a very real thing. Of course one side of Southern politeness is if you were obnoxious it would go bad for you, the people here are very hard and will not put up rudeness. Also public drinking is not really done in USA except for times like Mardi Gras so things do not have that driver of bad behavior.

(I guarantee almost everyone has a loaded gun in their truck too - it is legal to carry a loaded gun in any vehicle here - no permit required. Just go buy one, load it, and put it in your glove compartment.. No permit needed to buy a gun or ammunition either. It is your right under the second amendment.)

 

Plum compote: The usual advice is to bottle plums raw, fill up with sugar syrup and then process. This takes ages and results in half a jar of plums floating in syrup, in my experience.

So now I gently stew the halved plums in their own juice, pre-sterilize the Weck jars before filling with very hot fruit, put a spoonful of sugar into the top of each jar and then process in the pressure cooker for about 10 minutes. They have all sealed, hope I don't get botulism. It doesn't flourish in sugary or acid environments so fingers crossed. The plums tend to disintegrate but I figure they taste just the same.

 

No chance of botulism at all. The acidic fruit do not grow botulism when preserved that way - but the addition of lemon juice is recommended for some fruits, and to tomatoes definately (or vinegar) to get the acid to the correct level. In rural USA home canning (in jars) is a hugely popular thing and the Government, Federal and state, give very researched recommendations on doing this. Plums do not need additional acid....... (USDA is the federal government food and agriculture safety agency)

http://nchfp.uga.edu/publications/publications_usda.html

What desserts do you make with your plums? I would think the jars of plum would be very useful for a base for any fruit pies - like for blackberry or strawberry. I do not seem to be making proper pies lately, but am using raw fruit with some cake base and heavy whipped cream on top instead - but I do love pies.

I am off to work......

 

Hi Colne, made Plum jam with these yesterday. A magnificent plum for jam as it goes a luscious deep purple colour. 5lbs plums (slitted), 3 lb sugar and just enough water to keep from sticking whilst the initial breakdown process is underway. I stew gently in the preserving pan for at least half an hour before adding the sugar. Then, a rolling boil 'til it goes beyond the foam stage and starts to coat the sides of the pan - indicating the setting stage has been reached.
Plums bartered in exchange for a loaf and some home made fudge, so just the cost of the sugar = £1.
Jenny
http://www.orangepippin.com/plums/belle-de-Louvain

 

Lovely jam Jenny. I am getting through my kumquat marmalade, 2 jars left, and one is small. Only 2 blackberry too - but still 8 pounds frozen and 4 will likely be more jam.


But it continues being about shrimp, last night I headed 25 pounds I caught the day previous. I had to net for a total of five hours - still excellent, but a bit slower than before. I could go at night with lights, or out in my boat, and get more faster but why bother when it is great just off a bridge 1/4 mile from the house in the middle of the day. I drove by there last night and there were a couple groups with gas generators firing powerful lights and a dozen people.

So one gives the shrimp a wash in a full sink to remove sand and mud that will get on them, and the plant debris. Then into a colander and one picks up a bunch by their long antenna - like holding a bunch of grapes - and pinch the body off - and when all is heads hanging they go into a bucket and the tails onto a tray. Here is last night, took me a full episode of 'Battlefield' on youtube (two hours) to do it all and clean up afterwards; But I enjoy it actually, I have gotten quite a bit of my food from the wild all my adult life and it seems to be part of me.

Once they are de-headed you put them in a bucket with ice cubes to cool back down (they were in a plastic cooler on ice from when you caught them so cold - but our cold water to wash them in is warm enough to shower with comfortably so warms them up) then when chilled back, drain and refrigerate. I got 1.5 gallons (USA) of shrimp tails with shell on - I would guess 12.5 pounds. I will freeze them in packets. This time in some used plastic tubs - put in a small bit of water, pack shrimp in tight, touch more water if needed so no air is on top or inside - freeze. Stops freezer burn. Photo from last night, about 1/4 of the catch shown:



I think I have caught 50 pounds+ so far and think I want 100 pounds (will make 40-45 pounds tails when processed, depending if you take the tail shell off) - but a lot of shrimp. And they are pretty good sized; brown shrimp so not that large - but the jumbo white shrimp will show up if you keep watching and get them. They do not stay around long, but zip in, and then out.