Processing the Harvest

Agree with most of what you say Colne

Just got limited bandwidth

 

Thanks for the correct details Shiny. As far as Scotland in the 1970's, I spent about 6 months in the 1970's and early 80's living out of a backpack in Scotland - mostly in the highlands and Islands - Orkney mostly, but all over; with a prominent American Flag on my pack. (I moved to USA in 1976 and declared my citizenship to be USA (I had a choice of 4 citizenships but USA forced me to pick them or someone else but would not allow joint - that is a long story). The only anger I heard of was against Spain about the scorched earth mackerel fishing they were doing. I found Americans well liked. (a large part of my genetic makeup is Hebredian McLeod and I am always drawn to the treeless North which I love more than any other environment - I actually was offered free accommodation at this summers clan gathering on Sky, but could not go for some reason) (me in my pack - the small bag is for consumables, I would sometimes go long spells between supplying - I lived out of that pack 5 years in aggregate. Here is Scotland at its best, just lovely...magical



But now I am sidetracked - and nostalgic, and below is going way back, before I turned 20 and never picked up a razor again. I an wearing the same pack in both pictures - I still have it in my back room; still the same American flag stitched on it.



But The Cod Wars... The thing is USA used them as the handy excuse to get its 200 mile exclusion - to make its territorial waters a proper amount - USA was behind the scenes, and UK protested, but for show. (or so I believe). This was not about keeping its Icelandic base.

And so I went fishing last night but the specks were not biting :( The Vietnamese guy said 'tonight only white trout biting - I will beat you this time. - white trout like strips of fish cut off another dead white trout so my live shrimp gave no advantage - I only caught 3 keeper specks, but kept about 15 pounds of the small white trout.) I could have rigged with fish strips and filled my cooler easily but white trout are a real pain to fillet - very simple getting the meat off the bones, but the skin is as delicate as wet tissue paper and a real trick to cut off the fillet. I think my 15 pounds of them enough - that is 30 fish - takes a wile, will take me an hour and I am very good at it. White trout are good to eat, but small fillets - which is fine. I will keep catching them till I have fifty pounds of speck and white trout fillets frozen - I mix them in the bags so I do not have to inventory two different things in the freezer.

Bait shrimp are getting hard to catch. My new net(s) are 1/2 inch mesh and the small shrimp go right through them. Most here use 3/8 mesh, like my old one was, like my tiny 4' one is. So I have to throw my tiny net for them. The eating size shrimp gone totally. By the way I got my free net yesterday - to replace the failed new net (I fixed the failed net in 5 minutes so have 2 now) That was the delivery van my dogs attacked - and that caused me to pull my door knob off, which now comes off if you pull it - I sheared a retainer clip - a faulty door knob (I am going to tear it apart and fix it, I already have figured out how.)

But the site is saying my limit is reached and it has slowed so much I can get a cup of coffee wile what I have typed slowly appears - preemptively preventing TLDR posts, so again I have driveled away too much to talk of my garden.

Also - Flora is sick, she is a sickly dog, brain damaged too, a special dog.... and I have knocked her out with a heavy sedative, cleaned up the messes, and am off to do some work.

 

Sorry to hear Flora is unwell Colne.

 

Sending a to Flora too Colne,
Jenny

 

Big fight yesterday - my wife is a bit of a hoarder, especially keeping things for projects she has in her head but not necessarily will get around to doing. I had just taken the dogs out as she was driving to the house and there was a cotton mouth moccasin (venomous snake, really, really, bad for dogs, and pretty terrible for people) in the road in right where my trail to the pond goes in.

I hand signaled for her to stop, pointing at it adamantly - dashed back calling the dogs, under the house, and picked up an 8 foot long 1 1/2 inch by 3/4 inch strip of pine that I had made for some trim a wile ago. A when I got back the snake was in the roadside grass almost into the woods - and I raised the wood strip and smacked it right on the neck and the wood strip exploded into 4 pieces, but the snake was mortally hit. Then I bashed it on the head with the stub I had, killing it fully. A moccasin will kill a small dog, or treatment runs very expensive - the anti-venom shot is $800 alone! and with vet care really adds up - then the animal may not fully recover. I kill them on my property, about 4 this year.

But my wife got out of her car full of anger at me shattering that wood strip, apparently she had plans for it - demanding to know why I had not kept a shovel handy; or why I did not get something stronger. That made me furious, that I should have allowed the risk of a dog suffering horribly, to save that wood........well I was aghast. I took the absolutely first thing I could find - time was of the essence, and still the snake almost made it to the thicket.

And so I got so angry at such a petty concern for a pine strip over the dogs, (and us) that I picked up the other identical strip and shattered it into pieces too - and that was the real trigger for fighting. What is it with crazy women and 'projects' and 'stuff' and keeping junk they do not need?

Anyway, the camera was handy so I took this - and went off with the dogs to throw the body into the marsh and stayed gone till noon.



My whole day ended up of doing nothing but cleaning that endless cooler of fish when she went to work in the afternoon. Such a tiny fillet from a white trout, but I had so many that I still had 8 pounds of boneless meat at the end. They are a real chore to clean, I have a lifetime of fish processing and still struggle to skin them quickly, they are so very delicate and soft. That took an hour and a half including cleaning up the cooler, knife, and cutting boards (I do it on the truck tailgate - good thing I am immune to yellow jacket harrying. In fall yellow jackets turn to meat crazed things - they are setting up food for their broods to over winter - so come over you when butchering outside. I once worked (couple times actually) where one was swarmed by yellow jackets daily; getting stings a lot, I think I must have been stung a couple hundred times in my life - by every kind of bee, hornet, and wasp - (I have good yellow jacket stories from those days - all kinds of crazy stories) so I just bat them off with my fillet knife, or smack them down and flick the creature away. (bitten tens of thousand times by blood sucking bugs - I do not even use repellant when they are thick)

And I was heading somewhere with all this talking - but the site has me on slowdown and says I must end. but I had an interesting night - staying up till dawn outside - but am typing to a blank screen so must go.

 

You two sound like me and mine Colne.
A typical married couple.
Jenny
I rarely type up more than a couple of sentences so I've never had a message from the forum to tell me to quit.

 

You do not get a message from the site, it just takes longer and linger to print the letter you type till a sentence takes a minute to appear and slooooows and slows. But I see every day as so full of sights, experiences, and thoughts that it is like a massive house full of stuff - and the moving van is parked in the street (the one page you get to make your message) and cramming all of that into such a small space is impossible. I re-logged on after making a stack of pita chips and frying some white trout for my wife to take tonight (she is doing a night drive from 5 p.m. to about 1 a.m. - these side trips are great money, she drives a 40 foot truck) and trying to find a retired structural inspector to ask some code questions about cantilevers. (a nightmare of computer searches trying to get his phone number - everyone has cell phones; but I know where he lives close enough I can knock a couple doors and soon find him.)

So last night - I just loaded up the dogs and went exploring after dinner till 4 a.m. I walked the various harbours, almost empty, but with fish to see, and a couple solitary giant shrimp swimming past one lone fisherman - and I used his net and caught 3 of them for him - great fun under the lights, seeing into the water. They were 8 inches long! But we only saw the 3 in a half hour so not worth getting my net. Night herons all over - in winter they will be replaced by Great Blue Herons, in the crazy rotation of birds we undergo all year - Northern birds winter here wile our summer birds go further South to Central America in a mad game of weather and seasons driving some here, bumping the locals somewhere else, breeding grounds, feed migrations - and just migrations East And West, North and South - we are the cross point of the great X of this part of continent's creatures migrations - always something different showing up and often sticking a bit.

So I drove all the shrimp spots I know, throwing my net in half a dozen spots if no one was around to watch - people are out all night during these hot months, it is so fine; in the middle of the night as warm as a British summer day. And I talked to the netters - nothing! I did not get any either - except one spot where a dozen netters were successfully working patchy shrimp. They were getting about 3-4 pounds an hour of hard casting, throwing big nets from the muddy shallows, wearing head lamps and had lanterns on shore at their trucks. And some huge shrimp were coming in. I was wearing my street shoes so did not cram into the muddy shallows with them - and had no headlamp - and 4 yapping dogs in my truck.

Then I watched, and talked to (I talk to everybody. In London people seem a bit wary of this stranger telling them stuff and asking them of their day - but soon warm up, here it would be odd if you did not talk to someone next to you, it is a small town) fisherman, and went back into the bayous on small roads. One spot a couple were catching white trout with rubber jigs and the fish were just milling beneath them in the lit, glowing water and it all was incredibly beautiful, all dark, the shrimp boats with their trawls out, and dazzling work lights, off shore a bit.

And we walked about here, I tried to net some pogies but it was a high neap and they were further up the bayou - and we listened to the various owls all calling like mad, to each other and just to call. It is just that time of year where summer is still hanging on, but leaves are falling on some trees and one knows one single day the cold will come and autumn will be here, winter very soon after - and nights of walking in shorts and a shirt - looking into the water, hearing the night creatures will change - it will be totally over till next year. Just going about and looking was enough. I did not even take out a fishing rod, or wade in and throw my net with the crowd. It was all just so beautiful - and I forgot my camera, and did not even think of it till today.

 

I had a lovely night. It is 3:20 a.m. here and my wife got back at 1 and we ate dinner and watched a movie. But before, from 9 to 11 p.m. I was on a friends dock cast netting shrimp and it was all so amazingly attractive out. Across from me was a dock/boathouse with green underwater lights making two pools of lit water. In them fish keep circling, light is especially attractive to some salt water fish and they come to it. And above the lights was a Great Blue Heron, standing on the dock and watching the fish circling intently - and then he would leap into the water with his beak forward and grab a fish making a splash like a pelican - and for a second be sitting on the water floating like a duck, then with huge wing beats get airborne again and return to the dock with his fish if he was successful. It was as noisy as the splash my net makes, he made at least 5 dives and caught one huge fish - over a pound. I tried to zoom on him but my camera could not do it in the low light. My friend said that is the herons spot and he is there most nights. If we get back tonight I will try to get my wife to take a picture of him splashing into the water - but photographing animals is frustrating; they never perform when the camera is out.

I love the night - the way all the human clutter becomes unapparent and the natural world much more real. And I ended up with this bad video; I had tried to shorten it to under 3 minutes, cutting out almost all the middle, but failed somehow - but here was casting a few hours ago - no one to take a shot of me throwing though. One day I will learn to edit videos, and to take better shots.

 

There's an entertaining book called Salt, having the most astonishing tales, all true. Cod can be salted as soon as caught, & is dried on board, while the fatty fish need packing in barrels and lots of time.

 

Of course Christianity began as an apocalyptic cult, and had to become family friendly and then a world power to survive and prosper. Read Ivan's dream in The Brother's Karamazov; The people demand Mystery and bread, says the Grand Inquisitor, putting an inconvenient Christ out of sight. Poor Moses in the wilderness had to put his brother in pomegranate bordered skirts like the old mother goddesses', God instructed him on creating gorgeous displays that would hold the people spellbound. In Russia when they sent scouts to the big religions, only Greek Orthodox had the requisite beauty and mystery to temp them.

 

Sesame, as you may guess, is my sister.

Sounds like a good god. Islam had a very different god, one who instructed them to enslave, require a special tax, (Jizya) or convert all unbelievers. And so it spread like a massive gang of LA, submit and become one of us, and so protected and family, or fight. Given the village, nomadic tribe situation, this was unstoppable as the tribal structure stopped the unbelievers from unifying, and so they fell like dominos, like ink on wet paper.

And rightly so. Life demands both of those. The Romans had 'Bread and Circuses' Their circuses being slaughter as entertainment. The great coliseum of Rome had a million killed in it for the amusement of the crowd (well, and to carry out court ordered executions). The Pagan gods this was dedicated were a cruel lot. Although this did serve another purpose - the people were desensitized to all cruelty - a useful trait in a Roman Citizen.

Jesus was the finest prophet of a fine god, in the world of dark religions.

And the weather outside is beautiful, just warm and sunny with large scattered clouds to break the sun light from being baking. I am drawn to going out on a boat trip, there is a spot where a long sea wall causes the massed pogies to bunch up and the predators go into them making this mass leaping that sounds like rain beating on tin. Mid day is not good fishing, but it is just a nice spot to sit and watch; the big pogies are to the bay side popping on the surface - and the seawall is pods of tiny wake from the groups of small pogies - that suddenly leap. loads of birds - seagulls, herons, pelicans always diving - here is one seen from my porch.

 

A perfect day outside, big cumulonimbus, cumulus, altostratus, and a couple contrails, a very full sky. No wind but a faint breeze; water at lower tide so pogies are flicking the surface in their dispersed formations - rather than swimming in phalanx, shoulder to shoulder, and making their signature ripples. I think I will net 30 pounds of them and freeze them in 10 ounce bags for the winter chicken food.

Yesterday I emptied the chest freezer and gave it a defrosting. Freezers being bad about collecting odds and ends I was pleased mine just had good stuff. 3 bags garden carrots and purple/red potatoes - 2 of beets, couple marked down beef for stews, couple chicken leg packets, a rooster cut up, some of the sausage I use in my gumbos, and 4 tubs of home made soup, 3 small bags bought peas, few other good odds and ends - and the fish I have been accumulating this last month.

This is roughly the fish I have packed in the last month - or how ever long it has been - it is all told here:

15 packs, 14 ounce, of mixed white trout and speckled trout fillets.

5 packs redfish fillets, 14 ounce

16 packs, 12 ounce, jumbo shrimp, head and tails gone.

24 packs, 12 ounce, mixed small, medium, and large shrimp, head and tails removed

8 packs of shrimp, 8 ounce, peeled

10 packs crab meat, 6 - 8 ounce.

And I will keep after shrimp till they leave - their legs have turned bright red, a sign they soon will move to deep water - as will the crabs. My crab traps are getting plenty, last night I pulled in 15 and they are steamed and will be picked tonight wile I watch 30 Rock on Netflix - and an amazing shrimp bit happened wile at the harbor yesterday..

Last evening I drove to the harbor to watch 'Cruising The Coast' - a huge event on the Mississippi coast highway. The 26 miles of sand beaches have a mostly 4 lane road between the developed lands to the North - and just sand beach and the 5 harbors to the South - some huge 'Live' oak trees and palms in the median. It is the world's largest gathering of classic cars and the focus is in a different town every day, and even different classes of cars - but it is mostly USA cars - and they go way back - and virtually every one showroom condition. One just parks anywhere for the week long event and no matter where you are on the coast road they will be cruising past, many every minute, because that is what they do - see and be seen; talk to each other - every where is groups of them with their hoods open showing their chromed engines to each other. Classic cars just everywhere! Amazing. If you care to see where I live, the Mississippi Gulf Coast I recommend this video:



And the site is telling me to shut up - I haven't even told my amazing shrimp story - oh, well... I never donated to GC, and I fail to stay on topic, so I guess they have me on some kind of restraint, an allotted amount of kilobits. And after shrimp I wanted to talk of Rider Haggard and the death chant; I am focused on killing things lately, and growing things, (chickens filling both criteria) life is very much 'of the moment'. But the admin are sparing you from my thoughts on that. The site has slowed so much it is no longer possible to go on......

 

rough justice Colne...
Jenny

 

I know you are right Jenny, I am as flawed a poster as any - it is storming madly here - lightning and warnings over the radio. But passes through tonight, leaving things cool and drier.

One consequence of emptying my freezer is trying to use two really bad frozen side dishes - big family sized; sweet potato casserole and a spiced apple dish. They were massively reduced a year ago and sounded like a good idea, and will finally be rid of them. fish and shrimp as always otherwise.

I continue to make middle of the night field trips where I hang out with some of societies more unusual people at scruffy fishing spots and stare bleakly with them at the shrimpless waters of the public boat launches, industrial canals, or decaying seawalls; which for some reason congregate shrimp, but not the last couple nights. One really odd guy was out at an empty boat launch - seemed bug eyed nuts actually - and we talked of the lack of shrimp wile he made the odd thankless throw of his net (I just hang out and leave my gear in the truck mostly) and especially how he catches wild hogs with 'catcher pit bull dogs and his bare hands - they really do this - and I am sure he really does, but what a creep! Still, in life's mad apportioning of weirdnesses, and weird people, of I have always been a bit of a connoisseur of those - and sitting at that grubby area at 3.a.m with the wind blowing and a hopeful night heron watching us from the half shadows for a fish, I got full value. If not cheerful or uplifting though.

And I walk the outer harbor walls, cruse the bayous and bridges and boat launches - and beach naturally. A two hour runaround reacquainting my self with the night people, (and night birds, and sky, ocean, and bays) - that shrimp have brought out from their normal haunts - as they have me.