Taking lives

To someone who doesn't live this type of lifestyle, it might seem that we witness and instigate alot of animals deaths.  Well, to set the record straight, we do.  Its an integral part of living close to the land, and a basic responsibility in raising livestock, hunting/fishing/trapping, and providing for your family.

Today will see me harvesting chickens.  Last week found Ben guiding successful mountain goat hunters.  In August we had to put down our prize milking doe.  Spring witnessed me shooting livestock-killing dogs.  In winter, Ben traps all manner of fur bearing creatures.  And our main source of income comes from a big game guiding business. 

This is how we live.  We don't go to vets for euthansia, and we don't buy our meat from the grocery store.  Dogs that kill stock are not tolerated, even when they have been hand raised and loyal companions.  We eat much of what we harvest, supply less privileged members of our community with meat, feed all scraps to our chickens and goats and dogs, and return the rest to the wild- where bears and coyotes and birds quickly clean up the rest.

Its never pleasurable to take a life.  Sometimes its a relief, for both the shooter and the fallen.  Often its with gratitude, as we thankfully fill our freezers, pantry and bellies with the spoils.  And always its with respect, whether killing a bear or a marten, a sled dog or a hen... life and death are not small things.

You might wonder if its difficult.  Its not the killing that's the hard part.  Gearing up to do the job, is the hardest part mentally.   And dealing with the after effects is usually labor intensive and sometimes exhausting.  But its an honest way to live.

I suppose that this lifestyle is not for everyone.   No, there's no question about it, that in this day and age most folks don't desire this amount of personal responsibility in the natural balance of things.  And some have too tender of hearts to be able to follow through on the grittier details.

Heck, when I was 4 years old, I clearly remember my Grampa asking at the dinner table, "How do ya like Jake now?"  Jake was a holstein steer that I'd helped raise.  It was my first conscious introduction to the concept that we eat dead animals.  I immediately became a vegetarian... but it didn't last for long.

My 2 year old is intimately acquainted with the goings-on of farm life.  She understands that one moment an animal can be alive, and the next moment its life is over, and usually Mama or Dad or another animal is to blame.  She loves checking out the animals who fall victim to our blows.  She studies them intricately, tests all their parts, and exclaims over and over how beautiful they are.

I suppose it won't be that long before she is stepping forward to find her own niche in the process of harvesting lifestock and wild game.  To see the life fade from an unblinking eye, at your own hands, builds character and an intense attachment to taking good care of that which we have been given.  I don't wish her to hurry to that point of taking lives, but to come up to it aware and ready.  And she's certainly on the right course.

Moose encounters

LVMOOSE.  That's what my neighbors license plate says.  I love moose too, most of the time.  I especially like them when I have a freezer full of sweet fatty meat... and not so much, when the meat is smelly and lean.  Luckily, this year we were graced with the most amazing meat from a bull who was sporting 24 cows in his harem.  Thanks Neil.  Thanks for the meat and the memories.

Most years we prefer to eat wild sheep and goat and caribou and black bear, to supplement our salmon and home-grown chicken.  But this years windfall is a real treat, and a rare one.  Its not often that we get a fat moose, and even rarer to get one that's not smelly.  Yum, yum, yum.  Here's a photo of 25 pounds of chops from one backstrap, that I butchered and sent home with Neil to share with his family.

I can think of another reason to be not quite so fond of moose.  Its called early spring... when the sun is coming back in force, but there's a winters accumulation of snow.  The cows still have last years calves hanging around, and they're heavy with the new years babies.  

Travel is difficult once you get off the trail... and those long-legged moose don't want to posthole in the snow any more than you do.  Plus they're extra grumpy after a long, lean, cold winter... not to mention the awkwardness of the last months before giving birth.

You can never predict what a moose is going to do, but you can pretty much bet that in early spring you better watch out for those cows.  Three encounters come to mind... ones I'll never forget.

The first happened on a trail outside of Bozeman, Montana in the winter of 1994.  I was finishing my last semester in biology that year and went out for some wonder and exercise with my faithful dog, Sancho.  I came around a sharp bend on my skinny skis and there was a cow and calf... right there, maybe 15 feet away.  

There was no time to react as she came at me in full force, spit and snot flying out of her mouth... there was no way to get away, nothing to do but hold my ground.  I held out my ski pole like the sword of King Arthur and pointed it right at her rapidly approaching eyeball, and said "I'm not gonna hurt your baby!"

She approached within an inch of that lance, and just as quickly spun around.  So did I... at least as quickly as you can spin on skis.  That was enough excitement for me... back to the truck I went with my dog at my heels.

The next moose adventure came some ten years later.  I was walking down the trail from our cabin to our parking area, and a moose charged me from quite a distance.  I jumped off the trail and immediately fell in the soft snow, and she kept coming... until I was under her belly and just waiting for that first blow from her razor sharp hooves.  But it didn't come.  She too ran off, as quickly as she came.

I had to feel a little sadness for her... I recognized her as a cow that had been hanging around the area most of the winter.  A few days earlier she had gotten separated from her last years calf... a cute little bugger, who curled up and died under a spruce tree right next to the trail.  Poor heartsick mama.

The third and most recent memorable encounter happened that same spring... maybe 6 or 7 years ago.  Again I was walking down to the bottom of the mountain, and was almost to my Subaru.  There was a pretty wide plowed strip there, and a moose who didn't appear bothered by my approach- that is, until she was chasing me into my car.  If I'd have been a second or two slower, she'd have got me too.

Yeah, moose.  Ya gotta love em.  They're goofy and gorgeous and, I think, noble.  But you better watch out.  Whether you're driving on the highway, skiing in the backcountry, or walking a neighborhood trail... be on the lookout.  They can come out of nowhere and change your life in a heartbeat.

The old days

My husband and his family are really one of a kind.  And they've got hundreds of stories to tell to prove it.  Not many pictures though... cameras are one of those commodities that don't survive bush life very well- nor the photos they produce.  So the few pictures that have survived the decades of porcupine, marten and bear taking up residence in off-season cabins are precious to say the least. 

One such story that comes to mind, is one that Ben's mom tells about when he was just a wee one.  6 weeks after his birth, Debbie  flew back into the bush to the only cabin on their remote trapline... an 8x10 log job with a 4 foot high door and a dirt floor.  Ed had chopped enough wood to get her started, but wood goes fast when the temperatures drop below zero.

She bundled up the little guy as best she could and tied him from the purlins in a Johnny Jump-up.  And out she went to get more wood.  There was something wrong with the chainsaw and she couldn't get it started... so she was armed with a bow saw and an axe.

She picked a spruce tree not far from the cabin that looked to be easy pickins.  But it took most of the day to cut that tree and get enough lengths back to the woodpile to make a difference.  Every once in a while she'd duck into the cabin to check on her little one... usually to find him beet red and screaming... but also warm and safe.

She was doing what she had to do to keep them both alive, and an unattended warm baby is better off than a frozen mother and child.  It was to be another 6 weeks before Ed would buzz the cabin and airdrop a cheeseburger to her, unable to land because of airstrip conditions.  When he finally got back from hunting, he got an earful I'm sure.

In the midst of that first stint alone in the bush with a newborn, little Ben got sick with a high fever, and mama was worried.  There was no way to communicate with the outside world, and no way to get help except to spend a week walking out in dangerous ice conditions.  She chose to make a sign on the airstrip gravel bar out of driftwood stating SOS.

Unfortunately there was no air travel through that valley... no pilots to see her message.  So she did what every good mama does, and did the best she could.  With careful assistance, little Ben got better and didn't need a bush flight out.

Those were the days.  The funny thing is that nowadays its just as easy to get lost in the last frontier and live a life that is far removed from modern conveniences.  The cool part is that now we have satellite phones and take care to see that they are handy and in working order.  So its unlikely that I will face the same hardships in a remote camp with our kids.

But you can bet I plan to stay prepared and ahead of the game.  You never know when disaster can strike... the possibilities are endless.  A wrecked plane, a satellite phone gets wet, incapacitating injuries or illness, earthquakes... yep, its worth it to keep your wits about you and be thinking ahead.

There's alot of responsibility attached to the independence and freedom of this lifestyle, but living to tell the stories and hand down knowledge to your grandkids makes it all worth it.

Goat travels

It seems like I can barely remember my life before goats.  I definitely remember sitting at the bar of our local roadhouse, while some neighborly friends talked me into buying a milking doe from their cousins.  And it wasn't but a matter of days before I brought GiGi up the mountain.

Heh, I'd never milked a goat before... so I had to teach myself on the fly.  I mean, she had to be milked, and I had to be the one to do it.  Thus my milking style is different from anyone else that I've met... because I'm self taught.  It takes me two hands to milk one teat.  Crazy.

GiGi was a good girl.  We had our share of rodeos though.  At that time, my cabin was only 8x16, so I milked her on a bench outside the front door.  I'll have to try to dig up a picture somewhere.  I'll never forget the time that a Cessna pilot buzzed the cabin while I was milking, and GiGi about jumped out of her skin... spilling the milk jar and leaving milk EVERYWHERE.  

I was pissed and sped the 4-wheeler down to the local airstrip to give him a piece of my mind, but he'd left in his truck by the time I got there.  Word spread around the community though, so it got back to him... and I did, at a much later date, get an apology and a promise to abstain from future buzzing.

GiGi went with me on a road trip to McCarthy, which is road accessible bush living at its finest.  It was excellent!  Each family I visited traded me free meals/lodging for fresh goat milk... a sweet commodity for both me and them.  One morning I woke up and she was gone though, she had followed a neighbor on his skinny skis back to his house... and he let her sleep in her entry way.  I can't tell you how nervous I was, following her tracks in the snow- not knowing what I would find or where I would find her.  

Then there was the first time we took her down to the coast.  I guess it was a spring trip, to our remote camp on Prince William Sound.  She rode in the back of the truck down to Valdez, then in the backseat of our bushplane out to camp.  Ben couldn't bring both of us at once, so he left her there on the river bar with my father-in-law.  

GiGi had to swim the river to get from the airstrip to the cabin.  That was the first test.  The second came when Ed didn't tie her up after milking, and she ran to the top of the waterfalls cliff behind the cabin and screamed and screamed until I got home.  Then came step three.

We took off backpacking to one of our spike camps, and GiGi was trailing along like always.  We had to cross the creek (a small river, really) several times... and one of the crossings had a really fast moving deep channel that swept her downstream through a bunch of rapids.

But she fished herself out, ran back to the crossing point, climbed up onto a huge boulder, made this fantastic leap across the channel into the shallower water... and came bounding up to find us.  Seeing her fly through the air like that is etched in my memory for sure.

There's nothing like traveling in the backcountry with goats.  Its far finer than packing with dogs, thats without a doubt.  You don't have to pack their feed, they don't chase game or make a bunch of noise, and they don't try to shed their packs.  Plus the constant fresh milk, and the fact that they can carry alot...

Yeah, I'm addicted to goats.  I can barely imagine life without them.  I don't want to.  Goats are great.

About chickens

Yep, another typical day in the life... 5 fewer chickens in the yard and 10 more bird feet in the broth pot.  I'm still a relative novice at fowl husbandry- I guess this is the third year.  I first ordered hatching eggs from an eBay auction when I was 6 months pregnant with my little girl... and its been a real learning experience from there.  

That first year, my incubator hatch rate was pretty low.  Then when the chicks were about six weeks old, my sled dogs had a heyday and didn't leave too many survivors.  In fact, they killed every single one of the tiny meat chicks- and all but three of the pullets.  By winter, only one bird was left.

We called him the Aviator, and let him roost on a beam in the entry of our cabin.  Needless to say, it was quite a surprise when we found a nest of his eggs the following spring.  Now that was exciting stuff... to hatch a chick from an eBay egg, raise her in the cabin, and have her go on to lay gorgeous green eggs.

The Aviator is still with us... she doesn't lay many eggs anymore, and she's the closest thing to a jobless pet that we let hang around.  Her favorite roosting place is on the woodbox just outside the cabin door... though I'll probably forcibly move her into the coop when winter hits with all its fury.

I liked the Aviator so much, that I ordered more hatching eggs from the same farm the next year.  And I've been really pleased with her sisters too.  One of them went broody this summer when I was roosterless, so I bought 8 guinea hatching eggs from a gal on Craigslist... and 28 days later, she hatched every one of those keets.

Its my first year raising guineas, so I'm not sure how they fit into our lifestyle yet... but its been fun. Five remain, and are still growing.  I think there's 4 hens and a roo.  I intend to overwinter them, lock em up in the spring when they start laying, and put a big bunch of eggs under a broody chicken.

I like the idea of raising gamier type birds, but haven't had a huge amount of luck so far.  I lost all the turkey poults I picked up this summer, when they escaped overnight never to be seen again.  And I brought home a dozen guinea keets just a little younger than my own... only to feed them for two months and have them disappear into the wild.

Free-ranging livestock definitely has its challenges.  One would think that I'd have trouble with wolves, coyotes and foxes... but my biggest problem is with the hawks.  We live near a landmark string of cliffs with alot of nesting raptors, and it seems I lose around 25 percent of my flock to hawks.  

The guineas sure put up a ruckus when low-flying predators are scouting the area.  And there's not much that draws my attention faster than the guinea alarm, and chickens running for cover.  Aside from having alot of range shelters, there's not much to be done about the hawks.  If I didn't choose to live in such a jaw-dropping locale, there wouldn't be so darn much competition.

Of the 40 Colored Ranger day-old chicks that arrived in July, only 28 made it to harvest.  Some of those died early by accident or disease, but the lions share went to the hawks.  The ones that survived are some big birds though... tipping the scales at 8 pounds average dressed out.  And that makes a whole mess of chicken in the freezer.

I started canning chicken this year too.  Bone, skin and meat all goes into the jars... with a touch of apple cider vinegar and a pinch of sea salt.  100 minutes later, the most beautiful broth and tender meat is sealed into those jars, ready for a quick meal.  Gotta love home canned chicken.  Wow.

Yeah, alot of living and learning... this chicken adventure has brought.  Today's processing took only half the time that processing consumed in the beginning.  And that means more time to spend on other everyday chores... something like a penny saved is a penny earned.