Category Archives: Personal Stories

Searching for Seafood

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halibut-oysters-lard

Here is my seafood feast of halibut and oysters both fried in pastured lard and topped with chopped pork belly from our pigs. The cilantro and celery salad is topped with homemade mustard seed dressing. If you are concerned about environmental contamination, having healthy gut flora is your first line of defense. The herb cilantro assists your body in removing heavy metals.

A month ago we had a busman’s holiday to Vancouver Island, BC. I wanted to take the opportunity to source some seafood from local suppliers. I found a number of sources I would like to share.

On our trip up island, Shaen and I stopped for breakfast at Mac’s Oysters in Fanny Bay, BC. We heated up our barbecue. We have found using a cast iron fry pan on the grill of the barbecue works well for frying eggs or oysters in Gort’s Gouda butter. (Yes, Gort’s Gouda is now making grassfed butter and we have it in stock.) We finished off the meal by lightly grilling some grassfed rib steaks from home. What a delicious breakfast. We bought 2L of Mac’s Oysters and feasted on oysters for days.

One of my daughters loves tuna but I am unhappy with the quality of the products I can get locally. As I was searching the internet I hit on Estevan Tuna which works out of Courtney, BC. They produce a whole line of canned Albacore Tuna which is processed in Nanaimo, BC at St Jean’s Cannery. St Jean’s Cannery has its own line of products too. What caught my eye about Estevan Tuna was they have canned tuna in certified organic extra virgin olive oil and sea salt. I talked to the fisherman about contamination and he told me that Albacore Tuna is considered safe at any quantity. He thought it was because Albacore Tuna are much smaller and harvested at a younger age.

st-jeans-sockeye

St Jean's Cannery is one of the last remaining canneries that does custom canning and smoking for sport fishermen. They also have their own line of canned seafood. Canned sockeye salmon is one of my favorite emergency foods. They are having a case sale on sockeye salmon right now.

Estevan Tuna also sells frozen-at-sea Albacore Tuna steaks. Shaen is very picky about fish and freshness. The fisherman gave us some frozen fillets which we ate raw later. The fish was fabulous. Shaen was so excited that he is planning to get some dry ice next trip and bring back the frozen Albacore Tuna fillets.

Our last seafood feast came from Shaen’s mother. Sarah is a very frugal householder and loves seafood. She mantains a crab trap in Pedder Bay, BC. When she was checking her crab trap, a fisherman came in with a 150 pound halibut. Sarah asked if she could take the waste materials. The fisherman gave her the head, offal, and skeleton. It is very unfortunate that our society doesn’t value these “waste parts” of the fish. Only the fillet is considered marketable.

I was so glad my girls got to see Sarah salvage the fish. When Sarah got home, she cut out the meaty cheek from the Halibut and cleaned off the extra meat. She salvaged about 20 pounds of meat. Then she made fish broth with the bones and offal. She decided to bury the fish head under a young Monkey Puzzle tree that she needed to plant. When we returned from up island we had an additional feast of halibut and crab.

tuna-oyster-butter

Highly nutritious food isn't cheap. Estavan Tuna in organic olive oil and sea salt is $4.75 per 170g can. Mac's Oysters are $12.00 per liter. Gort's grassfed butter is $6.00 per 250g container. It's sad that many people will pay $5.00 for a specialty coffee but $6.o0 for butter seems expensive.

Last winter we were looking for whole wild sockeye salmon. We found a Community Supported Fishery (CSF) working out of Vancouver, BC. Skipper Otto’s Community Supported Fishery is the only CSF in Canada. Due to restrictive processing regulations they can’t even vacuum pack the fish to make it last better. We got the frozen fish in the whole, but Shaen wasn’t happy with the freshness. In the future, we will make a special trip to the lower mainland and pick up the fresh whole fish. It makes me sad when food regulations become so onerous that people can’t even do basic processing to make the food last better.

dha-epa-mercury

If you are concerned about mercury but would like to increase your polyunsaturated fatty acids this chart may help. Source from Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization on the Risks and Benefits of Fish Consumption.

Urban Chickens: Part II

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GUEST POST by Maureen Lefebvre

chicken-house

This is the winter chicken house.

In Urban Chickens: Part I we had a bottomless box inching itself across the lawn, leaving behind decimated grass. Don?t be fooled ? chickens will do a lot of damage to your lawn. However, a pristine carpet of green was not what our goal was. Nutritious eggs and the stress-relieving joy of watching chickens scratch and peck was what we were after.

However, there was still the problem of the encroaching bad weather. The small coop wasn?t insulated and there wasn?t any way to get a heat source to it. My first thought was to plant it in one place and stack bales of hay all around it. This may have worked just fine. In the meantime, my teenage son (you remember the one who prefers pounding nails to writing essays?) really needed MORE. More time outside; more constructive/productive activity. So began phase two ? building an actual chicken coop.

Again much research went on online and on graph paper. Ultimately, in spite of my linear-thinking need to ?have a tried and true plan?, we went with his need to ?plan it all myself?. With the occasional help of his dad, teenage son went to work. We had a 5 foot by 5 foot ?floor? left over from another project, so that is the size we went with as a base. The thought was that 25 square feet was enough for three birds. In retrospect, I would have made it a little bigger to allow for flock expansion.

In order to make this experience as instructive as possible, the coop was built as if it was a mini house. My electrician son wired in for a thermostat, a light and a heat lamp. A heavy duty extension cord snakes across the lawn from the house to the coop. My son made a double nest box and roost. We have hatches out two opposite sides so that we can switch off the pen area each year to let one side lie fallow every other year. This cuts down on parasites (so I?m told). All the walls, floor and ceiling are insulated with recycled pink insulation. The plywood sheets and 2x4s were bought new but the window and the door came from the dump. The stripped down chicken tractor was added to the side to make an outside pen. For most of the time until the snow came, though, the hens had the run of the yard and spent many happy hours pecking at grass and having dust baths beside the rhubarb.

So we entered winter number one with three contented chickens in a cozy home having no cause to worry about snow or cold. However, as is customary with life, the following year threw in some surprises and things changed yet again.

chicken-perch-nesting-box

Here are the nesting boxes and perch. Chickens like to roost for the night.

chicken-water-feed

This is the inside of the winter house. There is a water pail to the left and dry feed to the right. The chicken door in the center can be opened during the day and closed at night.

Urban Chickens: Part I

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GUEST POST by Maureen Lefebvre

chicken-tractor-book

A permaculture guide to healthy hens, eggs and soil.

We left our beloved Pritchard homestead under less than ideal circumstances. Fifteen acres, river front, cows, chickens, hayfields, barn and shop. We had it all. The story of that parting is best told in person over a cup of hot tea.

We had made the decision to move into town, but my line in the sand was drawn. I WOULD have my chickens. And so began the search for the ideal house with the ideal bit of town property suitable for a backyard chicken coop. Internet searches and phone calls to city hall revealed that indeed, you needed to have at least one acre to have chickens. Deeper reading of past city council discussions brought up comments indicating that if neighbors didn?t pose a problem, bylaw officers wouldn?t come pounding on your door demanding to confiscate your birds. In any case, the house we ended up with is in rural Barnhartvale, on not quite one acre, with neighbors who are used to horses and dogs, bears and deer. A few chickens wouldn?t upset the ecological balance.

The problem now became what to house these birds in. Our previous property came with a father-in-law who was quite the handyman. He built a sturdy chicken coop and pen that served us well for years. However, he wasn?t making the move with us. So we began the three part journey to chicken ownership satisfaction ? a journey that hasn?t quite ended four years after we started.

My handy teenage son was recruited to build our first chicken home. We home school and this satisfied his love for carpentry, especially when he could be outside pounding nails instead of inside writing. Based on the concept by Andy Lee a chicken tractor was soon in the conceptual stage. After much discussion and pages of graph paper designing, we soon had a rectangular, floor-less box moving its way across our back yard. This box was 8 feet by 4 feet by 30 inches. One half was an open pen. The other half was closed in with an attached nest box and a roost. The water and food containers sat on the ground. Both halves had lift-able lids with handles. The lid of the open pen was chicken wire.

By moving the pen to fresh grass every few days this size was plenty for the three chickens that we acquired from a Vernon farmer. I chose to keep the flock to three so as to perhaps be a prototype for an urban chicken raising example should I ever take part in political action.

So there we were happily enjoying our fresh eggs every day. But winter was coming. How would we handle cold and snow?

chicken-tractor

The chicken box is not exactly as we originally built it. In the meantime we?ve gone on to something else and this has been adapted for a different use. But the basic idea can still be seen.

back-yard-eggs

The joy of an urban flock is happy hens, delicious eggs and healthy soil.

Dreaming in the New Year

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ek-christmas

My family enjoys making homemade gifts for friends and family. Just for fun we made eatkamloops.org labels for our gifts.

Back in December 2009, I wrote:
I dream about a world where my needs can be met without those needs costing someone else dearly. I dream about food that will nourish the body and community that will nourish the spirit. I dream about producing food for our families in a way that won?t cost ?the world”. I dream about a world where our children are surrounded by a caring loving community that thinks about our shared future.

How do we become more enlightened about our behaviors so we can live our dreams? How can we change our thinking so our actions will follow? Maybe we need to just ?buy into? a new vision. Of course, this vision isn?t new but very old. Maybe we need to learn how to tame our technology and harness our brilliance. All the answers are out there, we just have to apply them.

How are you dreaming in the new year?

Traditionally, these long nights have been for resting, watching for the signs, and planning the new year. Beyond the action of planning is the action of envisioning. Beyond envisioning is the act of creation.

Many powerful forces have been working on me these dark nights. I cannot say what these forces will bring in the new year, but 2012 looks to be a very special time.

erika-christmas-2011

Erika enjoying her Christmas morning. We are still trying to keep Christmas simple.

Here are my projects for this winter:
1. I am working through the ten week program as outlined in The Presence Process: A Journey into Present Moment Awareness by Michael Brown. I sit twice a day and just try to be present.
2. I am working through the Wilderness Awareness School’s Kamana courses. I have joined their 8 Shield Village Online Community which seems like an oxymoron to me, but who knows, maybe it will work. I have found a beautiful “sit spot” near my home in the industrial park. I am spending some nights in my tent getting used to cold Kamloops nights.
3. I am converting my synthetic clothing to natural products. I haven’t been cold since I found a pair of Danish army surplus wool pants. I am learning about weaving, felting and knitting. I am trying to learn the fiber making plants in my bioregion.
4. I am doing research. I am watching the signs which lead my research to sometimes strange and wondrous places. I have found a number of traditional patterns: trade cloth dress, capote, and moccasins. I am reading every book I can find about Tom Brown and trying out wilderness survival skills.
5. I have convinced the family to take three days off each week. We are going to spend the time up in Sunpeaks. I have never wanted to downhill ski but the hill is a great opportunity to get outside in high elevation. The exercise, fresh air, and time off is the salve my family needs at this time.

Lastly, I want to share what has moved me. Occasionally, I go the Birken in Kamloops events. This month Ajahn Sona spoke on making your life into an act of art. He talked about Joshua Bell playing in a Washington, DC subway and almost no one noticed. (I will link to the dhamma talk when it is available.) I loved his talk. I was moved to tears.

Lastly, I would like to share my sister Christine’s 2011 Solstice Greeting. Rest, watch for the signs, build an artful life and don’t worry if no one notices.

Taking a Break

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snow-caution

Sometimes it's best to stop and take a rest to avoid falling off a cliff.

I am taking a break from weekly posts at eatkamloops.org. I was wondering if any LOCAL people would like to do a guest post? A guest post can be about:

  1. discovering local, healthy food sources
  2. learning about traditional foods and food preparation
  3. experiences about cultivation of heirloom seeds and heritage breeds
  4. becoming aware of regional and national food security issues
  5. lobbying for freedom in food preparation and commerce

Back in February 15, 2009 I wrote a post called Vision of an Urban Homestead. Personally, I am still committed to this vision, but this vision needs to spread beyond the personal to the community to be successful. Here is my vision. Maybe it can be your vision too:

I see a city where in every neighborhood there is at least one person committed to knowing everything that is produced in the local area. That person would also be committed to teaching others how to produce a garden suitable for the local conditions and how to introduce animals and fowl into the urban landscape safely and without conflict.

Groups of people would join together to change local bylaws to bring local, unsprayed food and free-range animals back into our individual control. This means overturning laws that criminalize people for producing certain food and trading or selling to neighbors.

Groups of neighbors would exchange the bounty of their yards with other neighbors. This community of interested people would be committed to safe, nutritious and local food. There may be some foods that cannot be produced in the city and the community would support the local ranchers and farmers where possible.

There would also be members of the community that would not be interested or able to grow a garden or raise livestock. The ranchers and farmers would produce their food. The food the city person buys would keep the farmers and ranchers in business, along with keeping their knowledge alive for another generation.

I would like to see this structure spread from neighborhood to neighborhood, city to city and across the country.

sunpeaks

Here is a view from Mount Tod at Sunpeaks, BC. The best rest is with a view.