Abalone Diving (or picking…)

Last Wednesday I discovered my new favorite activity: Abalone Hunting. I would call it diving, but what we did can not really be considered “diving”. I have been somewhat apprehensive about this sport ever since my first attempt when I was 17. That trip basically consisted of flailing around in a sea of kelp and realizing that I may drown. I never even saw an abalone until I was safely on shore and the adults started to come in with their harvest. There was no visibility due to the density of kelp in which I was constantly tangled, my wetsuit did not fit properly and I was freezing cold.

My inspiration for food independence, Michael Pollan briefly mentions abalone diving in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. However, but dismisses it as too dangerous. What a puss. He instead chooses to sit on his ass in the forest with a large gun waiting for a small pig to come by. Not that I really have any problem with that, but it just doesn’t seem quite sporting.

That reminds me of the greatest hunting method ever. It was devised by my dad’s brother who lives in Minnesota and relies on venison for the majority of his family’s meat. He owns a lot of hunting land and in one particular area he plants a few acres of corn every year. The last time I saw it he had planted this great new kind of corn that could was immune to Round-up which he thought this was just great. The corn was so green and beautiful and everything else in the entire field was dead- it was both scary disgusting. I guess it is a dream-come-true to some farmers if they can ignore the fact that Monsanto has made a two-fold killing by patenting their seeds (which requires a farmer to buy new seeds every year or risk being sued for planting seeds they do not technically own) and selling their Round-up poison… but I digress. For a brief overview of Monsanto’s misdeeds I recommend this Vanity Fair article: Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear Politics: vanityfair.com.

This hunting method consists of: planting a couple acres of corn; not fencing it; letting the deer get fat; and building a couple of stands up in the trees surrounding the field. When hunting season begins you get up early in the morning, make a thermos of coffee and go lay in a sleeping bag on one of these stands with a shotgun until an unsuspecting buck walks into the corn field for their daily meal. This method is so effective that one of my cousins once killed four deer in just a few minutes with one load of his shotgun (six shells, I believe). Some people may think this goes against the idea/challenge of hunting, but I can’t imagine a much more efficient way to gather meat.

Back to abalone hunting, which is much less plentiful than venison and hence one of the most expensive delicacies of the sea. The Red Abalone found in California has been subject to serious poaching and over-harvesting leading to a prohibition of commercial abalone hunting. A brief internet search shows that you can purchase farmed abalone for the bargain price of $75 per pound.

I have been talking with my co-worker Ryan for a couple years about going with him on one of his trips down to the Mendocino coast and finally made it happen. I was invited last year, but scheduling did not work. Part of that may have been the fact that he likes to leave at 4:00 in the morning in order to be there by sunrise. I had already committed to going when he told me that we were meeting at 3 am. Shit…

I woke up at 1:50 and was only three minutes late to the meeting place- people who know me should find that extremely impressive. We arrived at the overlook slightly before 6:00 and quickly gathered our gear. It was still dark but there was a hint of morning in the grey overcast sky. We hiked along the beach for a couple miles at a very slow pace. There were stream crossings and large boulders to navigate and the hike took us the better part of an hour.

We stopped at a spot that looked just about like everywhere else we had spent the last hour walking past. Ryan declared this “the spot” and we began suiting up. There were four guys in our party and we were going to be doing a “modified rock pick” due to the fact that three of us were complete novices. This meant we would not actually be diving to find the abalone, rather walking around in water up to shoulder deep a feeling under large rocks for the reclusive mollusks. This method helped alleviate the fear of sharks felt by a couple members of our group. Luckily, I do not share this somewhat irrational fear.

My only real fear was that my surfing wetsuit would not be adequate for prolonged exposure to the cold water. I have no problem surfing year round in the icy water up here, but in surfing so much time is spent out of the water that there is time to warm up. I had been told by at least three different people that I was going to freeze my ass off. This was not the case- my 5 millimeter Xcel performed beautifully, and I am certain my suit was infinitely more comfortable that the 7-8 millimeter farmer John dive suits everyone else had. They reminded me of Ralphie’s little brother in A Christmas Story when his mother dresses him for playing in the snow.

As we entered the water Ryan said he wanted to show us what an abalone felt like and proceeded to reach under a rock. He found one on his first try. It looked so easy and I was completely amazed. I was thinking he had taken us to a place where we would all reach our limit within minutes, but it turns out he just got lucky. Ryan is an amazing guide, but nobody could do that repeatedly. The limit on these creatures is three per day and 24 per calendar year, and all must be at least 7 inches long.

It took about ten minutes before he found another one. When he finally pried it from its rock he asked me to go set it on a large rock where it would not be washed off by a wave. I found an appropriate rock and then thought that I should feel under it… I FOUND ONE! It wasn’t huge and it took me almost five minutes to release it from the rock, but it was legal.

The tide was very low (-1.7 feet) and the swell was almost nonexistent (1-2 feet), so it was perfect conditions for rock picking. After finding one my confidence was up and I decided to brave the rocks out further where the waves were breaking. Ryan had warned me that whenever you find a good one, a wave will immediately crush you… Turns out he was right. I was out on the rocks that were directly exposed to the waves and felt what seemed like a huge one. As I was feeling it and thinking how to remove it from this rock, a wave picked me up and washed me up onto the rock. Apparently this is one of the ways people die doing this. This one was just deep enough that I could not reach it without putting on my mask and snorkel and submerging my head. The waves were constantly beating me up against the rock and filling my snorkel with water, but after a long battle I finally figured out how to pry the thing off the rock. It was huge- it measured 9 ¾” and was the largest one found that day. Pulling it out of the water and seeing that it really was as big as I imagined was such a thrill. I ended up finding one more and achieved my limit of three. That was actually kind of a disappointment because I was having so much fun, but I was so happy to have been successful. I did lose my snorkel when a wave crashed over me, but that has already been replaced. I also purchased fins so I can actually dive for them in next time. The three abalones provide multiple meals for me and a couple friends. I also gave one to my mom and put one in the freezer for a friend’s visit this coming weekend. Hopefully conditions will allow for another trip here in the next week or so.

Anyone who reads this and has any interest in trying this activity should let me know. Ryan is a professional fishing and hunting guide and for a reasonable price will take people out on guided trips.

These amazing creatures also have incredibly beautiful shells…

happy valentine’s day from my hens!

Since my last post life in the chicken coop has improved dramatically. The work that Chris and I did in October has created a secure environment for my hens.

I returned a few days ago having spent most of January camping in Baja again. I had a great trip once again, though none of my reading led to any revelations like the Omnivore’s Dilemma last year. I have not been as dedicated to the process of food independence as had hoped. I eat mostly local and organic thanks to the great local grocery stores as well as friends and family with gardens. The fact remains that I live on a rocky hillside in the forest. The forest did provide a couple meals worth of hedgehog mushrooms around Christmas and I have found a few more spots around my house where they grow. But, I do not live somewhere that lends itself to gardening.

All my life I have been blessed/cursed with a ridiculously wide variety of interests. This is what drives me to begin so many projects. This is also why I have so many ongoing projects in various stages of completion. Camping on a beach in Baja, where there is nothing to do besides surf, read and play guitar (well, we had beer and food too), there is a lot of time for reflection. I decided that I want to build my own electric guitar from scratch (a topic for another blog?), that I want to try and own some rental properties so in 30 years I have sources of income without debt, and maybe I should start playing music in a band again. I contemplated a wide variety of other intricate projects that would be both challenging and fun. I also thought about this blog and the overall project behind it. I wondered if my stupid hens would start laying eggs once it warms up this spring. I have mixed feeling about my success: I got a hunting license, cleaned my rifles, but did not manage to go hunting. Again, this is due to the fact that I have too many things going on and that deer season was too short. I spent an insane amount of time and money and almost 20 chickens gave their lives to the chicken coop experiment.

I was half-expecting the hens to have all perished in my absence. Thankfully, I had someone looking after them and they seemed healthy and happy when I first checked on them. They were getting low on food, so I picked up another bag of laying pellets yesterday. This morning I went to fill their feeder. While opening the bag, I caught a glint of something shiny in a dark corner of the coop. I opened the door wider to provide more light:

Oh… my… god… there was a cluster of eggs!

I stood still in shock for a moment. Was I dreaming this whole thing? I went over to the corner and started picking them up until I had a total of seven. In the dead of winter hens are not even supposed to lay- especially without a heat lamp. I guess the fact that we had the most beautiful month of the last year while I was on vacation in January helped. Thank you global warming, my hens definitely appreciated it! My initial feeling was pure elation with a tinge of disbelief. What if my hen sitter had put some eggs in the coop to try and show them how it’s done? I immediately called him and was informed that they had the “laying program all figured out”. Well good work ladies! Unfortunately I already had eggs (expensive store-bought organic) for breakfast this morning. Tomorrow’s breakfast will be truly glorious!

fearfull chickens do not lay eggs…

Last week one of my best friends, Chris came to visit from North Carolina with his wife and their 15 month-old daughter, Norah.  He was very excited for Norah to see my chickens as she is completely infatuated with animals. The morning they were arriving, I checked on the chickens to find that some clever animal had burrowed under the board surrounding the coop and left me a well-cleaned chicken carcass. I am so glad that I checked on them before showing off my chickens to the visitors- it would have been terrible if the kid’s first view of my chicken coop included such carnage. It was also fortunate that Chris was around for a few days to help me pour a concrete perimeter around the entire coop. I really hope this takes care of my predation issues. While mixing bag after bag of concrete, we discussed the idea that I may have to give up on the pursuit of home grown eggs if I continue to lose birds after all this effort. I am quite stubborn by nature, but if I lose one more hen I should probably just cut my losses and eat the remaining two. At least that way I will have obtained two meals from this whole “chicken project”.

A discovery made recently at the Farm Store is that my hens are defective in the egg laying department. Their sisters who came from the same batch of chicks have been laying for around two months- many eggs per week. This disgusts me. The leading hypothesis is that my hens refuse to bring chicks into a world where death is lurking right outside the coop…

End of summer update

Winter arrived early this year: it rained though most of last night and was a brutal reminder that I have not yet obtained firewood. This summer has been amazingly busy and productive. I finally completed the monumental task of building the brick wall inside my house. The wall had been my greatest obstacle and excuse- it was the reason I did not have a second bathroom and that my living room was a perpetual construction site. Five of my close friends came to spend a long weekend with me in August and I managed to finally enclose the bathroom the night before they arrived. It is difficult to express the magnitude of this accomplishment- I finally believe that I can finish building my house.

The summer’s big event was a pig roast to celebrate visiting friends and the near-completion of my house. I obtained a local organic pig from the Alexandre Family Dairy up in Crescent City. We roasted the pig for about 9 hours before we became impatient and pulled it off the spit. A few more hours were probably necessary to have the meat tender enough to fall off the bone. The meat tasted good, though slightly lacking in flavor (we only managed to brine it for a few hours), and those who are squeamish about rare meat (especially pork) were not particularly excited as they watched us carve up the beast. The result is that I have a freezer full of wonderful pork and many containers of pork stock. My friend Jullia was motivated enough to make stock after most of the guests had left and I was breaking down the carcass. After what seemed like hours of carving up the pig and helping finish off a keg of Steelhead Extra Pale, I was completely done dealing with the pig and very grateful for the help.

Since my last chicken update, life in the chicken coop has been generally peaceful. I did track down three more birds and for a few days had a total of six birds. This peaceful time of the even half-dozen lasted only a few days. Apparently a raccoon had been casing the coop and discovered a weak point under the door. Checking on the ladies one morning I found five of them huddled in a corner of the outside area and the Golden Sexlink missing. The group usually moves around together, and I had a sinking feeling as I went inside their house… It was utter carnage- blood spattered on the walls, feathers everywhere, a couple feet, and a beak.  The savage coon sat on their roost and ripped the poor hen to pieces and enjoyed what was surely a lovely feast.

I closed every gap smaller than an inch in the house and checked on them constantly for a week. So far, the coop has proven to be raccoon proof and it has been well over a month. The ladies are not laying eggs yet but have reached the age at which they should start soon. A friend recently told me that if they don’t start laying before winter they will wait until next spring. I am really hoping they will pull it together and give me some eggs in the next few weeks, though I am not filled with confidence now that it feels like winter.

raising chicks- take 2

I have finally obtained new chickens. This wonderful girl at the Farm Store had three she was willing to let go. They are roughly the same age mine would be right now if I lived in a world without raccoons and foxes, or had built an adequate coop the first time. On my way to go meet her and check out her girls, I told my favorite helper at the plumbing store that I needed a ten and two fives because I was about see a lady about some chickens- he said that was too much information and asked me not to elaborate (apparently seeing a lady about some chickens is considered funny even in this rural corner of California). In addition to these three new birds, I have a line on some Ameraucanas to replace ones that I lost. They were the hens I was most excited about because they are both beautiful and lay greenish-blue eggs: quite impressive.

I hesitated to announce that I had new chicks until they survived at least a couple nights, but I am now feeling confident enough to share this development. I reinforced the bottom of the coop with 2×6 boards all around and so far there have been no digging attempts by predators. These new hens appear to be smarter (or better trained) than my first batch. I never saw proof that the original 10 knew how to move between the inside and outside regions of their domain. The new three explored the inside within two minutes of being placed in the outside part of the coop. Maybe these have better survival instincts as well and would at least put up a fight if a predator breached the walls of their compound. I only saw evidence that one bird put up any fight during the slaughter of the original 10. About five feathers on the ground… the other nine must have just laid down and given themselves to the coons. I can’t imagine that these new birds are really more intelligent than my others, so I am crediting the savvy of their previous owners. Oh, how I dream of a day when I am chicken-savvy enough to teach these birds to move between inside and outside.

As Tobin accurately mused, I have become an Omnivore Avec Dilemma, but am hopefully in the process of remedying that. I have been busy with work and building projects around the house and have let procuring my own food slip down on my list of priorities. The loss of my 10 chickens was also devastating to the whole endeavor, but the original point of the exercise was to document my successes AND failures. As with life, the successes are just more fun to share… My hope is that this will mark the resuscitation of my gradual move towards self-sufficiency.

no more chickens

While in San Diego I learned that none of my chickens survived my absence. Reports from home indicate that a raccoon was probably the culprit. I thought that I had secured their coop, but apparently not well enough… It sounds like they found a weak point where the wire meets the building and wasn’t buried deep enough (it was 6-8 inches deep all around).

I am obviously very disappointed but I guess it is what I get for leaving during an important transition for the chicks. My hope now is that the girl from the Farm Store who had extra chickens will sell me a few of hers. I will first do some thinking and determine if I am responsible enough to have my own chickens.

a new home for my ladies!

I am feeling like an irresponsible parent. I finally completed the coop and moved my hens outside this afternoon- and then left town for a two week trip. Two people will be checking on them, but I’m feeling nervous and guilty. They seemed to like their new habitat, but were definitely apprehensive about the major change. If you saw the date on my last post, I was estimating that they would be out of the house within a week- that was almost two weeks ago. Last weekend a friend helping me with a project coined the term “jesstimate”. It refers to an extremely optimistic estimate regarding length of time it will take to complete a given task. At first I was kind of offended, but I think it might be true.

They were initially placed in the outside portion of the coop and huddled in a corner for a while before tentatively exploring a few feet away out. They never were brave enough to make it to the far side where their food and water were located. I was worried that they would not realize that they could enter the attached structure so I carried them inside and placed them on the roost. They were so paralyzed that the just stayed right where I put them.

A little while later and a couple of them had ventured off the roost and were walking on the board beneath. I decided that they were never going to figure out that they had the option of going outside, so I took one of the Buff Orpingtons and put her partway out the door. I left and came back in ten minutes and she was still standing there in the exact same place looking terrified. Apparently calling someone “chicken” actually has some basis in reality.

It still appeared that the chickens on the roost were never going to explore their new world. This worried me because their food and water are both outside and I would hate for them to all die from dehydration and thirst because they weren’t smart enough to walk out the open door. My solution was to shove each one through the hole so that they at least understood that they can move from inside to outside (when I moved them to the roost initially I walked them around the outside of the building and through the human door not the chicken door, so they probably had not made the connection between outside/inside). They did not seem to enjoy being shoved through the opening and there was much squawking and flapping, but I successfully forced them through the hole.

I left with them all huddled in a different corner of the outside part of the coop. I feel ok about it since there is plenty of food and water outside, so even if they get cold because they can’t figure out that they can go inside, they won’t die of thirst. I really hope they have made the connection between the two different parts of their new world, but they are not appearing to be the brightest creatures.

On a financial note, I thought that this project would yield “free” eggs. I don’t even want to think about how much I have spent of the chicks, their food, and accessories for their new habitat. I was at the Farm Store yesterday getting them “teenager” food and talking to the girl there who has 27 chicks right now. She said that she will be selling some of them for $4 each and I pointed out that she has already invested much more than that in each chick. She admitted that was true and I mentioned that I used to think that this project would provide cheap eggs, but I’m pretty sure I will end up paying about $8 per egg. An older lady in line laughed at me and adamantly agreed.

The coop was built using almost exclusively scrap materials. I bought five fence posts, three 20 foot 2x6s, one roll of chicken wire, some plumbing fittings, and some latches for the doors. I should probably calculate exactly what my expenses have been to this point, but it would disheartening and as a guy at a Nilsen Feed Company told me: “It isn’t about getting cheap eggs- it’s about knowing where your food comes from”. I couldn’t agree more.

On a livestock note: two houses down the road from my mom’s is a family doing some small scale farming. They own Organic House Construction and have built the most incredible mobile sheep pen. This picture is across the road from their house. It looks like the thing is moved every couple days and the sheep always have fresh grass. It’s a miniature model of Joel Salatin’s pasture rotation (their property is probably about one acre). I think my mom is secretly enamored with the thing and harboring dreams of having a mobile sheep pen in her field next year. I will be there to help her fulfill those dreams.

coop progress

The chicken coop is happening and I will get those gals outside this week if everything comes together. Yesterday I finished the nesting boxes and have the posts in the ground for the outside portion. It has been a unique challenge to make this project as inexpensive as possible. My property is littered with construction leftovers and I had it in my head that I would be able to turn this dilapidated shed into a coop for free, but that has not exactly been the case.

In general I am very particular about the quality of my work. That has been a good thing in construction of my house (though possibly part of the reason that I live in an unfinished house) but I have had to adjust my standards for this coop. It has actually been kind of fun. I am using scraps of lumber and plywood that are lying around and it leads to an interesting style. We could call it “Humboldt Rustic”. I have seen houses in this area adopt the same construction methods, so it is apparently an acceptable practice…

My dad was so cheap that working with him was impossible for me. I saw him hire people to work on building an addition to his house, but not be willing to buy nails because there plenty of used ones around. In order to avoid the waste, he would basically pay people to straighten nails. This addition is still not finished and it was started sometime around 1998, though my sister and her husband will eventually finish it. He would be proud of this construction project, and luckily I have enough new nails leftover from my house that I can work efficiently. He would probably view my use of nails as gratuitous waste, but we have always been different in that respect.

House picture included to show that I do know how to build something nice. The coop will never achieve this level of completion.

gifts from my dad

Going through hunter’s safety training has had me thinking about my dad a lot lately. Last Saturday I felt connected to him while using the .22 that he gave me so long ago. I know it seems funny to feel connected to a loved one while using a firearm, but it really was the case. The hunting rifles that he left are just one element of my ability to be self-sufficient that I owe directly to him.

I have been feeling humbled recently- mostly thinking about my dad and the fact that he provided me with such incredible opportunities. So many of the things I treasure in life are gifts directly from him: the land where I have built my house, the ranch where I am building a cabin, much of my college education, the year I lived in France, my endless desire to learn, my love of reading, my distrust of the establishment, and the fact that I am happy to marinate a steak in mustard. I marinated a flank steak in balsamic vinegar and Sierra Nevada mustard the other night and it had thinking of him (and the steak was fantastic)… This is a classic photo of him back in 2006 when we planted my orchard- note the travel mug, undoubtedly full of Pabst.

My dad was not an unmitigated blessing, as anyone who knew him will understand. Last Fall I felt overwhelmed by some of the burdens that he left. So many people depended on him and I felt that I was expected to carry on his generosity. I do not have his ability to give endlessly. So many people also took advantage of him and I have gone out of my way to protect myself from that- to the point that some probably view me as exceedingly self-interested. It has meant severing ties with some people who he considered friends and definitely pissing some people off, which has been difficult but a necessary part of moving on.

The result of last Saturday at the range is that I passed an approved California Hunter Education Program. I could go get a license now, but they are only valid through June. There are also not many hunting opportunities at this time of year, so I am going to wait until July to finally get my license.

and the test score…

95 out of 100.

Impressive right? I still almost failed. Besides the 100 multiple choice questions, you had to write out the Ten Commandments of Firearm Safety.

While my test was being graded, I was standing off to the side as four instructors reviewed and discussed amongst themselves… I could see there was concern but had written down a full Ten Commandments. As I stood there I remembered that there was one involving obstructions in the barrel which I had omitted. Commandment Four: Be sure the barrel and action are clear of obstructions and that you only have ammunition of the proper size for the firearm you are carrying. I ran over to the instructor and told him I forgot the commandment regarding obstructions in the barrel. He said “Alright, I knew you had it. We’ll see you at the range on Saturday!”

Saturday at the range I get to practice with the old .22 that my dad gave me for a birthday sometime around the age of 10. I was so excited when he gave it to me and proudly told my mom when I got back to her house. Much to my dismay, she informed me that there would never be a gun in her house. It stayed with my dad until just a couple years ago. He gave it to me again once I finally moved into my own house, but I haven’t had a chance to shoot my Marlin Firearms Model 60 since I was a kid. Hopefully it still works and the skill of my youth is still with me.