Spawn camp

After two years of schooling I have landed a pretty wicked summer job. I will be working out at Echo lake for the summer at the provincial fish hatchery. Lake side living and fishing every single day. Close enough to Regina to take in everything worth going to but far enough away to stay out of trouble. Right now we are full on involved in spawn camp. This year we are capturing fish in live net traps on Pasqua lake. Here we are mostly after ripe female walleye but have been taking the odd northern pike as well. What we are doing is taking the eggs from the females, adding sperm from the male walleye and taking them back to the hatchery to rear them under controlled conditions. At the hatchery we are able to obtain around a 60-70% success rate with the eggs while in the wild it may be closer to 1%. When the fry hatch they are taken throughout the province and released in waters that need help with their walleye populations. You might as well call me a fish jerker offer. There is often a lot of by-catch in the nets. Sometimes this can be a real bother like when you have to search through 1500 one pound carp to find twenty female walleye but sometimes you get to see some pretty cool fish specimens. In here there is a picture of a channel catfish, the biggest one any of these fishery biologists have seen in the province and likely bigger than the Saskatchewan angling record. We did not weigh or measure it, perhaps we should have. My coworkers believe that a lot of cat fish found their way through the qu'appelle valley from the assinaboine river during the high water last year. Here is a little video of my coworkers sorting through the fish, looking for the ones that are ready for some action.

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Done with the trailer... for now

Well I have retired the trailer. At least until another day anyway. I have shipped it with loving care up to Smeaton Saskatchewan where I hope to one day purchase land. A friend from school documented the past two years of my life living at the trailer and it can be seen here.

Have you even been out for a walk in the bush and thought you heard the sound of a two stroke engine firing up, even though you know you must be the only human around for miles. Low and behold, it was not a two stroke engine, it was the mighty ruffed grouse. This guy kept me up at night with his constant attempt to get laid(every four minutes the males do this during the breeding season, almost as often as I wink at cute girls on friday nights). I snuck up on this guy not 100M from my camper. It took a lot of slow walking to get there without scaring him off, but I managed to get pretty close. Strangely the camera did not pick up the sounds. My guess is the sound is to low? Here it is

Don't show this to PETA

We had a pet northern pike (Esox Lucius) at school. Strictly for scientific purposes of course. Sadly through our studies we found out that confinement is not conducive to the survival of the northern pike. He recently passed on to fish heaven after about 6 months of being our friend.

What is a house without a kitchen table?

One day when I build my own house from the ground up it is going to have a very simple design. The entire house will be built around a single object, the kitchen table. Gone seem to be the days when company crowds around the eating area to discuss politics, strum the guitar or to just play cards and smoke. Now people crowd around the idiot box, fixated on whatever meaningless show of the day is on. I wish to change this. Conversation is the fruit of human relationship.

For five years I have lived without a kitchen table in my house (I have one in my trailer but what is the function of it if the company is lacking). Now I will attempt to build one... The most beautiful table your eyes will ever behold! In my house it will sit, where once a wall stood.

One of my instructors owns a saw mill so I explained to him my predicament. Low and behold Carrier Lumber sells him their over sized logs. I went on out and chose a strikingly gorgeous tamarack. We put er threw and it ripped er in half. Now I have two 8 foot long lengths 2 inches thick and 20 inches wide with intact bark on the exterior sides. Try buying that at the hardware store. YOU CAN'T.

Canoeing March 16th?

March 16th. After a long day of fucking around and encountering vehicle troubles with Joe, we finally pushed away from our troubles around 5PM. The day had been extremely frustrating. We were stranded at the intersection of Broad and Victoria for at least an hour and then got stuck again in the the truck at the Liquor store parking lot. Thankfully Joe and I have creative instincts and we managed to pass the time stuck in traffic making up "Truck" tunes, rolling down the windows and singing the blues at the top of our lungs to anyone that would listen. To top things off we had someone bail out on us at the last minute and were not nearly ready to go when Brett got off work.

The events of the day however made pushing off that much more enjoyable. It was time to forget about life for a while. During the first twenty minutes of paddling we saw a total of four mink just outside the city limits. Definitely a good omen for the trip. Over the course of the next two days we would see a handful of white tail deer, beaver, muskrat, a nesting great horned owl, migrating snow and Canada geese and even the occasional migrating mallard.

The ice had not yet broken up and instead the water was flowing on top of the ice, forcing the solid mass to sit on the bottom of the creek. In a few places where the ice had heaved, it had let go and we got to battle with the odd iceberg. Compared to last years flow though this was pretty tame. Last year the water ran at 80cubic meters per second whereas this year it was flowing at only 8cubic meters per second.

St. Patrick's day was spent getting a sun burn drinking pilsner on the river pretending to be pirates. I was in bed by nine. Don't really have any regrets spending the evening with two good friends and a couple hound dogs rather than chasing pretty girls at the bar.

Picture credits:
Pic 1) Me trying to ride an iceberg.
Pic 2) The river leaves eerie things when it floods its bank.
Pic 3) Buffalo rubbing rock.
Pic 4) He is new at the whole swimming thing.

Hangin out in da bush

Is there anything better? Nope. Three men, one cabin, one dog, a box of homebrew, an endless expanse of wilderness. Makes for a great weekend. This is Boyd's hunting cabin/eventual living quarters. There is always a lot of talk about people wanting to live off the land and do their own thing but I never see much action. Boyd will actually do it in the near future. I hope I will not be far behind. There is something truly enduring in chopping down a tree, splitting the wood, lighting the fire and cooking last fall's venison sausage on the cookstove. I could get fully used to it.

Me and a pal have been throwing around the idea of operating a christmas tree plantation so that we have an excuse to buy some land up here. Fifty grand for a quarter section? feels like theft.... Research is currently in full effect.

My new friend

It is the time of the year when muskrats start to get frozen out of their pushup holes. Muskrats create a big pile of vegetation that is similar to a beaver lodge. With the insulating factor of the push up and the constant activity of the muskrat, the hole to the slough usually remains open. This summer I believe the muskrats became a little bit over optimistic with all the water everywhere. Driving accross the province it is not uncommon to see pushups from the summer in the middle of what is now a very dry slough. With the shrinking of the water table I think the ice made it down to the mud in many watering holes, trapping the muskrat out of the water. Some years it just gets so damn cold in the winter that even with a high water table, the ice will freeze down to the mud forcing the muskrat to leave or die of starvation.

When the muskrat is forced from his home it goes out trecking. Why? I don't have the answer to that. Maybe it believes it will find the Big Rock Candy Mountain, where the sloughs are always open and full of the tastiest carrots and the beaver make hats out of humans.

I stumbled upon this little guy far from any slough. He let me get pretty close. I hope he made it but most likely he became coyote bait.

Clint approves

Clint approves of this. I wanted to try doing something with my moonshine so we will see what happens.

I also recently stumbled upon an old oak barrel that was laying around at a Friends place from when his father used to make swish. Swish is made by taking an old whiskey barrel, filling it with water and waiting for the water to extract all the old alcohol from out of the wood. Hillbilly delight.

Time to char the barrel and start on some moonshine i guesse.

Present?

Not sure who left me this? maybe just a feral cat?

Wildman skills

Songs

Some of the kids from my school did a little live recording of some songs I played at the library last month. Here it is.

I'm not claiming to be old and knowledgeable but there was certainly a time in my life when I was less old and less knowledgeable

I'm not claiming to be old and knowledgeable here but there was a time, and it really was not that long ago, where I was less old and certainly less knowledgeable. When I decided I wanted to take up harvesting my own meat, I really had no idea how I was going to go about this once I passed the examination. I thought about who I knew that hunted and it occurred to me that no one that I spent a lot of time with at the time did much hunting. I did however recall a good old friend,(one of those guys you will forever be able to trust) Brett King, who loved to hunt. So the evening after I passed my course I gave his Mom a call. Brett and I were friends in the age where you had to memorize phone numbers.......and I can still recall that number today. I asked his Mom for his cell number and I gave him a call keeping in mind I had not seen him for a couple years

"So Brett, long time no talk. What have you been up to? I passed my hunting course today.... are you doing any hunting at all this season"
"What are you doing tomorrow morning"
"Well nothing actually"
"Good! Meet me at the North McDonalds parking lot at 6:30AM and we will head out"

Boy was I excited! my first hunting excursion. This story however is not about that trip. During that day though Brett invited me to come moose hunting with him and some other guys that would become good friends of mine. First though he would have to run it past them. While I am sure they were a little hesitant to bring along a recent carnivore convert (I had given up eating meat for a time before that), they did eventually agree to let me come along.

Story 1:

After loading up hundreds of pounds of gear onto the three wheelers we slowly sauntered deep into the bush. Very deep into the bush. The kind of deep where the crazy old Ukrainians pass through on their odd excursion, offering you words of wisdom on moonshine, star gazing and muskrat stew. On our way through the bush, we happened on a very aesthetically pleasing plot of land just below the quad trail at the side of a river. NOW, forever note that bush camp locations should not be chosen based on aesthetics. You are not trying to match the fucking drapes with the evergreen backdrop. Bush camp locations should be chosen based on practicality. Here is the deal, the bottom of a valley sees the least amount of sun so you spend most of your time in the dark, and when it starts to pour.... guess where the rain goes. Right down the quad trail where there is no vegetation to stop it. We were young, and not so knowledgeable.

I have to explain the tent here for those of you that are not familiar with the workings of a canvas tent. A canvas tent is a big tent that you can stand up in and this one could fit 5 or 6 men and their cots. There is no bottom to the tent and usually there is a hole for a chimney so you can keep warm if you bring a small wood stove. It is kind of like a teepee for white people. We never really caught onto the whole concept of the power of the circle except when it comes to propelling us down the highway.

Now remember.... this is November. I am not saying it was a particularly cold November, but alas, it was still a November. We were slightly prepared, but as I stated before, there was a time in my life where I was younger and much less knowledgeable.

On about the second day it started to pour. And I mean it fucking poured. We were out hunting and when we came back there was a river running right smack through the middle of our tent. Not only that but the river was pooling in the south east corner of the tent where a young lad had made his sleeping quarters. We were wet and cold and had hoped to come back to a dry tent. This would not be the case. Certain member of the party began to panic as the realization set in that we would not be getting dry any time soon. Civilization was thirty miles away and we had just enough gas to get one rusty old three-wheeler back to the parking lot by the time it would get dark out, that is if we could even make it up the slick quad trail to begin with. We began to worry about what to do and talks were being formed on contingency plans of how to get our sorry selves back to the vehicles. The dark recesses of my mind began to overcome all positive thinking, when suddenly I had a revelation, a brain wave if you will. I would construct a ditch. The river would be diverted and the pool at the back would be drained. I would cut spruce bows for those that had been sleeping on the previously dry ground and perhaps we would be okay after all. I took stock of the tools at hand.... an axe and...... yup that was it. So I flipped the axe head upside down and began to dig. And fuck me if it didn't just work pretty darn swell. By the time the clouds darkened with night the river had been diverted, the pool partially drained and the warm glow of the camp stove was slowly washing away the disheartened thoughts we had shared only hours before. I can't say we ended up completely unscathed from the event. The youngest member of the party took sick and ended up staying in bed for a number of days while the rest of us went out to have fun.

Story 2

While there was a time in my life where I was young and less knowledgeable, there was also a time in my life where I was young, less knowledgeable and far more broke than I am now. To get up moose hunting we had one truck and trailer and one 1989 Volkswagen Jetta. On the way up we were able to put most of our belongings into the trailer, but the way back was a vastly different story. I had come with Brett in the Jetta and while moose hunting, Brett's dog took sick and it was necessary that we get back to the city and prudently get him in to see a veterinarian. This posed a problem. How were we going to get myself, Brett, his dog, all of our gear and two field dressed deer back to Regina. Well we only had one option of course, and that was the Volkswagen Jetta. After meticulously packing the Jetta we headed on our way. As soon as we hit the highway the sound of trouble erupted from the rear right of the vehicle. We had a flat. Where was the spare tire? Underneath two deer and a mountain of gear of course. So on the side of the highway we unloaded a mountain of gear and two deer and we proceeded to put on the donut. By the time we finished putting everything back it was dark and we drove the four hours to Regina doing 140 in a severely overburdened Jetta with a donut. We made it though, and this is why I now own a truck.

Final project

I am starting to get my final project underway here. I will have some pictures up in the future, but for now I will explain what will be going on.

My classmate and I are going to do a predator population survey index. With this index we will be able to compare population compositions of two distinct habitats. We will be looking at the difference between a predominately jack pine forest and habitat in the aspen parkland.

How it works...

We set up a 1'X2' piece of OSB against the base of a tree. The wood is covered with spruce bows to provide a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel will be bait to entice visits by different predator species. To keep tabs on who has been visiting our sites we will be applying carpenters chalk to the first half of the OSB sheet and on the other half we will be stapling one sided sticky paper. When the individual visits the site they will step onto the carpenters chalk and transfer their footprint to the sticky paper. From here we will be able to identify the type of species that visited.



Pictures of cool ass animal footprints to follow....

Tasty.

For your sake I hope you have not cut ties with my friendship.

Here are some pictures of the sausage extravaganza. The picture of the freezer is one individuals share. After all was said and done we churned out 320 total pounds of the tasties. Beer was obviously involved. As was moonshine.

I can now add "sausage stuffer" to my resume.

Better have a sharp knife for sausage making.

Yes I still live here

Thankfully it snowed though. I was beginning to worry about how much of that white insulation I would have for the rest of the cold months. Looks like I will be okay, and if it is a three dog night I can just invite Le Petit up for a cuddle.

That's just the pork!

We made three hundred and sixty pounds of sausage yesterday. It ended up being a 14 hour day but oh so worth it. We figure what we produced ended up with a cost of a buck fifty a pound. Pretty good for sausage of such quality that I would push my own mother down in the grocery store to reach it first (just kidding mom). You can see Tyler using the grinder I rigged up (hundred bucks for the grinder, 7 for the belt, 2 bucks for a new male plug, motor was free (left at my house....if you need it back Jason it is yours..or I could trade some sausage!). I will post some more pictures here soon. I purchased an antique cast iron sausage press for the occasion which was about 240 bucks. I figure one more batch and that pays for itself. We ended up making a jalapeno cheddar, a bratwurst, smoked farmers, regular farmers and a spicy Italian. All tasted phenomenal during the inaugural tasting sessions. Le Petit provided the mop, or rather he was the mop. There is no need to clean floors after a sausage party when you have a hungry dog.

More pictures to follow.

Contraband

No that is not cocaine. But it is as highly sought after. It is the secret base mix for ******* meat's pork sausage. The recipe was not divulged but certain hands were shook and low and behold three bags of contraband were shipped courier express to Prince Albert. Looks like it is time to get making sausage.

Farmer vision and the junk box

One day I would like to acquire farmer vision. Sometimes I exhibit small hints of the phenomenon(see opening a bottle of wine without a corkscew) but the true farmer vision still eludes me.

What is farmer vision you ask?It is the ability to look at any mechanical problem and come up with a solution without having to use the Internet or run to the store for some material or a new tool. It is the ability to make anything work without an engineer cooking up an equation for you. The ability to make do with what you have and nothing more. I know two people who have reached farmer vision (the rural dwelling folk's equivalent of Buddhist enlightenment). My friend Joe has it and my neighbour Dave has it. I would like it.

How do you reach enlightenment?I believe it can only be aquired from living out of town and avoiding long trips into the city for simple solutions. The only other real prerequisite for farmer vision is to have a large garage and an assortment of tools... sometimes home brew is also required. I can however think of one object that can speed up the path to the promise land. The box of junk.

The roll of the junk box.Ahh the box of junk.
"do I hear 10? 10? 5? come on 5.. look at that box..shes awful perty.. I think I see an old washing machine motor in there, some screw drivers, a tin of quarter inch bolts. That must be worth 2 bits. Do I have a taker for a quarter? SOLD!"

Sometimes the junk box is sold alone. But more often at the auction, you will spot a tool that you wish to purchase. The usual downside of this purchase is that it often comes with a box of junk that the auctioneer realizes will only vanish if sold along with a useful tool that provides instant gratification. .. BUT... The box of junk is often not the downside. Who knows what you may find in the junk box..... The mysterious workings of the junk box will undoubtedly manipulate themselves into the eye of the farmer vision.