The end of the world as I knew it (Part One)

It's now been well over a year since I last sat in a cubicle earning good money to adjust my fantasy football roster and send my friends links about how the end of the world was nigh. I suppose it sounds stupid to care so much about "fantasy" football when I believed the real world was ending, but like Whitman said, "I contain multitudes." Anyways, the point being that after only a few years working in the financial world I had become convinced that the whole freaking deal was a giant ponzi scheme bound to come tumbling down at any moment. Since I had no idea when or how exactly, I did my best to study up on other people's ideas and opinions of how it would go down. This period of reading the rantings of bloggers and other internet nutjobs slowly but surely transformed my mind from that of a recently graduated liberal optimist into that of the dreaded doomer/survivalist.

It wasn't long before I was having freeze dried food, bullets and body armor delivered to the office. Word of these deliveries spread quickly, causing some good natured ribbing, a few nervous stares and a meeting with my boss about the reasons why I should wait until I get home before trying on a bullet proof vest for fit.

I became convinced that having a "bug out" plan was a necessity in case we had to leave San Francisco by foot in the event of a huge earthquake or declaration of martial law. We started having bug-out drills walking to Ocean Beach and back on the weekends. I stuffed heavy rolls of coins inside Otto's dog backpack to simulate the enormous loads of canned goods and spare ammo I envisioned him carrying. His performance was less than satisfactory and I ended up with 40 rolls of quarters in my already heavy pack most days. After realizing we weren't going to make it too far on foot, I got bicycles for April and I along with a tow behind cargo trailer. Not for supplies but for Otto to ride on since he wasn't able to keep up with us on the bikes. Otto did not enjoy my attempts to get him to ride on the cargo trailer despite the additions of a pop up fabric dog crate and cushy pillow for him to lie on. I was beginning to worry that our dog would end up as zombie hors d'œuvres due to his lack of effort in our apocalypse preparations.

I bought enough firearms to overthrow a small island nation. Soon April and I were taking field trips up to the Circle S shooting range in Sonoma where we familiarized ourselves with Messrs. Glock & Mossberg. We learned a little bit about long range riflery from a Korean War veteran with gnarled hands named Kim. I was trying to get myself into survival shape as well and took up mountain climbing with my buddy Stu. We made the long drive through Yosemite to the eastern side of the Sierras to summit Mt. Whitney & Mt. Langley and took a class on the basics of winter mountaineering and survival. I grew a unabomber style beard and kept my head shaved which looked like the lovechild of ZZ Top & Kojack. This also proved to be a great way to avoid having people sit next to you on the Muni bus.

I decided surviving the apocalypse only to never again enjoy the musical stylings of Hawkwind, Mott the Hoople and Iron Maiden would be a fate worse than death so I researched solar panels for the ol Ipod and speaker setup. I ended up taking over an entire closet in the apartment and most of the cabinet space in the kitchen with camping equipment, bags of rice and beans and whatever canned goods Safeway had on weekly special.

April was somewhat less enthusiastic about the end of the world than I was, but managed to nod and uh-huh in the right places whenever I launched into my latest plans to escape San Francisco or listed all of stuff we needed to procure immediately. Bless her heart. I started reading books on how to live self sufficiently off the land and looked into small scale farming becoming an admirer of Joel Salatin. And then one day in July, after getting passed over a second time for a promotion I thought was long overdue, I got called into the sales director's office again...

to be continued

Label Design Poll

Busy & Colorful featuring Carl the Cardinal

Simple Black & White featuring the Blue Ridge Mtns.

Hibriten view on a fall afternoon

“In the name of God, stop a moment,
cease your work, look around you.”

Leo Tolstoy

Fleet foxes, fences & dead poultry

It has been a eventful couple of weeks since I last talked story on here. I have become convinced of the chicken snatcher's identity, all signs point to a fox. 3 more laying hens have disappeared leaving no more trace than a pile of feathers that trails away into the woods. Following the feathers leads me to well worn game trails that lead down to the creek and evaporate into dense forest. I let the dog's noses take in the scent of feathers and death and follow them as they inch forward holding their nostrils inches off the ground wearing the most serious expressions I have ever seen on either of their faces. The scent trails go on for a distance revealing scattered feathers here and there but no blood, no bones or carcasses. The hens have been locked up for nearly every minute of the last two weeks in their coop and exercise yard, growing ever squawkier and more determined to have their freedom after becoming so entitled to free ranging over the farm. Held prisoner by the ever present but never seen threat of death by fox, it becomes more and more frustrating to match wits with something much cleverer than I. Traps have been laid around the woods edge baited with tuna and dog food, a fence constructed around the chicken coop, sniper positions set up with lines of sight to the scene of each chicken theft. The traps sit undisturbed, the fence defeated by the wings of the freedom loving hens and the fox remains stealthy and unseen. I ask around for ideas and am offered things like an electronic call that simulates the sounds a rabbit in distress and the barks of a horny foxette, leaving piles of ground beef mixed with antifreeze out to tempt Mr. Fox to a poisonous end and calling the boys at Wildlife Control who charge $45 for the first visit and $25 more for each visit to check the traps thereafter. I feel like I should be able to solve this one myself, but I can't even lay eyes on the clever bastard. Down to 14 laying hens and 6 month old chicks, I continue to fortify their coop defenses and today finished "roofing" their larger outdoor exercise run for them so they can still enjoy some sunshine, fresh grass and dirt baths. It is "roofed" with bird netting because the fat hens can't stand the sight of the compost pile so near and promising the deliciousness of insects, rotten fruit and old vegetables. So they were doing ninja chicken escapes multiple times a day leading to chasing hens all over the place with my chicken herding stick and catching a clucker determined to be free is an exercise in frustration. So we have them fenced and roofed in until we can solve the fox problem and restore the halcyon days of free ranging chickens we could enjoy watching from the living room and the occasional intrepid hen who would stroll into the house to see what was going on.

At the same time I have been battling the fox to keep my chickens alive, I had been preparing myself mentally for a chicken butchering at my friends William & Marie's Bluebird Farm. I met William through one of the guys in my Lion's Club and came out to his farm for a visit to gain some more knowledge on running a profitable organic operation. He does an organic vegetable CSA along with pigs, lambs, laying hens and meat birds. He mentioned that they would be butchering almost 200 birds soon and I volunteered to help work the slaughter so I could learn how it was done. The night before I started to grow a little nervous and began wondering if I had what it takes to be a chicken killer or if would chicken out. I woke about 5am on Tuesday and made the hour long drive over to Bluebird Farm with a little knot in my stomach that I wasn't quite sure was nerves or the 32 oz. coffee I was swigging. Arriving I saw plastic crates full of the hapless broilers and the gleam of stainless steel tables under a pristine white awning, steam rose up into the chilly morning air from the scalder and gracefully my tension calmed as I came to the realization that this was how all the chicken I had ever eaten got on my plate. I was introduced to the other guys & gals working the butchering, a Peruvian, 3 Mexicans and a Guatemalan. I broke the ice with some bad espanol and William didn't waste any time breaking me in showing me how to load the birds into the killing cones, where the soft spot in their throats is and how deep to draw the knife across their necks. Soon I had slit the throats of 20 or 30 birds, quietly whispering Bismillah each time I slit a throat as my friend James had told me to in order to make the meat halal. I wasn't sure if these birds would ever end up on a Muslim's plate but treating them with holy reverence before their deaths somehow comforted me. The birds still in the crates saw what was happening to their comrades and grew more combative as we pulled them from the crates and loaded them into the killing cones. Soon I was fairly spackled with blood and bird crap and feeling less in my heart with each pull of the knife. I got to load the dead blood drained birds into the scalder and dunk them 7 or 8 times to loosen the feathers before running them through the plucking machine. Eventually I moved over to the table with my fellow latinos and did the fine plucking of the birds by hand before the ladies eviscerated them and dunked them into ice before weighing and packaging them. I had been told to expect to work until 4 or so but we had a fuller crew than usual and worked quickly and efficiently, I learned a lot about killing and myself and got some of the dust off my Spanish too. After a hearty lunch with the crew, I was in the car headed home thinking about a clever title for this post and wondering if my hens would know what I had been up to...

first colors of fall

Backpacking in the Pisgah

Lost Coves Loop
7.5 miles over some rough terrain, 14 creek crossings, beautiful waterfalls, freeze dried chicken gumbo, camping under the stars with the bears & some steep switchbacks up Bee Mountain

deep in the green

soggy dogs doing a creek crossing

verdant & peaceful

just do it

“Do what you can,
with what you have,
where you are.”

Theodore Roosevelt

Sourdough and More Missing Chickens

One of the things I miss most about San Francisco is fresh baked sourdough bread. The pungent unmistakable sour aroma rising with steam off a hot loaf has got to be one of my nose's all time favorites. The initial crunch biting through a thick, flaky crust and finding a soft, chewy treasure of flavor inside. Whether sopping up some cioppino from your bowl, making the best eggs in a frame or even just a PB&J; sourdough makes everything even better. So before we left, on an expedition to Chinatown on a sunny August afternoon, we found some sourdough starter descended from the original 1849 gold rush culture which has been cared for and spread around the world by now. It is so synonymous with San Francisco, that even the yeast that makes the bread a living entity and causes it to rise is called Lactobacillus sanfranciscensis. So once I had a grip on making jams, I knew it was time to bust out the sourdough starter and figure out how to make something proper to drop our tasty fruit spreads on. What follows is a brief guide to making your own sourdough with a few tricks I learned experimenting with the recipe. The one thing you need that I am not sure how to make yourself is the actual starter. It should be easy to find in California, comes in a little paper envelope to which you add 3 cups flour and 3 cups water to get things started. Pretty easy as chemistry goes, eh? It becomes something called a "mother sponge" which is alive and needs to be fed and cared for daily if left unrefrigerated or at least weekly if you keep it in the fridge. When you want to make your first loaf, this is how to do it:

1) Take the "mother sponge" out of the fridge (if it was being kept there) and allow it to return to room temperature. If you have some clear liquid on the top of the mother sponge, no worries that it normal, just mix everything up thoroughly before you begin. Take 1 cup of starter out of the mother sponge and put into another large glass or plastic bowl you can cover. Now is a good time to feed the mother sponge if you haven't done so recently, just add a mixture of half a cup warm water and half a cup flour to replace the cup of starter you just took out.

2)To the starter you just removed from the "mother sponge", add 1.5 cups of flour and 1 cup of warm water. This is now your "baby sponge." Cover the baby sponge and allow to rest for 8-12 hours at 80-90 degrees.

3)The baby sponge is ready to use when the surface is bubbly and has a strong pungent, sour odor. The recipe I am using here will make a 1lb loaf, if you want a bigger loaf or 2 loaves just double everything listed below:
Sourdough Starter (aka: Baby Sponge): 1 cup
Warm Water: 1/3 cup
Salt: 1 teaspoon
Bread Flour: 2 cups
Instant Yeast: 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon

It is really important to use bread flour(11-13% protein)! I have tried recipe variations with regular and whole wheat flour and you need to add extra wheat gluten if you use anything but bread flour. Add 1 tablespoon of wheat gluten per cup of flour if you are not using bread flour.

4)Mix all ingredients (EXCEPT YEAST!) well until combined. Knead dough by hand for 15 minutes or 10 minutes if you are using a mixer with a dough hook. Dust with flour, cover and allow it to rest for 6-8 hours.

mixing it up

5) This is where we add the yeast, mix or knead well and transfer the dough to a loaf pan and allow it to rise. You can make baguette shapes or rounds if you prefer but I have had the best success just pouring the dough until it halfway fills a loaf pan and letting the yeast go to work until the rising action has almost filled the pan. Rising will take about 4-5 hours if you leave the loaf pan out or overnight if you refrigerate. Be careful about covering the rising dough. If you don't give it enough room to rise it will spread a stick mess all over what you cover it with and you will be stuck scraping half of your dough back into the loaf pan.

transferring the dough with added yeast to the pan before it rises

6) Now it's time to bake. Preheat the oven to 475 F and allow it to really get a good heat going. When you put in your loaf or loaves cut the heat to 425 F and check on it in 30 minutes. I usually bake for only 30-35 minutes but it may take up to 45. Pull it out and allow to cool a few minutes before enjoying your own homemade sourdough.

fresh sourdough goodness

If you can't find any starter, email me and I'll see if I can jar some up and mail it to you. I sold out my first 6 loaves at the Farmer's Market last week for $3 a loaf. I plan on expanding the line into whole wheat sourdough soon and maybe some specialty loaves with nuts and other stuff for the winter. Happy Baking!

On a much less awesome note, I discovered I was missing another 2 hens last night when I put them to bed. Excluding the 6 new baby chicks, this means I am down to only 15 laying hens out of the original 25 we started with back in March. This time it's lockdown for real. I can't be sure whether the culprit is a fox, coyote or human but I am pretty damn sure the hawks and owls around here can't take off with a 3-4 lb hens in their talons. We have been hearing some weird barks and howls later in the evenings and our dogs have been on higher alert than usual. This means they erupt in a barking explosion and dash out the door into the woods about 8 times a night instead of the usual 4. Since the hens are laying now and we are selling eggs at the Farmer's Market, I just can't afford to lose anymore of them. They have been squawking at me all day to let them out to free range but until I shoot the canine or person responsible, they are going to have to stay locked up in the coop. I am about to go out on a recon hike with the boys to see if I can find any bones or feathers or other evidence of the missing 2. I miss the Barred Rock already, she was a favorite of April and I. God rest her chicken soul. Vengeance will be mine just like with the snakes. There are no free chicken dinners on Cardinal Ridge Farm!

R.I.P - Betty the Barred Rock

So as not to leave this post on a total downer, here is one happy dog and some hot chicks...

Clyde and the baby chicks enjoy some summer sunshine