River bummin'

Made it to Fortuna yesterday & while there, walked the puppy, Kumalie, on the Riverwalk Trail. To my amazement, all along this stretch of Eel River there were huge salmon leaping out of the water! I must have seen 20 or so. So very cool. I have never seen them jump in level water and, while some suggested they were being chased, I saw no indication of predators, be it seal, otter or other.

I love Riverwalk. It is, for me, the highlight of the town of Fortuna on the North Coast. A biking, walking trail of some length bordered by the Eel River and pasture. These views are, respectively, looking South, SouthEast, and NorthWest along the river there.

In early summer I saw a congregation of around 75 (!!!) Merganser Ducks on a riverbar there. On the return leg of the walk they had disappeared -  then I spotted them further downriver diving, all in a frenzy.
Obviously they were feeding on something (Anchovies? Sardines? What comes up the Eel?). Very odd to see these loner ducks in a group like that.
Love it.
Nature phenomena of the river habitat.

Besides the ocean and mountains we have 6 rivers that define this area. In addition to the Eel there is the mighty Klamath, the beautiful Smith, Trinity, and Mad Rivers, and the Van Duzen river on which I live. The Van Duzen River has been federally designated as a "National Wild and Scenic River". Here's a view of kids in the Van Duzen in summer.

One last Eel River story for now... When I first lived in this area in the late 1960's I was standing in just-over-the-knee deep water in the Middle Fork when a huge school of shad went upstream. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of medium size shimmering silver fish filling the river, bumping my legs, backs sticking out of the water. This went on for several minutes.
Interestingly, it turns out the American Shad is a non-native species. From the Atlantic coast, they were introduced in the 1800's and are another migratory specie that lives in the sea and journeys upriver to spawn.

Be familiar with your local waterways. There is much to discover there and to enjoy. And knowing them will encourage you to work to keep them healthy.

In Memorial - Brio

We unexpectedly lost our 9 year old Border Collie, Brio, Oct. 18. A loyal, if neurotic, part of our animal family, Brio was happy with the way things were, especially if someone would play fetch with him. You could always find my husband by looking to see where Brio was. He generally would be on the step of the shop or house or barn - whichever.
He only wavered when there was company staying in our guesthouse, then he could be counted on to be sleeping on the step there.

Crazy fast and, perhaps, just a bit crazy, he would run in the direction he thought you would throw the ball or stick. Often this would be the opposite direction, but he would seek for 1/2 hour if needed to find that object so he could bring it back to play again. As have all our dogs (all dogs?), he loved snow.

Now he and our old Australian Shepard, Rosie, are both gone. She died at 17 in 2008. It was rather expected, she had slowed considerably her last few years.
But with Brio it was entirely unexpected.

He missed his canine companion, but when we got a new puppy 6 months later they became the best of friends. They played furious games of tag and follow the leader, particularly every morning and at twilight. He was busy teaching her all his (bad) habits.

And then one day last spring Brio was running and began to limp. The limp continued and became more serious over the next few days. It turned out he had ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). It appears that in most dogs with the problem, the ACL slowly degenerates and becomes weaker until it ruptures, without any sudden injury.
We decided to have it fixed as the chance was high that his other hind leg would go, too, if we didn't. After the surgery we had a Border Collie in a crate for almost 2 months. He was a very unhappy dog.
After that he was never the same. He recovered well, and lost the extra weight from being sedentary all that time. Was playing with the puppy some, but not as much. Would fetch, but not as enthusiastically. Then, this past month, he started having days where he was just - well - depressed, as far as we could tell. He would not come out from under the truck to say 'hi' or play or eat. The next day - fine!

The day he died he seemed slow but OK in the morning. Followed us around and had a dog biscuit treat in the afternoon. But when our family came over in the evening they found him in his usual place, under the truck, dead. No visible sign of distress.
We miss him. Now we just have our one 11 month old Aussie pup, Kumalie.
She misses him, too.

Cider time. Autumn = Apples

Every year we borrow a neighbor's apple press and make cider from our apples and those we can glean from unharvested trees. It is a family affair and one that is work and fun deliciously combined.
This year is special as it is the first time 2 year old Lila can actually help in the process.
Today is the day - a storm is predicted and apples are ready, so this is it. Our semi-dwarf Empire apple is laden with zillions of small apples. They are sweet and crunchy. We have a box of Snow apples, pure white inside, and a couple boxes of the tart and mushy "mystery apple" from a tree that re-sprouted below the graft.
Jars are clean, the press is set up and we are ready to go. We pick apples and bring them up from the orchard. There are actually more than we expected.

First step is sorting and washing the apples. Any with bites in them, large bruises, or that are otherwise unacceptable get set aside for our chickens, compost, or a neighbor's pigs. The rest we place in a plastic bucket with holes drilled in it so we can easily rinse them with a hose.
Now the fun begins!

This press has an electric motor on the grinder. One of us washes apples, one (or two - a favorite kid job) feeds the apples into the hopper to be ground up. The ground apples fall into a cloth lined (old pillowcase) wooden basket beneath. There are 2 of these baskets. When one is full it is moved beneath the press, the cloth folded over, a wooden disk placed on top, and you turn the handle which turns the "screw" that presses down on the disk. Lila needs a lift to help turn the handle!
Beautiful golden apple cider runs out of the basket and into the pans we collect it in.
We run the pans full of cider into the house and funnel the juice into clean, disinfected jars, straining out any bits of apple as we go.
We leave extra space in the tops of the jars for expansion for the cider we freeze, and some we put in 1/2 gallon canning jars to Pasteurize for storing in the pantry.
Frozen cider, once thawed, tastes fresh as the day we pressed it, but fresh or thawed, you must drink it before it ferments. Pasteurized tastes wonderful, but not quite the same, and has a longer shelf life once opened. Best of all it takes no freezer space or electricity to keep.
Today's work resulted in over 20 gallons of cider to share! Wahoo!! Even so, we will probably do this one or two more times before we return the press.
The press we borrow is a Correll Cider Press.
These presses are the best! Our family is all pitching in so we can have our own, and we now have one on order that will be ready for us next summer.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.
- Albert Camus,writer and philosopher (1913-1960)