100% (Chicks!!! Part IV)

It is all paying off!!! Right?

$36 for chicks
$50 for feed
$30 for brood box and equipment
$150 for coop and run supplies
$40 for various chicken how-to guides
$40 for something I am sure I forgot we bought
------
$346 (somebody check my math)

We have now collected 7 eggs from our flock (~$50/egg).  Quite the deal, right?

We have eaten five of those oeufs, and they really were spectacular (in taste, certainly not size).  In fact, Emily and I celebrated our first four eggs by showcasing them in a special meal.  Emily had the brilliant idea that we should eat a meal where 98% of the ingredients were produced on our little third of an acre.  The remaining two percent (not including the minimal spices) was gathered HHMM style.  Here is the recipe:

Enough romaine lettuce and arugula for two
7 new potatoes
3 beets
1 red onion
10 camas bulbs, sliced in half
4 fresh eggs
2 tablespoons olive oil

Quarter and roast the vegetables (not the greens!) in the oven until the onion is caramelized at something like 425 degrees.  Season with a little kosher salt and pepper.  Place roasted roots over a bed of greens, then fry eggs over easy (HHMM) or over medium (Emily).  Place fried eggs over the roasted roots.  Puncture the yolk and let it drain into the roots and greens and enjoy a heavenly and rich dressing.  Eat a meal that is 100% DIY.

Actually, this meal, as Emily pointed out, was rather poetic.  The one major ingredient that came from outside our short little property line was the camas, which I dug near the headwaters of the South Fork Clearwater River in a wet meadow that not too long ago was flooded with spring snow melt.  That meadow has since drained and those waters percolated, gurgled, bubbled, raged, and surged down Red River, down the South Fork Clearwater, down the Clearwater River, where a tiny portion of that water was sucked out of the river by the pump owned collectively by those of us who live in our little neighborhood.  Finally, that water was sprayed out over our garden, where beets and onions and potatoes have been growing.  So really, the same water that helped sprout that lavender colored camas, also made our potatoes sprout little lavender flowers.  How many meals give you a sense of place like that?

Yes, I know the olive oil was probably imported from Spain or some such... but hey... not too shabby!

So has it been worth it?  You be the judge...

 

A Contrast in Styles

Encyclopedia authors have a thing or two to say about a couple of the rivers of Idaho.  The St. Joe is the highest navigable river in the world.  The Snake River's dammed slack waters make Lewiston the most inland seaport on America's west coast.  In addition to their extremes of navigability, these rivers also boast world class fisheries.  Nevertheless, those fisheries, and the reaches of the river where they occur, couldn't be a greater contrast in styles.  I fished them last week over consecutive days.

Sturgeon are big fish and require big gear.  Rods designed for giant saltwater fish, reels with hundreds of yards of 60 pound test monofilament and 80 pound leaders, railroad spikes for sinkers, slabs of bait the size of your palm..  You can use rafts or fish from the shore when chasing these beasts, but a jet boat works better... you might have to chase a eight foot long fish down to the next pool and back up again.

Catching a sturgeon in the Hells Canyon Reach of the Snake River is one of the truly exhilarating sportfishing experiences of the Pacific Northwest.  Hells Canyon is a stunning example of Idaho's country.  It is steep, deep, hot, nasty, rocky and hot.  Yep, I mentioned hot twice.  During our journey up the river Monday, the high temperature in Lewiston surmounted the 100 mark.  Constant evaporative cooling from regular dips in the river was the only way to feel good.  Water temperatures were perfect, though.  Sturgeon like to eat when the water is 65 degrees.  Our group landed 11 sturgeon, 6 over 6 feet long, and one taped in at 8'9".  What amazing animals.

That's Emily's first Sturgeon... a 7.5 footer

Fishing for Sturg in Hells Canyon

In contrast, westslope cutthroat trout are considered big when they hit about 13 inches.  Delicate flyrods designed for casting hand-tied weightless flies on the end of invisible tippet, bait is illegal (at least on the Joe) and would be eschewed.  We used a raft to float a long and catch many fish, but we also strolled along side channels and good runs and casted our flies to fish rising on the other side... you could reach 'em, as long as you had a big enough mend.

Flycasting to cutthroat trout on the St. Joe River is one of the truly poetic sportfishing experiences in the Pacific Northwest.  The St. Joe River is lined with cottonwoods in its lower reaches, but cedars dominate the upper reaches I most like to fish.  The day was warm, but the emerald and gold waters were cold and full of fine, fat trout.  The river bottom is paved with colorful cobblestones and mortared with garnet sand.  Sips of cold microbrew and the jovial banter of three anglers made the day feel good.  Our group landed dozens of fat westslopes, some as big as 14 inches.  Couldn't have been a better, more relaxing way to spend the day.

Pop Pop with a fine westslope on the Joe

My Home River

These fishes are my current favorites to chase.  They represent the ends of the Idaho native sportfish spectrum.  What I like most about my two days of fishing last week is that the diversity of these animals mirrors the diversity of Idaho's riverscapes, and the diversity of ways to experience them...