Memories and Observations

A huge flock of geese flew over our property while I was picking cherry tomatoes in my garden today. I suddenly realized it was the 25th of September. It comes every year and it brings back sad memories. 34 years ago on the 25th of September 1979 my brother Arthur was killed in a plane crash at the age of 36. It was a Cherokee Piper aircraft. That’s why I don’t like small planes.

Thirty-four years seems like a long time, time to forget and wounds to heal. Some wounds never heal, some memories we never forget. Arthur was my best friend and I miss him terribly, especially now as I grow older. He would have been 70 years old this year on August 4. There would have been a celebration. He loved life and he loved people. He made friends easily and he had many friends. I miss his smile and his great sense of humor. I miss the good times we could have had together.

Why did the calling of the geese remind me of my brother? There is a song we used to sing together. It’s a German song: Wildgänse rauschen durch die Nacht, which translates into: Wild geese are flying in the night. There were other songs we played and sang, but this song was one of our favorites. So when I hear the geese calling in the sky at this time of year, I get melancholic for a while and remember my brother Arthur, wishing he were still alive and he could hear the geese calling.

We didn’t have this many geese in 1979. I’m talking about the Canada geese. They’ve multiplied and have almost become a nuisance. They are everywhere: In the parks, on the golf courses, in the retention ponds, on the rivers, and even in the cemeteries. In some places you have to be careful where you walk because of all the goose droppings. The flocks seem to be congregating in the cities, where they breed and hang out, because when you go out into the fields to hunt them, they are cautious and fly high. You can’t get near them. They are smart birds and know where they are safe. Eventually, something will have to be done to control their breeding. Some people will, of course, be against that. Those people have no idea what impact over-breeding of one species has on the ecosystem. The Snow geese, for instance, are estimated to be at around 15 million now. They have destroyed a huge part of the coastline on the Hudson Bay, because of their feeding habits. Much of those areas have changed from a healthy marsh into a wasteland where nothing grows. Many seabirds are threatened with extinction because of the Snow geese.

When we were on our holiday we stayed at a place in Indian Head, Saskatchewan. That lady, a farmer’s wife, suggested I come hunting Snow geese in Saskatchewan. The Snow geese are doing a lot of damage to the crops. They are in great numbers there. Too many. We used to have more in Manitoba, but for some reason they changed their flight path years ago and moved further west. Snow geese taste better than Canada geese.

I know, many people don’t believe we should hunt and kill animals, but they don’t seem to realize that hunting is part of life. Lions hunt antelopes, Wolves hunt deer, cats hunt for mice, Hawks hunt sparrows, and so on. Humans used to hunt to survive. Humans are carnivores. We eat vegetables and meat. That is a fact. Obviously, we can’t go and hunt for most of our food anymore, so we raise cattle, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and other food animals. Those animals need to be killed so we can eat their meat. We love our steaks and our roasts. We love chicken and hamburger. Hamburger meat doesn’t grow in a vat someplace, it comes from a cow. We love turkeys for Thanksgiving, which is just around the corner.

Some of us go hunting for deer, caribou, elk, moose, and other animals, because we enjoy eating venison, and because we enjoy the challenge of the hunt. We also enjoy the outdoors. People who condemn hunters, but don’t mind eating steaks, a good roast, fried chicken, hot dogs, or hamburgers, are, in my opinion, a little bit out of touch with reality. Humans are predatory animals and it is in the genes. If we don’t kill an animal we kill our fellow humans. Just watch TV and read the papers. The killing is all around us. People get robbed, they get shot, they get stabbed, and the wholesale killing in the wars we fight over religion, oil, and other insane reasons, speak louder than words. It will be a long time, if ever, until the lamb lies down with the lion without being eaten.

Another fish story

This morning I woke up at 6:55 a.m. I jumped out of bed and looked out of the window. The weather people had predicted rain, but everything looked dry outside, so I decided to go fishing for a couple of hours. I quickly got dressed, brushed my teeth, washed my face but didn’t bother shaving or combing my hair. I was going to wear a cap anyway. I needed to get away quickly so I could get to Lockport early enough to get a good spot. Fishermen are early risers.

I rushed down the stairs into the basement to get the frozen pieces of meat that I used for catching Goldeye. Being in a hurry, I neglected to turn on the light in the storage room. I opened the door to the fridge-freezer to get the small container with the meat.

I should have known then and there that it wasn’t going to be a good day for fishing. For some reason my wife kept a container of frozen milk in that freezer. Why? I don’t know. That’s how the Universe works. It should have been in the big freezer, which is right next to the fridge.

One liter of frozen milk has the same qualities as one liter of frozen water. It becomes a piece of hard rock. As I opened the door, something fell out of the freezer and landed on my big toe. It was the carton of frozen milk. One liter weighs about one pound. That’s one pound of rock hitting your toe from about 5 feet up.

As the pain shot through my body, I limped to the bathroom and filled the sink with ice-cold water. I put my foot with the hurting toe into this cold water and remained like that for about 5 minutes. I didn’t have much time, because I needed to get to my fishing spot.

The pain subsided and I left. I made it to Lockport by 7:30. A little later than planned, but when I got to Lockport I couldn’t believe my luck. There were already a few anglers there, but nobody was fishing near the wall, the coveted spot. So I quickly set myself up and began fishing.

I tried different jigs, tried fishing with a float and a piece of meat on the hook, but no fish. Actually, that is not quite true. I didn’t catch any Sauger or Goldeye, but I caught one large Freshwater Drum and one huge something. It could have been a catfish. I fought it for about 10 minutes, determined to land it and see what I caught, but I finally lost it. It will remain a mystery forever.

Slowly, more anglers arrived and a few of them did catch fish. Reluctantly, I gave up my good spot and moved about 100 feet downstream, where I had been watching a group of anglers catching fish. The problem there is that the riverbed is rocky and it is easy to lose the jigs. Well, I promptly got caught among the rocks with my first cast and lost my jig. Annoying, but I had more. By nine o’clock I phoned my wife and told her that I was staying a bit longer. I was determined to catch something.

Another angler arrived and started fishing on my left side. He asked how I was doing. I told him not great. He said he was told the fish are biting. I told him not for me. He caught his first sauger with his third cast. When I asked him what he was using, he showed me a jig with a green soft body. He then offered me one if I didn’t have any. Filipino people are like that. I thanked him and said I had plenty of green soft bodies, along with brown ones, black ones, orange ones, yellow ones, and more colors. I had tried them all, but none of them had worked for me so far.

The frustrating thing was to see the guy on the other side catching one sauger after the other...with a green jig. The limit is four, but his wife was there, which meant he could keep eight, and he began throwing back some of the ones he caught. When he finally stopped fishing, I took his place, but only managed to lose more of my jigs. The rocks weren’t kind to me.

 

At ten o’clock I went home. No fish. As I walked back to my vehicle, I walked with another fisherman, who carried a bag full of fish. He told me he caught a bunch of Goldeye. Near the dam where I had been fishing in the early hours. He pointed to the spot: That’s were they are.

It didn’t matter. I had to get home for breakfast and to nurse my toe. It had begun throbbing again. I’m not sure if I’ll lose the toenail or not. At least I didn’t break any bones.

In our kitchen hangs a little plaque with the words: A bad day of fishing beats a good day at work. I haven’t had a good day at work for a long time, because I’m retired. I’ll have to change that to: A bad day of fishing is a bad day of fishing. Period.

I guess there will be other days. Perhaps I’ll try my luck again tomorrow.

Salsa recipe - the best ever

Yesterday we made Salsa. I must say it is the best ever. You just can’t compare homemade salsa with bought salsa. They don’t use the quality ingredients you can put into homemade salsa. It is important to use ripe tomatoes and ripe peppers. We found the Roma tomatoes are the best, because they are not as watery as other tomatoes and because of their shape they are easier to chop up.

Here is the recipe:

Chop:
6 kg [6000grams] (13.2  pounds. -1 pound = 453 grams-) ripe tomatoes (Roma)
7 - hot peppers (Hungarian wax peppers, they look like Banana peppers)
10 - large (we used around 14 smaller ones) sweet peppers  (red and green and yellow)
3 – large-sized onions
7 - tablespoons fresh parsley (finely chopped)
5 - leaves fresh basil (finely chopped)
3 - teaspoons fresh Oregano (finely chopped)
5 - cloves garlic (crushed)
1 - tablespoon salt
Juice of 2 limes

Boil tomatoes for about 15 minutes in a large pot (12 quarts steel pot). Remove most of the liquid to decrease cooking time. Dip a ladle into the boiling tomato pulp and let the foam run into the ladle.

Add the rest of the ingredients.

Boil for 30 minutes on medium heat,  then simmer on medium low until thick and vegetables are soft, stirring frequently. (Total cooking time approximately 90 minutes, could be less, depending on how much liquid is in the pot). Don’t overcook, otherwise Salsa will turn to mush.

Ladle hot salsa into sterilized glasses. Seal. Use new lids. Put glasses into preheated oven at 250 F for 20 minutes. Let cool until lids pop. Then store in cool room.

We had 8 ½ 500 ml (1 pint) glasses.

Notes: This recipe makes a mild Salsa. If you want a hotter Salsa, add more hot peppers or add some hot sauce. All of the ingredients are approximate amounts.

If you have no hot peppers just add hot sauce. In that case you may want to add more sweet peppers.

How to sterilize glasses: We use Sodium Metabisulfite. You can buy it in powder form in wine making stores. It can be used over and over until it doesn’t smell anymore. Just fill one glass with the sterilizing liquid, then pour it into the other glasses one by one. After sterilizing rinse glasses with warm water. This is the fastest and easiest way to sterilize your glasses.

A giant tomato

It's been a good year for tomatoes and peppers. My pepper plants are loaded with peppers. I already harvested all the red ones and some green and orange/yellow ones, but there are still so many left. Same with the tomatoes. I have 4 Sweet 100 (Cherry tomatoes) and a couple Sugar Snack (also cherry tomatoes). We've been picking ice cream pails full and still there are so many on the vines. I also planted Super Fantastic, Fantastic, and Celebrity tomatoes. I've never had so many huge and perfectly shaped tomatoes. I'll never grow Big Boy or Beefsteak tomatoes again. They always get gnarly.They are never nice and round. One of the Super Fantastic measured 4 inches across and 3 inches high and weighed 550 grams, that's over a pound. One tomato lasts me for a whole week. I put a couple of slices on my rye bread with ham for lunch. Hmm, tasty.
Yesterday my wife and I made Salsa. We used up lots of tomatoes and peppers, but that doesn't even make a dent into our harvest. We gave already so many tomatoes away. Next year for sure I'm going to cut down on plants. I said that for this year, but next year I will ( I made my wife a promise).
Everything grew this year quite vigorously. Today we're eating Swiss Chard for the fourth time, and there is still enough left in the garden for another meal. As long as we don't get frost it'll be okay. We've had two close calls already. It's that time of the year.
I also dug up all the Red Beets. They were a bit of a disappointment. They didn't get very large, and most of the larger ones were nearly half eaten by some rodent. I'd say about one third of the harvest was gnawed on. I had to throw away quite a few. Luckily, I already harvested a whole bunch in August and my wife pickled them. Next week she'll make a few containers of Borscht for me. We'll freeze it and I'll have enough to get me through the winter. We already froze a whole bunch of dill. You have to have dill with your Borscht. It's the only way to eat it. We pick the dill when it is young. That's when we weed the garden in the Spring for the first time. I pull out most of the small dill plants. They are quite succulent then. We wash them and put them into small plastic freezer bags. Thawed the dill don't lose its flavor. Much better than dried stuff.

This is the large tomato. I don't even feel like cutting it up, it's so beautiful.

Banff, Alberta, 2013

The reason it’s been quiet on my blog for the past couple of weeks is simple. My wife and I took a little holiday. We traveled west to the Canadian Rockies. We left August 31st and came back Friday, September 13. Traveling through Manitoba and Saskatchewan is boring, according to my wife. Everything is flat. Nothing to see but fields and a few trees. I didn’t find it as boring as she did, but I have to admit it does get a bit tedious. But then again, I enjoy looking at the near fall colors, the partially harvested fields dotted with rolls of hay, and at the many potholes and small lakes along the highway in Saskatchewan, some of them holding many ducks and even a few geese. There are plenty of cattle grazing on the vast grasslands. That is beautiful in its own way.

We stayed overnight in Indian Head. Not much to see there. We had supper at the China Garden restaurant, but weren’t overly impressed with the food. The noodles were cold, there was no soup, and very little meat. I don’t care much for sweet and sour pork meatballs or deep-fried chicken balls. (I’m talking about breast meat here).

The next night we spent in Medicine Hat in Motel 6. The room we had was nice, but the breakfast was so-so. It’s very basic, no yogurt. You have to take your toast and coffee to your room. We had supper at the Thai Orchid Restaurant, which is within walking-distance. The food was great.

When we went for a walk in the evening we came across the oddest community. All the houses looked the same. The driveways were spotless, as was the street. The lawn was cut evenly throughout the community. And we saw no people. It was kind of eerie, like being in some spooky scene out of a Horror movie.

The next day we arrived in Drumheller, Alberta. We visited the Reptile Garden in the afternoon and had supper at Diana Restaurant (Chinese and Western) next door to the Econo Lodge where we stayed for a couple of nights. The prawns we had were tasty.

We spent most of the next day at Royal Tyrrell Museum. Drumheller is, of course, famous for its fossils. We saw plenty of dinosaurs. Skeletons and life-size replicas. I’m sure glad I didn’t live 70 million years ago. Those Tyrannosaurus Rex were fearsome looking beasts. The trip to the museum surely is a must when visiting Drumheller.

For supper that night we went to a small, old restaurant called Yavis Family Restaurant, in one of the small shopping strips. It was recommend by some woman we talked to. I had one of the best steaks. 10 oz steak, done the way I wanted it, with baked potato, large lettuce and desert for $14.95. And the pint of draft beer cost $4.75. How can you beat that?

The next day, Wednesday, September 4, we drove to Canmore, which is only 2 ½ hours away.

We didn’t push on this trip. I don’t like driving for too long and we like to stop on the way to look at things.

The mountains were awesome and impressive. We couldn’t get enough of looking at them. In Canmore we stayed at the Ramada Inn. We had a great room with 2 Queen beds. (We only needed one, of course). And the breakfast was the best. Eggs, sausages, yogurt, and all the other usual stuff, and more.

From Canmore we drove to other destinations, like Banff, Lake Louise, and other places. In Banff we took the gondola up the mountain and walked around at the top. And Lake Louise is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, it rained a little when we got there, but we still managed to walk around a bit. Lots of people there. A vast majority of the visitors were Asian.

The Universe we live in is a strange place. Sometimes the things we look forward to, just don’t turn out as expected. Before we left on our holiday I did some research into restaurants and other stuff. I had marked the Grizzly Paw Brewing Co. as a must-visit. I should have gotten the hint when I couldn’t locate it on my GPS. I finally found it when we drove by. Well, I had the worst steak in my life. It was cut like a wedge, thick on one end and as sharp as an axe on the other. Well-done to boot. And they charged $7.00 for a pint of beer. They are a brewing company, for Heaven’s sake! I expect cheaper beer. They did give me $8.00 off my steak when I complained, but that didn’t change my mind about the place. I cannot recommend it.

When we went up the mountain in the gondola, they took a picture of every visitor. They are trying to sell it to you for twenty bucks. We would have bought one for ten dollars, but not for twenty. That’s what happens when you’re greedy. I ran my own business most of my working life and I learned you can’t make all you money from one job. Charge less and you’re pretty much guaranteed to make that sale. Less profit but it pays out in the long run.

When we drove to Lake Louise, we stopped at Johnston Canyon and walked along a groomed trail to the falls. It’s about 1 km one way. I saw again, how some people just don’t give a crap about the environment. We found empty plastic bottles, cigarette butts, candy wrappers and other junk beside the trail. Who do these people think cleans it up? It’s a shame.

We left Canmore Monday, September 9. Our destiny Jasper and then Hinton, where we had booked a room for two nights at the Econo Lodge.

We stopped at various waterfalls. There is always something that makes you shake your head. At one of the falls three guys in their early twenties I guess displayed again the ignorance of some people. The climbed over the fence and walked onto the slippery rocks to look down at the boiling water below. They even sat on the rocks and dangled their legs over the edge. I filmed them, wondering if they would slip and fall to their death. They didn’t. We have a saying in Germany: God protects the ignorant and the idiots.

After the falls we visited the Columbia Icefields. Hard to believe those glaciers are still around. We took one of those special buses onto the Icefields. Sure, it’s impressive, but I figured $52.00 per person just to drive onto the ice, park there for 20 minutes and stand on the glacier (just ice, really), shivering in the cold and take pictures is a bit steep. But that is just my opinion. People tell me that I have to realize I’m standing on a glacier. That is the excitement. I’m excited.

All along the highway are signs to slow down because of wildlife crossing the road, like white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, moose, wolfs, wolverines, badgers, caribou, and bears: Grizzlies and black ones. And don't stop to feed them. Well, the only wildlife we saw were squirrels, a few crows, and a butterfly. I killed the butterfly when it hit my windshield.

But we finally did see a few mountain sheep near the highway on our last day when we drove from Jasper to Hinton.

In Jasper we took the tramway up Whistler Mountain. Then we climbed toward the top of the mountain. It doesn’t look steep or far away, but it is. We made it almost to the top. There were only a couple more hills. We decided not to climb any further. The view was fantastic and we took lots of pictures. We were lucky because of the beautiful clear day.
And it was quite warm at the top. We even got a small sunburn. We stayed a few hours. I found climbing down even harder than up. My knees were beginning to ache and by the time we reached the bottom (the station were you take the tramway down again), my legs were a bit wobbly.

We left Hinton Thursday, September 11, spent the night in North Battleford in the Best Canadian Motor Inn. It was a nice place. At first it doesn’t look like much because it is kind of hidden away and they were just fixing the road, but it was quiet and relaxing. They serve a descent breakfast.

Our last night was again in a Bed and Breakfast in Indian Head.The same place we stayed at on our first night. Supper at the Grand Inn Restaurant was good. I had an 8 oz steak, quite spicy, with a mountain of fresh lettuce. My wife had the Thai Chicken salad which she found a bit too spicy.  I also had 6 wings, since it was wing-night, but I could have done without them. They were dry with little meat. I don't see the excitement over chicken wings.

Friday, the 13th we drove home. Another boring drive, except for the excitement in Moosomin, Saskatchewan: We had a flat tire, but were lucky enough to get it fixed in Moosomin. There was a lot of construction going on along the highway for miles and miles sometimes which slowed driving down, but we weren’t in a hurry.

Coming home can be a bit of a letdown, but then again, I’m happy to be home. There is no better place than home. You only realize that when you’re there.