Butcher Parties and the Big Burger Grind

Thomaso with an elk hind quarter to cut up

This past Sunday we had a party at our house and ground up 200 pounds of deer and elk meat into hamburger.  This was the annual burger grind party. The event is the culmination of a number of 'butcher parties'.  Every time we butcher an animal it is a 'butcher party'.  Usually we have some beer and someone brings something good to eat for after we finish cutting and packaging the meat.  These are social affairs, but they tend to be small and restricted to just the people who harvested the particular animal(s) getting cut up.

The meat scraps are put aside to be ground up into burger at a later date.  The later date being the 'Big Burger Grind'.  This year we ended up with almost 200 pounds of meat to grind into burger.  That is the scraps from 2 elk and 8 deer.  Everybody shows up for the burger grind, and there is always good food.  I remember fish tacos one year and this year we had barbecued deer and elk ribs.

The kids love to help.  This year Stuey washed his hands and helped Gregg feed 'the beast' and grind the burger.  Both kids also like to help label the meat packages.  We always like to make a drawing on every individual package of meat.  It is a sign of quality, and the kids love to draw the various animals that are represented inside the packages.

The burger grind also means the hunting season is coming to a close.  If any more animals are harvested the next grinding party will not be for burger but to create italian sausage.  That is if we are lucky enough to harvest a goat or a few does in the next month or so.

The elk crew cutting and packaging while Nora labels the packages

A Nora labelled package of elk scraps to be ground later

Prepping the semi frozen scraps for the burger grinder

Stuey helps Gregg grind scraps into burger

Packaging and labeling the burger

Every package gets some personal attention

Also I just noticed that this post is our 2000th since we started the blog a little over 7 years ago.  WOW that's a long time and a lot of posts!  Patrick

Goat Camping

Lighting the wood stove

Over the weekend I camped out for 2 nights with Brooks while bow hunting for mountain goats.  We did not come home with a goat, but as usual with bow hunting we came REALLY close and 'should have brought home a goat'.

This was the first time I have camped out when bow hunting for goats.  It has been warm on Kodiak and I was surprised at how much snow there is up on the mountains.  The first night we camped on snow, and I was a little worried I'd get cold.  The snow underfoot did cause my sleeping pad to slide all around, but I stayed warm.  The next night we did not camp on the snow and based on my watch thermometer the little Ti Goat stove got the temperature in the tent up to 101 degrees!

Mostly we just hiked around in the mountains and chased goats.  Goats like to hang out in steep places and I'm realizing that as I get older I like steep places less and less.  We visited many places where I have hiked and climbed in the past and I did not remember them as particularly scary.  This time around some of those places seemed downright death defying.  And I looked at some places where I've climbed or crossed before and thought, 'how did I do that?' and  'What was I thinking?'

I am also realizing that I am lucky to live in a place where I can just take off for a weekend and bow hunt for goats in the mountains.  Most places you have to fly somewhere else and pay someone to show you around to do what we did on our own.  Kodiak is good.  Patrick

Drying wood on the stove and relaxing

Dinner cooking on the Ti Goat wood stove

Bow hunting for goats

Down below Brooks is where the goats hang out

Goat hunting at dawn

Goodbye Roxy

This morning we said good bye to our beloved Roxy. The goodbyes were painful for all of us, but especially the kids. They knew that when they returned home from school, that Roxy wouldn't be at home. Moments in time don't get much harder than that.

In the past 2 days, Roxy had taken a major turn for the worst with her health and wasn't even eating her pain pills disguised in hot dogs. Patrick and I looked at each other and knew inside our hearts that this was the time.

Later in the day, I went to work  and had the most healing conversations about pets with my clients. I was forthcoming with the fact that my dog passed away and people were very understanding and shared in the moment with me.

Clients told stories of 20 year old cats, animals which touched their lives forever, illness...I am really blessed by a caseload of thoughtful, caring people. Today on my job as a physical therapist, I felt very well taken care of. And when I retuned home, friends and neighbors brought by cookies and hugs. And moments to share in the sadness of the loss. I appreciated this.

A client dropped off  a children's book titled "Dog Heaven" and it talked of dogs running as fast as they can in big open fields the moment they get to dog heaven. And eating ham flavored dog biscuits all the time. I read it to the kids at bedtime, tears streaming down my face.

I know Roxy is so happy to be able to run through the fields again and enjoy unlimited ham flavored biscuits under the angel's dinner tables!

Thank you to Roxy for being such a wonderful gift to our family.

Zoya

Roxy Update

After the intial shock of Roxy's diagnosis hit, we are gradually getting used to the idea that our time with Roxy is limited. She gets all the dish-licking privileges, extra attention and pets.  Nora is good about making sure there is always a water bowl by her.

After I first found out of her diagnosis last Wednesday, I was surprised by how profound my sadness was. I think that since Roxy is 10+ years old and I knew on an intellectual level that she is going to die someday, I didn't expect to be so deeply upset.

 I saw several clients at the coast guard base on Thursday mroning then started typing notes. As I tried to make the words on the screen matter, I thought of Roxy home alone and the tears choked up inside me and then I started crying-hard. Really hard. Mascara-running hard.  I explained to the PT assistant about my sick dog and took the rest of the day off.

I"m so humbled and thankful by the kindness of friends during this time. On the day after Roxy's diagnosis, friends brought by food and drinks and even fun drawing things for the kids (food included apple pie, bread, cookies, adult beverages & smoked white king salmon-WOW!) . Far away friends wrote facebook messages and people shared their stories of their loved dogs and pets who had passed away.

My friend Elke recently went through the loss of a dog recently (also named Roxy!) and I called her to learn about what made it easier/harder and asked about what to expect. One thing she said during the course of the conversation was "Zoya, doesn't it feel good to feel pain and sadness? Its a gift and reminds us what its all about to be alive. To feel the highs AND the lows. Thats what being human is about. To be able to feel that grief."

Her words struck the right chord. And our friends and family reaching out makes the heartache a little more bearable.

As of now, Roxy, is more comfortable on better pain meds. She occasionally wags her tail with joy and is still able to go in and outside. Yesterday she wanted to lay in whichever room we are in, which we liked to see!

It seems like for now she is fairly comfortable.  Its been good to see the kids settle into a new routine of caring with her and have really embraced the notion of giving her extra attention and making sure we do too!

Zoya

Bowhunting for Goats. ... ..again

Back in the day - hunting goats on skis in 2005

It looks like I'll be hunting for mountian goats with a bow and arrow this weekend.  This is the first time I've done that since 2007.

For a few years, I bow hunted pretty seriously for mountain goats on the Kodiak road-system.  On the road-system if you are bow certified (and this requires passing both a written and bow field proficiency test) you can just register to hunt goat after the regular season for goats ends.  Otherwise you need to enter a State lottery to draw a permit that allows you to hunt goats during the regular season that ends in October.  The lottery has always had pretty low odds, and so back in the day I opted to get bow certified just so that I did not need to rely on the lottery to hunt goats close to home.

Bow hunting is not a very efficient way to hunt goats.  It would generally take more than a couple of weekends before we got lucky and came home with a goat.  There were always plenty of goats.  The problem was getting close enough to shoot one with a bow (about 30 yards), and then it had to be positioned correctly (you can't shoot if it is facing directly away or towards you), and you can't shoot a nanny with a kid.  

Inevitably, we'd get very close to some goats and something would go wrong.  There was always a story after each hunt....a kid would pop up next to a nanny, the goat would be facing the wrong way, and once a strong gust of wind blew the arrow off of John's arrow rest just when he was getting ready to shoot.  

Whenever we got home Zoya would say, 'let me guess, you got close and ... ...'  And she was usually right. (Click HERE to see a post she wrote about it back in the day).

To be honest I am not a big fan of bow hunting.  I sort of see it as playing with your food.  Also bow hunting in November and December is cold and sometimes scary.  But the payoff is the goat meat; our family really likes it.  And since this year I did not draw a goat tag or go hunting on the south end of Kodiak where a draw tag is not needed - it is time to go bow hunting for goat.  But this time I am NOT going into scary places, nor will I take it too seriously.  If I get a goat GREAT, but if not, then I'll shoot a few does and pretend it's a goat meat when we make the goat sausage we love so much.  Patrick

John puts on the crampons

Another blown stalk - check out all the goats running away behind John

Cliffs, ice and sun

Hiking around on a thick mantle of new ice

John about to start a stalk on some goats way down the ridge

Roxy

Today we got some very bad news about our one of our dogs, Roxy. She has cancer all throughout her body. Roxy was limping quite badly this fall, and hasn't been as spunky as she used to be. Today we dropped her off at the vet all day where the vet x-rayed her leg and did an assessment.

When I walked in the door this evening from teaching weight lifting, I heard Nora crying in the kitchen and as I got closer I  realized that Patrick, Nora and Stuey were all crying.

"Roxy is going to die before Christmas" Stuey told me, tears streaming down his face. The kids were a teary mess, sobbing hard. Roxy has taken a downhill turn this fall and Patrick has been worried about something like cancer. I, admittedly, have told him this couldn't be so. I was in denial.

Roxy was our first baby...I picked her out of the litter, and did all of her puppy training. We got her shortly before our wedding-she is over 10 years old. She is such a sweet dog and has been so good with the kids.

The hard part about the next weeks will be seeing the heart ache for Nora and Stuey. They asked so many questions about death tonight and are really trying to process it all. This is their first loss.

Patrick and I are taking it hard. The vet says that the cancer is in her lungs and we are probably looking at a few weeks left with her. The kids are good at reminding us to pet her each time we walk by her. I can tell she doesn't feel good.  

We are going to enjoy each day with her. We've been so blessed by her in our life. 

Zoya 

Roxy (dog on left) on a hike up Old Womens Mountain with Stuey this past September

An outing with Roxy at white sands beach in Mid September

Roxy as a puppy interacting with real live king crabs on the lawn

Our first baby

Summer Fun - The ones that got away

S'mores barbecue in June when I came back from Old Harbor for the day

While it has not yet snowed in Kodiak it is clearly no longer summer.  Fall is about to end (I hope) and I was looking back through the summer photos and found some that we never put on the blog.  The blog acts as our family photo album, and we do print it out every 1/2 year.  So I wanted to make sure these photos made it into the album.

The photos make me realize how far away summer has already faded into the past.  It seems like ages and ages ago that we were having barbecues on the deck in the late evening sunshine.  I had totally forgotten about the walk we took while waiting to go to Chirikof.  The fog needed to lift at the south end of Kodiak before the plane could take off (the fog never seemed to lift on Chirikof - the 'Foggy Isle).  And remember the fireweed?  I don't think I've ever seen it bloom so early, so intensely, and last so long.  July was very hot and dry, but in August everything returned to normal.

Now we are waiting on winter.

Patrick

Family photo while waiting for the plane to take me to Chirikof Island

Another picture from the walk we took during the Chirikof flight delay

Hard to believe but it was a hot and dry July and we needed to water the lawn

The fireweed flowered early this year

Audubon hike that I lead up Sheratin Mountain in July

Nora with doll and matching nightgown from Grandmother

A visit from aunt Anne

Nora and Stuey say goodbye to Rachel and Matt

Matt reads a book to Stuey

Riding horses at the Baptist Mission camp - every week they had a different themed activity

Stuey's turn - a real cowboy named Johnny Walker taught the kids to ride

Trick-or-treating in the neighborhood

Halloween evening Zoya and I took the kids trick-or-treating down the road we live on.  We went to the same houses we always do, and all the neighbors were expecting us.  Not many trick-or-treaters go down our street - we only had one set visit our house.  These days most kids go downtown for trick-or-treating where all the businesses are geared up for them.  Sadly I think neighborhood trick-or-treating is becoming a thing of the past and the downtown thing more the norm.

This is sad because I think trick-or-treating is how your kids meet and get to know the neighbors.  It is an activity that brings a community together.  And if a neighbor is 'scary' about trick-or-treating that is a neighbor the kids should avoid.  A friend of ours took their kids trick-or-treating in another neighborhood and ran into signs that said, 'nobody home' and 'do not ring the doorbell'.  So it's no wonder that people are opting for the sanitized downtown version of Halloween.  But it is still sad.

But in our neighborhood trick-or-treating is alive and well.  When I first moved to Kodiak there was only one family that went up and down the street.  Now that family's kids are too old for the activity and we drop by their house with our kids.  This year we went a little later than usual and a few people told us they were worried we were not going to show up.  Patrick

'Early Release' and beach glass

On the first friday of every month the kids get out of school at noon.  It's called 'early release' which always make me think they are getting out of jail on parole or something.  The early release always comes as a surprise too.  This time Zoya is off to training in San Diego and we only remembered about the early release the night before.  It's lucky I have a flexible schedule!

Anyway, I think early release is a good thing because it gets everyone outside.  Yesterday was a spectacular day and I took the kids and their friend Estella to the beach glass beach.  They collected beach glass and inevitably got their feet wet in the surf.  At one point I sat in the sun on a flat rock with my back against the cliff and thought I was in heaven.  Up against the warm rocks it was so warm it felt like summer and there was not a breath of wind.

Now today is a different story. ..   Patrick