Put some more wood on the fire

It's winter, and I'm so glad we have a wood burning fireplace. The cats like to warm up during the day on a pillow in front of the windows. That's Latte on the left and Jazz on the right. I had to move this table into the back room to put my new sewing machine on it. It's a nice sunny room, but it's separated from our lounge and wood burner. I've put an electric oil heater under the table to keep warm while I work.I bought this because my mom encouraged me to (well she paid for it). I'm short and I'm always needing pants hemmed. It's been a learning experience. I did a little bit of sewing as a kid, but I'm a total novice. This machine does a lot of things for you, but I've made plenty of mistakes already. I'm taking the "learn as you go" approach. It's really flexible, and does 70 different stitches. I started with trying to make a dog bed, but that was a bit too much. I had a lesson last Friday and learned how to put in a zipper. When I tried to do it myself, it took 4 attempts and about 4.5 hours. I did get the zipper installed in a pillow finally. It has been rainy and cold, and I didn't have anything else on my agenda, so I made this cat pillow this morning. I got the felt cat applique from the website Felt, which sells all sorts of crafty stuff in NZ. Latte approves.Jazz is in the hospital, and might be able to come home tomorrow. He's been at the vet's for 6 days now, and has been catheterised 3 times. He has Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease (FLUTD), and had a blockage in his urethra that caused some tissue swelling and stricturing. So even though the stones seem to have been cleared from his bladder, and he's on anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants, Jazz is still having trouble passing urine. He had this problem twice in 2004, and I thought I had it fixed by feeding him a meat only diet. To read about the disease and diet is an exercise in frustration, because the biology is complicated. One of the vets who talked to me said that there's no evidence that the raw meat diet is any better for pets than the commercial foods. This is true, but it doesn't mean that the commercial foods are better, it just means that no one had the money to pay for the research to compare raw or homemade pet diets to commercial pet diets. I'm considering a veterinary nutritionist consultation, if Jazz comes home and recovers.

Since the weather has been so cold, I've been watching a lot of movies. I love horror movies, and finally rented Planet Terror, by Robert Rodriguez. This was really great, I was totally screaming and laughing in my lounge. Darin even watched it. I also saw a NZ film, Second Hand Wedding (good), The War Within (good, sad), and watched Hellboy (the first one) again (great).

Notes on chicken butchery

Yum, homemade pizza!
I used the Penzey's Italian Sausage seasoning and made pork sausage some time ago. It is really delicious on pizza.

We made Chicken Apple Sausage today, using the recipe in the Aidells Sausage Book that I brought with me from the US. The recipe calls for 3.5 pounds of thigh meat and skin. I had to adapt the recipe, because we had two freshly killed roosters to use. Since plucking feathers is a huge pain in the ass, Darin pulls off the skin and feathers, leaving the meaty carcass behind. So, I needed a whole chicken with skin to make the recipe complete. I bought a free-range, corn fed Turks chicken at the supermarket.

First, let me say that I am glad to have the choice to buy a free-range chicken at all. They are typically more expensive, but I think it is worth the cost because I think the factory farming conditions are horrific. There is a recent article about the cost of fresh chicken (factory vs free range vs organic) in the NZ Herald (link here including stupid pun). I bought a "size 16" chicken, which says it weighs a minimum of 1.5 kg. Cost was about $14 or 15 NZ Dollars. Even your factory farmed whole chicken will cost about $8-10 here, which was a real shock. I used to buy whole chickens for about $.50 per pound in San Diego, or about $3-4/bird. And turkeys, they would just give them away at Thanksgiving time if you spent enough money at the supermarket. When I moved to NZ, I stopped eating as much poultry as I used to because of the cost and the realization of the sad reality of factory farms. I like chickens, not just for eating. Which reminds me: vegetarians and vegans, stop using factory farming/animal cruelty as an argument to join your ranks. Factory farming is a reason to seek out and buy free-range meat.

The increased cost in NZ vs the US is not because they raise the chickens longer in NZ. The standards seem to be pretty much equivelant; the chickens are killed at just 6 weeks. To my knowledge, the same variety of fast growing bird is used for factory and free range farming. Our roosters, in contrast, were Barred Rocks age about 6 months.
So, getting past the cost, what else are the differences? Have a look at the photos below.

Above is the meat from one of our roosters, and below is the store-bought chicken.The commercially produced chicken is much lighter, paler in color than our chicken meat. Like the store-bought chicken, the chickens were bled out after killing. When I mentioned the color difference to my coworker who used to own a chicken farm in the Phillipines, she said the chickens get washed in an antibacterial wash. This makes sense, because the chickens need to stay "fresh" on the grocery shelf until purchase or use.

The texture is also very different. I found our chickens much more firm and resistant to the knife. The tendons were tough, and I spent some time teasing out the tendons from the legs. In contrast, the commercially produced chicken was soft throughout. The meat was mushy by comparison, and I found my knife slipping repeatedly into the bones. I don't enjoy cutting up chickens. It's a bit like doing a disection, and I've done plenty of those in my scientist past. But with chicken you get to eat the results and it doesn't smell so bad. I am not easily grossed out, but that third chicken, which was the free range store bought chicken, was looking pretty gross. It just didn't look or feel anything like our backyard chickens. It was weird. I am sure I would have found it completely normal if I hadn't had experience cutting up our chickens.

Since we ground them all together, the relative toughness vs tenderness and flavor of the meat couldn't be determined. Sausage making is much more fun when done as a team, but it takes a good 2-3 hours. We have a hand-crank grinder which is slow, but very user-friendly. Darin really likes to crank it. Or maybe he just likes to see me handling the sausages.We used dried apples that we made using our apple peeler/corer tool and food dephydrator. They are way more delicious than the store bought ones. I was surprised that the amount of dried apple the recipe called for was the equivelant of about 4 or 5 apples, that filled our entire dryer and took about 12-14 hours. The apples are in season now, and I am a huge fan of the Jazz apple. This is a NZ variety that costs a bit more due to the royalties that get paid to the developers. I would love to plant one of the trees but they are not available except to commercial growers. Drat!

Countdown to Christmas

Once again, my friend Holly and I hosted a Thanksgiving picnic. This year's picnic was held at Muriwai Beach, on the west coast north of Auckland. A lot of people showed up, each bringing a dish to share, creating enormous amounts of food. Holly's partner Steve is shown above, cutting up the wild turkey they prepared. Darin shot it on our Maungaturoto land, but Steve and Holly plucked and cleaned it, and prepared it. I baked roast beef. Strawberries are in season again, and they are in abundance. The day was glorious! Still, because this is a remote beach, I was shocked to see so many people there!

Christmas is nearly upon us. Just 3 days of work next week, then 11 days off for the Xmas/summer break! Yippee! Last week, we returned from our weekly trip to Maungaturoto (water the trees, play with the dogs), and found this in our mailbox:

Our next-door-neighbor's son made this for us. Byron and his younger sister Bronte were then ringing the doorbell to ask if we got it. I told them how much I love it. I don't think the photo displays the pop-up design. The reindeer have hats on, and Santa's mustache is green! I love it as much as the Santa my niece Lydia drew for me years back: He appears to be saying HOI HOI HOI because the exclamation points (!) are upside-down. (Ho! Ho! Ho!). Anyway, Byron and Bronte got home-made chocolate chip cookies from me.Darin and I enjoy playing board games with our friends here, and we decided we needed to buy one to share. Agricola is the #1 boardgame on boardgamegeek.com (all the geek details are here). We really like it. Darin has won every time he's played, and I'm struggling to figure out how to do better. Meanwhile, we are mirroring the actions in the game, one of which is butchering a sheep. In the photo below, it is a goat, but that's a minor detail. This photo depicts our other new Christmas gift to ourselves, a butcher's bone saw. We decided to get this after seeing a distributor selling whole frozen goat carcasses for $5 per kilo. Apparently they were for export, but for some reason the sale didn't go through. We ended up with 4 of them, each about 15 lbs. We LOVE having chest freezers (yeah, we have 2: one for people food, one for dog). The idea was to feed the goat to our pets, but then I got to thinking that I should try to prepare some of it and see how it tastes. That is on my list of things to do during my holiday break.
Darin also bought a whole albacore tuna from the fish market. We ate some of it as sashimi (shown above, in soy sauce), some of it grilled, and froze the rest in vacuum sealed packages. The grilled tuna was so delicious! The recipe is to marinate tuna steaks about 30 min. in: dry sherry, 3 crushed garlic cloves, salt, pepper, and finely chopped parsley and cilantro. While it grills, a peeled/seeded mango is blended with orange juice, white wine, and 1 habanero pepper. This sauce is served over it. It's shown below with the grilled zucchini. One of them was the first one from my garden.Here's how the garden is doing: Those are lettuces and carrots on the left, then moving right: another variety of carrot, spaghetti squash, tomatoes, sliverbeet (chard), red onions, spring onions, yellow onions, garlic, zucchini, another spaghetti squash, and a cucumber (the last two have yet to fruit). Darin sprayed the "wooly jumpers", but they are unaffected. So far, no sign of the nasty green stinkbugs, but the slugs have been having their way with some of the lettuces.

I have been taking Ruby to the Dogsport NZ Auckland club for a few months. They have accepted me as a new member, and it's interesting to compare it to the Schutzhund clubs I knew back in Southern California. They hosted a trial this weekend. Two of the teams I train with earned new titles: the BH (obedience) and IPO I (tracking, obedience, and protection/"carachter work"). I was impressed with the performances overall.

Also this past month, I went to the 24-hour Incredibly Strange movie marathon.

This was hosted at the Hollywood Cinema in Avondale, where they have a Wurlitzer organ and big balcony. The seats in the center front of the theatre were moved to make space for people to bring their bean bag chairs. People were also allowed to bring outside food and drink. The event was sponsored by the energy drink V, and 3 were given to me as I went inside. I had two of them plus a couple of cans of Coke, so my stomach was in a knot from all the caffine. I did manage to stay awake during most of the 15 movies, which included: Lady in a Cage, Krull, Role Model ,The Ruins, Dying Breed, The Road Warrior, Desperate Living (John Waters), Mr Mike's Mondo Video, Moonshiner's Woman, Ninja Turf, The Last Dragon, Small Eyes, King Dinosaur, and Time Machine (the original). Highlights were Dying Breed, Desperate Living, The Last Dragon, and The Road Warrior.

Finally, books. I don't think I mentioned that I finished Roots, but found that I lost interest when he got to Chicken George. This section went on way too long, and then the characters started changing quickly, so they didn't get developed as well. I finished In the Land of Invisible Women. I was annoyed with the writing or editing, because names come up without any background mention. The author is both very forgiving and at times very critical of the Saudi culture. She went on WAY too long about doing a muslim pilgrimage (ho hum). It confirmed what I knew and gave me new knowledge about the society, and it's really ugly. I'm now reading Heat, An Amateur's Adventures as a Kitchen Slave (etc). Pretty good subject, insight, and entertaining writing. I'm nearly finished with it, and next is Steve Martin's biography, Born Standing Up. Three cheers for the library!!!

New Zealand farm and wild life

We have 5 chicks, hatched from eggs by our Araucana hen. She's a really good mom, but didn't lay any of the eggs she hatched. The chicks are a Barred Rock cross. One of them has 5 toes, and another has blue/grey eyes, different from the others with golden eyes. They hatched just after we returned from our Labour Day holiday in October, so they are about 4 weeks old now. They've joined the rest of the girls in the yard, but are still snuggling with Araucana at night.

This photo is the new trailer we bought in association with my sister and BIL. It has a cage around it, that is removable, for transporting small stock. Lots of work has been going on at our land in Maungaturoto:
The building pad for our KiwiSpan garage:

The fence around the orchard is finished: We have a large gate for access from the driveway, and there's a personal/walk thru gate on the opposite side. The small gate gets us down to the stream to fetch buckets of water to water the trees. The dogs love to play in the stream, playing tug and fetch with old branches or logs from trees. Sadly for Fargo, he bit his tongue trying to run through the personal gate (3 feet wide) while carrying a 4 foot long log in his mouth. I was worried he'd broken a tooth, it bled so much. The wound healed really fast, to my delight. As we watered the trees recently, we noticed small freshwater shrimps in the buckets. We rescued them and re-homed them in the newly-created and still filling pond at the ravine crossing of our driveway. We heard a splash while there, and suspect a toad has moved in. Good! We've also noticed rabbits in that ravine. Also in Recent Wildlife News, we saw a turkey hen with an adorable, fluffy turkey chick. Yes only one, and we suspect the hawks we see flying around have taken a few. Finally, do you know that song, Thank God I'm a Country Boy by John Denver (watch here on YouTube, funny!) Well, there is a bird that sounds like it's singing the tune to this part of the song (lyrics):

Well I got me a fine wife I got me a fiddle

When the suns comin up I got cakes on the griddle

It is incredibly annoying, being reminded of this song and having it go through my head as I walk up and down that hill hauling water. In all honesty though, I must agree with him that being out there on the farm is incredibly gratifying (despite the lack of pancakes).

Two weeks ago, Darin and I took our new trailer up to our farm and camped overnight for the first time. We went possum hunting along the ravine after nightfall, but didn't see any. We have seen them as roadkill up there, and we worry for our tender young fruit trees. We worked so hard planting them, and the cost of them and all the gas/petrol going to and from the farm to water them almost every weekend is large. So, when Darin spotted a possum as we walked past an area near the road this weekend, he killed it. We knew something was wrong with it- possum are nocturnal, and live in trees. This one was on the ground, in the middle of the afternoon. When it was dead, we noticed that it had a road rash on it's back. It had been hit by a car, but survived, and crawled down the embankment onto our property. We brought it home as food for our pets. I've blogged before about possum, that it's a pest in NZ, and good to eat (for people and pets). The major benefit in my eyes is that it is a wild food, so no factory farming, no dis-assebly- line slaughter, and it's free (except for the butchering time). Darin found when he butchered it, that it's back was broken. It probably had happened earlier that day, because it still had food in it's guts. So he actually stopped the possum from suffering an agonizing death by killing it right away. Awww, poor fellow...er, I mean, wait, not this evil nasty beast?!Well that is the before photo, and here's the after: A VERY happy kitty, who was eating an animal about his own size:Here's a photo of the dogs' dinners. You can see that they also got some homemade vegetable soup (chard, potatoes, carrots, squash, tomato paste, Emeril's seasoning, ginger, olive oil, and oatmeal) and fresh apple.

The reason this was all very exciting is that possum is very healty, for both the environment and the eater. I think more people would feed it if they knew where to get it. I did find this canned dog food, a New Zealand product, called Possyum. I haven't fed it to the dogs yet, but it looks quite good. It also has venison in it. I think it cost about $4 or 5. I can also buy raw possum quarters for pet food from K9 Raw Food Barn for about 7 or 8 dollars a kg (2.2lbs). For the readers among you who want more information about raw feeding your dog or cat, look here.

Possum Hunt

Oh, my dear reader, you are in for a REAL treat! Just an hour drive from Auckland, in a rural farming/ranching community of New Zealand, I found a truely unique experience! But first, be warned:

The following photographs show dead possums. There are a lot of possum.

The possum in New Zealand is a pest. They were introduced from Australia for a fur industry- their fur is really soft and warm, and it is woven with wool into luxurious yarns for sweaters, hats, scarves, etc. Unfortunately, becausethey have no predators, they have overrun the forests, eating and killing trees, especially the native trees. It is the duty of every New Zealand citizen, I'm told, to kill a possum if you see one. Hence, the Possum Hunt. This one was a fundraiser for a rural school. I found out about it through my NZnaturaldog yahoo group. Apparently, possum has an excellent nutritional profile for dog and cat food. Poison is a common method to knock down their population, and various types are widely used. Basically this means you must keep dogs out of areas treated with possum poisons. The poison will remain in the carcass and is toxic to dogs even after death. The possum hunt I attended was in an area untreated with poisons. I drove down to this event to collect some carcasses and see if my pets would eat possum.

The school raised funds by selling entries into the hunting competition, and offering prizes for the most killed. I met a member of my yahoo email group there, and she feeds the whole carass to her dogs. We donated some money to the school in hopes that we'll get alerted to the next hunt and hopefully support the non-poisoning landowners. The remaining carcasses were getting tossed into an offal pit. I took more than I could count, I think about 25, but I don't really want to know. This is because I needed to butcher them before
freezing, otherwise they would not fit in our freezer.



The butchering process was a learning experience. I learned that the skin only comes off easily if they are freshly killed (we got day old carcasses, but weather was cold). The possums have really sharp claws. I was told dogs can digest these, but I didn't want to take chances. Initially, I dissected them- removing head, tail, paws, and guts, saving the carcass with heart and liver. Their stomachs and guts were full of food. They smelled bad. They were not going to fit in the freezer whole, and I had a pile of dead possum to process, so I started saving only the arms and legs, and discarding the rest. To get through all of them took me 4 hours. I did it on the front porch, and a cold wind was blowing. I had to sharpen the butcher knife after each one was done. It was dark when I finished. Fortunately, the cats and dogs like to eat it. I can see from watching them that eating the possum is a bit of work. This makes the meal take longer, so I enjoy that Jazz is not immediately crying for more food after I feed him. The first time they tried it, the pets were unsure about the fur. Now they eat it all.
Regarding the fur, for some reason I don't quite understand, the possum carcasses had to be shaved along the back . The fur was collected (see photo).



A group of boys searched the possum pouches for joeys, which are baby possums. They found several still alive, and collected them in a sack. The eldest boy was very outgoing and friendly and helpful, picking out possums for me and putting them in my box. Everyone there was very nice, very genuine. Check out the picture of the boy standing next to the dead possums with bare feet. I think this is a great example of how laid back the Kiwis are.
The time and hard work it took to butcher all those dead possum was worth the experience, but I won't take so many next time. I feel good that the possums didn't go to waste (well, entirely). I was so glad to see the trash bags I'd set out on Sunday evening were still intact Monday morning. I'd had visions of a dog or cat getting into the bags of carcasses and spreading them across the road. Thank you very much to the trash men who picked it up next morning!
Update: The possum were shaved and the fur collected for sale. The proceeds of this sale went to the school. The price for possum fur is around $120 per kilo.

My life revolves around dogs and cats right now

We are petsitting my sister's Rhodesian Ridgebacks for a week, until she and her husband return from Kyoto. She has an adult male, Cerebus, and a puppy, Orion. Cerebus and my Rottweiler, Fargo, decided to have a fight at 5 am Saturday morning, while husband was taking Sister and BIL to the airport. No blood drawn, but Fargo (photo above) got a puncture under his eye. Nothing a little antibiotic treatment can't help, but I'm the one with the ugly bruises from trying to break it up. I know what you're thinking- the problem is that I was NOT thinking- didn't I just say it was 5 AM? From now on, we won't give them an opportunity to go face to face.
Later, while playing with the puppy, he snapped at the toy I was holding and grabbed the soft part of my upper arm- another bruise, to match the other arm. Hurry back, Barb!

All 3 dogs and our 2 cats are on raw meat diets. There is barely room in our tiny fridge for food for us! I have been feeding raw meat to Jazz since he suffered a recurrence of Feline Urological Syndrome. Since I've been feeding raw meat, he hasn't had a recurrence in years, and he loves it. Also his teeth are nice and clean. Fargo got switched from kibble to raw food after we moved here, and his teeth are also nice and clean. He also loves it. The best thing about a raw meat diet is that their poos are firm and small, and don't smell as awful as when eating kibble.

Though I already feed raw meat and bones to my pets, I went to a seminar this past week, given by a local vet who was basically promoting the theory and methods of Tom Lonsdale. Check it out here, it will open your mind.

The other seminar I attended was "Animals With Attitude", by a local animal behaviorist and vet. This talk was more formal and I didn't enjoy it as much. The emphasis was on the animal's behavior, but little was said of the owner's behavior in shaping the animal's behavior within the pack. I am a huge fan of Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, and he emphasizes the importance of being the leader of the pack. It really is a two way street. You better be smarter than your dog!

That being said, I'm being outsmarted by my cat Jazz. He is very territorial, and what do cats do to mark territory? They pee on things. Normally he is very sweet and well behaved, but all it takes is a neighbor cat to walk into our yard, and he sees it from the window. People have suggested that we let him outside, but I've decided against it. First, it was a condition of his adoption that we continue to keep him inside only. Second, there is FIV in NZ. Our beloved cat Harley succumbed to Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, which is transmitted through saliva via a bite from an infected cat. There is a vaccine now, but why give yet another vaccine? Third, I like his company, and want him around. I would not confine him outdoors, and I don't know why would he desist marking inside the house. Fourth- yes there is a fourth! it is well established that indoor cats live longer than outdoor cats. Although, if this territorial pissing keeps up, he won't live a full life! Hah. He hasn't done it in about 6 weeks, so that is a relief.

You have to wonder why we put up with this. Pets really are a pain in the ass. But I believe that dogs and cats make great friends- they always listen, they don't complain about their own issues, they are soft and cuddly, and cute. And, I always maintain, they are easier to take care of than kids. No one will call the police if I leave my pet in a wire crate, and I don't have to send them to university or worry about them getting pregnant at age 15.

I'm considering adopting a greyhound, because they are 1) inexpensive, for a purebreed, 2) fostered in a home where careful attention is payed to behavioral responses, (good with cats or not) and 3) they naturally like running after prey, which can be accomodated here. I've met a great group who run south of Auckland. (see my previous post, with photo link goodness!)

Another breed of dog I admire is the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. On my way to get groceries in Henderson, I was shocked to see a couple walking two Tollers! There's only a few in the whole country, and we were crossing paths... There are no current breeders in NZ, so if I want one it will have to be imported from Australia.

Concerning dog sports in NZ, I'm still exploring options. I am unwilling to commit to "flygility", which is like the sport I did in San Diego with Fast Fourward (miss you all!) only it's not a team sport, and there's agility elements incorporated. I do like the lure coursing- either the dog "gets it" and does well, or not. There's no training involved, that I can see. It's just pure joy and beauty. See photo link on my last post. I'm hearing rumors from the various yahoo groups I've joined that there's Schutzhund, but do I want to do that again? That was extremely hard work! Rewarding, yes. But for now, I'll push back that next step toward total pet immersion. Still trying to fit into Kiwi culture, after all.