Walleye Fish Identification

Fish Week!  YEAH!

Today's post answers the age old question...  Walleye, Pickerel or Sauger?

You can imagine the fighting that happens online with this question, especially with the difference between pickerel and walleye.  The fact is this:

A real pickerel, scientifically, is not what we usually call a pickerel.  A real pickerel is more closely related to pike/musky and has a very particular patterning.

Pickerel

Our grandparents and in some cases parents call walleye pickerel because it has become a common name for walleye, especially in Northern Ontario (same way people call burbot ling!)

Here's a walleye, you can see it's quite different looking:

Walleye

It's interesting to note that the colouring on this fish will change slightly from darker to lighter depending on the habitat of the fish.  River fish are usually lighter, and deep fish in stained water are darker.  Important to note is the lack of obvious patching and the white tip of the tail.

Here's a sauger.  It's in the same family as walleye (and counts towards your walleye limits) but has subtle differences:

Sauger

You can see it has more "patchy" dark spots as well as a spotted dorsal fin and no white spot on the base of the tail.  The saugers are also much smaller fully grown

Here are some "real" pictures of fish I've caught this winter of walleye vs. sauger and you can try and see the differences.  Toodles!

A Cichlid Primer

Well, it's still fish week, and that means you still get Ian writing the blogs.

You're welcome.

Today's theme is on a fish that we prefer to keep alive and isn't really good eating unless you're an African fishing them, in Africa.

This fish is commonly known as a Cichlid.  It's a popular hobby fish as it's colourful, freshwater and fun to watch (territorial and can be aggressive).  I've been keeping these fish for a few years and find them fun to keep and watch, and not too much work.

There are a few family groups of cichlids.  I keep fish that are originally from Lake Malawi in South Eastern Africa. This is a lake that you should read about.  It's cool.

These are interesting fish because the females take care of their eggs and young in their mouths.  I can always tell when there is a fish holding because their mouths/chins are distended and the fish is breathing heavily.  I can also tell when I feed and there are a few fish that aren't interested in food...  that means they're ready for isolation and eventual delivery.

Here are some samples of the fish I keep.  This isn't all of them because I just have so many of a few of these and a few of that:

Peacock

Yellow Lab

Acei

Red Top Afra

Rusty

Blue Hap

Venustus

Cichlids are a territorial fish and so require quite a bit of space...   I have a 120 gallon aquarium that I keep the big guys in and a variety of smaller ones for the fry and juvenile fish. Come over and check them out!

The big aquarium.

The Day The Guppies Died

Today's question:
What happens when your filter's temp regulation mechanism breaks and causes your aquarium's temperature to skyrocket?

Answer:
The water goes very cloudy and your fish cook.

I know this from personal experience.  I recently lost a handful of guppies and a bushy nose pleco due to this sad occurance.  The tank water was VERY hot and the heater coils were glowing a very bright red colour.  No other possible explanation.  Time for burial at sea (flush) for the fish and a replacement heater.

Unfortunately the fish weren't cooked in such a way they could be eaten (like a ling!), so they were cleaned up and the tank is now circulating with fresh water until I can get a replacement heater.

Onwards and upwards!
Ian

A guppy.  Not mine.  Mine are dead.

Ling a Ding Ding!

Welcome to Fish Week on the Gael Glen Farm Blog! I'm guest blogging this week at the request of the usual author to (in my opinion) let her ideas queue up for future posts as she isn't really giving me a choice on this.

Today's entry is about a mysterious and unique critter living in the depths of the Ottawa River.  This is a bizarre and unusually ugly animal that usually keeps deep but comes up in the winter to prepare to spawn.  It looks like the bizarre lovechild between a catfish and an eel, has a face only a mother could love, and has the terrible tendency of tying itself up in lines, wrapping around your wrist and leaving slime all over the ground when you do pull one up.

They feed at night and usually signal the end of the walleye run in the area.

If you dare take it home to eat, you have a bit of a gross job cleaning it up (the fish is surprisingly full of guts -- more so than fish in the bass or walleye family), but the resulting flesh, cooked in a certain way, has a striking resemblance to lobster meat and is very tasty.

This is the guy I caught Friday!  He was HUGE!

I've seen all kinds of videos online and old fish stories about nailing one to a tree, cutting around the head and pulling skin off with pliers   I'm still cleaning them in the usual way though -- no trees around here to nail them to.

Yes, we are talking about the burbot, commonly called "ling cod" in these parts though this is technically incorrect.  This fish is in the cod family as you can tell by it's single chin whisker.

I keep burbot that I catch, clean them and save them for "lobster night".  This is usually after the ice fishing season is over and we have a small feast on burbot that I've poached in salt water and dipped in garlic butter.

Another interesting fact....   The scientific name for the fish is Lota Lota.  I wonder if they're suggesting lots of guts or lots of fins... or lots of slime...  anyway.

DELICIOUS, even if they're ugly.

Chicken Coop Bathed in a Beautiful Winter Sunset

It is still frigid outside.  My yoga instructor tried to tell me last night that pregnant ladies don't feel the cold - yeah right; she obviously doesn't have to go out to feed and water chickens at -35 degree C temperatures!

Even though it has been freezing outside lately, I have to admit the winter sunsets we've been having over the past week have been absolutely stunning.

This led me to wonder why winter sunsets are more vivid than at other times of the year.  

After some preliminary research, it seems that the answer lies in the fact that "blue light has a short wavelength, so it gets scattered easiest by air molecules, such as nitrogen and oxygen.  Longer wavelength lights - reds and oranges - are not scattered as much by air molecules.

During sunrise and sunset, light from the sun must pass through much more of our atmosphere before reaching our eyes, so it comes into contact with even more molecules in the air. Much of the blue light gets scattered away, making the reds and oranges more pronounced.

During this time of year, weather patterns allow for dry, clean Canadian air to sweep across [the] country, and more colours of the spectrum make it through to our eyes without getting scattered by particles in the air, producing brilliant sunsets and sunrises that can look red, orange, yellow or even pink." (The Weather Channel, 2012)

Somehow understanding the science behind it, makes these sunsets even more beautiful.  They are almost worth enduring these arctic temperatures...almost.

Source: The Weather Channel.  (2012).  Why Autumn Sunsets are So Vivid.  Accessed from: http://www.weather.com/news/autumn-sunsets-20121010 on January 25, 2013.

(Debatable) Poultry Progress

There are some things new on the fowl front and other things that haven't progressed as much as I'd like (specifically bitey duck issues but we'll get to that).

First, it is with heavy hearts that we report the passing of our Plymouth Barred Rock hen on January 23rd.  RIP zebra chicken.

Zebra hen  in fall 2012 as we will remember her.

Next, it has been just over a month since I implemented a new disciplinary regime for our bitey male Runner Duck, Leah.  I have been pretty consistent in putting him in a submissive position each time he tries to bite me (which is every time I enter the coop, by the way); however, I am disappointed to report that there has been no significant improvement in his naughty behaviour.  He is still super aggressive.

Leah in submissive - literally the only time he is not trying to bite me.

I plan to continue with my disciplinary regime but am hoping that perhaps the problem is that he doesn't have enough female attention on which to expend his pent up energy.  We only have two ducks right now (one male and one female) but from what I have read male ducks are happier with many more females around.

Which leads me to my next announcement - we have ordered our new chicks and ducklings for spring 2013!

I have ordered my one day old chicks and ducklings from Performance Poultry, a bird breeder near Picton, ON.  I ordered from this breeder in the spring of 2011 and was very happy with my birds (except for Cornelius the rooster who was a bit of an unpleasant surprise) so I figured I'd give them a try again this year.

I ordered 24 birds - five varieties of chickens and one type of duck but in two different colours.  I ordered all females since they are the only ones who lay eggs and honestly, from my experience, boy birds are just a bundle of unnecessary trouble.

Below are what my new chicks will look like when they are full grown.

Cuckoo Maran (lays dark brown eggs)

New Hampshire Red (lays brown eggs)

Plymouth Rock, Buff colouring (lays pinkish brown eggs)

Wyandotte, Columbian colouring (lays brown eggs)

Black Australorp (lays brown eggs)

Indian Runner Duck, Blue colouring (lays blue eggs)

Indian Runner Duck, Chocolate colouring (lays blue eggs)

I am hoping that once I am able to introduce four new female ducks into Leah and Kate's flock, there will be enough female attention directed towards Leah that he will forget all about biting me.  Here's to hoping!

My new chicks and ducks will be ready for pick up on Wednesday, April 24th.  I am super excited!  I love getting baby chicks.  There is nothing quite like the sound of "Cheep!  Cheep!  Cheep!" coming from the main house mudroom!

Planning for Spring

Admittedly, I am very much a "seasons" person.  I love living in a place where the weather at various times of the year is so incredibly different.  We can get up to +40 degrees C in the summer and down to -40 degrees C in the winter.  Variety is the spice of life, right?

The interesting thing about the seasons is that when I am in one, I spend half my time wishing I was in another.  In the spring, I can't wait for summer when the garden veggies start growing; the taste of that first tomato, carrot or zucchini is pure heaven.  In the summer, I anticipate autumn when the apples are ripe, the hot weather abates and the air gets crisp.  In autumn, I look forward to winter when there are no more outdoor chores and the bees have started to hibernate so I don't have to feed them sugar syrup on a weekly basis.  And, now, in the middle of winter, all I want is for spring to come so I can get back outside in the yard to tend my flower gardens, koi fish pond and berry patches and plant our vegetable gardens.

As the weather continues to get colder - we are at -29 degrees C today (not counting the wind chill) - Ian and I manage our "winter fatigue" by planning for the coming spring.  This past weekend, we had a Garden Planning Meeting where we sifted through all of our left over seeds from previous years, planned out our spring and summer vegetable patches and placed an order with the Stokes Seed Company for some new seeds.

Ian hard at work at our Garden Planning Meeting.

This year, our garden theme is variety.  Some years we plant larger quantities of fewer types of veggies but this year we have planned for smaller quantities of a huge variety of different things.

In the raised beds that constitute our spring garden we will be growing carrots, peas, swiss chard, radishes, spinach, lettuce, onions, beets, turnips and beans.  In our summer garden we will be growing garlic, peppers (sweet and hot), broccoli, cauliflower, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, watermelons, onions, zucchinis, eggplants, tomatoes, basil, kale, dill, cabbages and marigold flowers (a trick from my Grandpa to keep unwanted animals away).  We already had lots of seeds left over from last year but we did get to order some new things from Stokes.  For example: purple heritage tomatoes, beef master tomatoes (i.e. the biggest tomatoes you can imagine), yellow tomatoes and purple cauliflower.

We also considered crop rotation when planning out our veggie beds.  The principles of crop rotation say that each year you should change the place in the garden where you plant certain veggies according to the following scheme: potato family (e.g. tomatoes, eggplant) -> legume family (e.g. peas, beans) -> cabbage family (e.g. cauliflower, kale, broccoli, turnips, radishes) -> onion family (e.g. garlic).  This helps replenish the soil by making sure the same veggies aren't always depleting or adding the same nutrients to one particular section of the garden.

Our last garden was in 2011 and the plan looked like this:

 We didn't plant a summer garden in 2012 since we were travelling.  We arrived home from our trip to a garden full of waist high weeds, which doesn't really count as a garden.

Our 2013 garden plan looks like this:

There are few things that I enjoy more in life than the smell of the rototiller (it smells like childhood memories of my Grandpa and my Dad), walking bare foot through soft, freshly tilled garden soil and seeing the first new sprouts come up from seeds that we planted.  Ah...I can't wait for spring!

Recipe: Aunt Jane's Maple Fudge

Ingredients:

4 cups packed light brown sugar

2 cups table cream (18%)

1/4 cup corn syrup

1 tablespoon unsalted butter + butter to lightly grease glass dish

3/4 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

Tools:

Timer or watch

Two wooden spoons

Large metal spoon

8” heavy bottom pot with sides that are at least 5” high

Candy thermometer

9x12 glass cake dish (or other similar pan lined it with aluminum foil overlapping the sides in order to help to lift out the fudge. Lightly butter the foil.)

Large plastic baggie

Paring knife

Coffee mug

Paper towel

An electric hand mixer (optional)

A kitchen helper for stirring and general moral support.

Cooking Time:

1 hour from start to finish.

Set Up:

Station 1:  cooking area; pot/sugar/cream/corn syrup/butter/salt/wooden spoon/thermometer

Station 2:  sink area; plug for sink ready to fill with cold water/timer set for 15 minute countdown

Station 3:  mixing area; must be close to final area with dish to place fudge in/ vanilla/clean wooden spoon/ electric hand mixer (optional but muscle saving)

Station 4:  placing area; buttered glass dish/large metal spoon/large baggie to cover hand/sharp paring knife/coffee cup for future hot water/paper towel

Station 5:  wine station (this is optional, but you will want to celebrate if you make it to a successful end - pregnant ladies get grapefruit juice instead)

Instructions:

At Station 1, place brown sugar and cream in pot and set burner to med-high. Stir the mixture using the wooden spoon until boiling (takes about 9 minutes).

Once boiling, add the salt, butter and corn syrup and stir constantly and slowly while keeping an eye on the mixture.  It will rise to the top of the pot once, then will reduce back down to its original height as it continues to boil. If you think it is going to boil over remove from heat and it will settle down then immediately, then return to burner.

Clean the side of the pot with your spoon periodically to help keep any crystallization chunks from forming.

When the mixture has settled down install your candy thermometer.  Be very careful as the mixture is hot. You can do this at the beginning but we like to wait until the mixture has risen then settled down.

You can now do random stirring to ensure there is no sticking on the bottom and the mixture is getting even heat from the burner. You are taking the mixture to soft ball stage (240 degrees). Try to only make fudge on clear days as the low pressure of rain days may affect the results. This stage (once the mixture starts to boil) can take 12-15 minutes.

When the temperature reads 220 degrees on the candy thermometer, move to Station 2 and prepare your sink or a large bowl with some cold water in it as you will need to place your pot in the water to cool immediately once the temperature of 240 degrees is reached.  We use the sink and add some ice cubes to water to cool the fudge faster. You want just enough water that when the pot is placed it comes up the sides equal to level of the fudge mixture, about 2".

When the temperature reads 240 degrees, immediately place the pot slowly into the water and remove the thermometer. Try to keep the pot level so the mixture is not all gathered to one side as the mixture will not cool at an even rate, you may need a small dishrag to place under one corner to help keep it level in the water.  Leave your wooden spoon in the center of the fudge mixture.

Ensure timer is set  for the 15 minute countdown. Start the timer.

At the 8 minute mark of the countdown timer, stir the fudge while keeping the pot in the water. Take your wooden spoon that is still in the mixture and dig into the sides of the pot and pull that mixture into the center of the pot. You will notice how the sides have commenced cooling and is becoming harder or more sticky than the interior mixture of the pot. Three or four mixes is all you need as long as you have dug into all the sides of the pot.  You are just trying to encourage even cooling of the mixture. 

Once done, scrape down your wooden spoon of any mixture and remove it from the pot. If you don't have a second wooden spoon clean this one for later use. You cannot insert a spoon with fudge crystallization on it into the mixture as it will encourage the whole fudge mixture to form crystals rather than becoming smooth. 

If you have an instant read thermometer, at the 14 minute mark you can check the temperature of the fudge mixture at the outside corners where the mixture will be the coolest, the temperature should be close to 120 degrees. This is not critical it just means the higher the temperature the more beating of mixture will need to take place, the lower the temperature the more chance you will end up with a pot of fudge, rather than a dish of fudge as the setting process may take place faster than you can react.

At the 15 minute mark of cooling, remove the pot of fudge from the water and place on the counter area at Station 3 where you are going to mix the fudge. This area should be close to where your dish to place the fudge into is located. You may want to place a cutting board under the pot as it can still be somewhat warm.

Add the vanilla.

Now you can start the beating with an electric hand mixer (this is hard on the mixer, use only for 2-4 minutes max) or simply start with your own muscles and wooden spoon. The mixing time will vary, but on average  2-10 minutes depending on the initial temperature of the fudge mixture. It is important to get into the sides of the pot and pull into the center, scrape the bottom and try to keep sides clean as you go.  This is the most important step - you must watch the colour of the fudge carefully.  You are looking for the sheen of the fudge to change from shiny to dull.

As the fudge cools it will crackle and here is the most important step to master - watch the colour of the fudge and beat until the sheen changes from shiny to dull.  It  will start out  very shiny and when it is ready to spoon into your dish the appearance (finish) will go to a dull colour. You will see streaks of dullness appear  as you beat closer to the end (this is a warning sign) but the fudge is not ready until complete mixture  dullness appears.  You only have seconds at this point to spoon the fudge mixture into the dish - it sets very quickly.

Once you reach the dull sheen, quickly carry the pot over to the placing dish at Station 4 and have your helper take hold of the pot and hold over top of the dish while you spoon the mixture (as much as you can with the wooden spoon) into the dish. Try to keep in the fudge in one large ball at the beginning when you dump into the dish, as the heat will stay in the fudge longer and allow it to be more easily spread.

Once 80% of mixture is place in dish, you can take hold of the pot and your helper will place the baggie over their hand (the hand is easier than a spoon and if you place a thin layer of butter over the palm side of the baggie that is in contact with the fudge if helps the fudge not to stick to the baggie) and push down and smooth out the mixture to the thickness you want or size of your dish. 

Meanwhile, you take the pot and grab the large steel spoon and scrape the pot and place the remaining mixture (if possible) into the dish, your helper can grab the fudge off the spoon with their hand covered with the baggie, working very quickly. That is it!!!

Place the dish full of fudge on a wire rack to encourage even cooling. Sometimes some oil from the butter that you used on the baggie or dish will rise to the surface of the fudge; you can dab this off with a paper towel.

Once you have boiled enough water to fill a cup you can start cutting the fudge. Fill the coffee cup with  enough boiling water that will cover the blade of your paring knife. Take the paring knife and dip into the hot water for 5 seconds, remove and wipe dry with paper towel and make full length cuts in the fudge. 

The best piece sizing is 1/2 inch cubes so gauge the lines you will need to cut both horizontal and vertical in order to get this size. After each full length cut, place the knife back into the hot water, wipe dry with paper towel and make next cut. You are now done.

Move on to Station 5 if you wish.

Helpful Hint:

Like many recipes, it takes practice so don’t get discouraged - even the batches that don’t turn out 100% will still taste good. We've eaten many "failed" batches and there are never any complaints!

Source:

From Dad's Test Kitchen, November 1, 2009 updated December 12, 2012.  Original recipe from Aunt Jane.

One Frozen Egg and a Dying Chicken

The temperatures have dropped.  We are currently holding at -21.7 degrees C (-7 degrees F).  It is cold enough outside to freeze your Winnebago, as the Muppets would say!

It is also cold enough to freeze the eggs in the chicken coop.  See Kate's egg below as proof.

Frozen eggs do thaw out once brought inside.  As they warm up, the split in the shell disappears almost completely and you'll have a hard time telling the egg was ever frozen.  Frozen eggs are still good to eat once thawed, though we don't sell these eggs since they have cracked shells.  Don't ever fry up an egg from its frozen state though, it doesn't work - we've tried it.

We're sad to report this morning that one of our hens that looks like a zebra is very sick.  She will likely die today.  This hen, of the Plymouth Barred Rock variety, was one of the first eight chickens we ever got.  In the spring of 2010, my Dad took me to the farm of a buddy of one of his work colleagues to buy my first flock of hens.  These zebra hens have been reliable layers over the years and have been the alphas of the flock.  Of the eight original birds, we only have two left and the dying hen is one of them.

Healthy chickens moving around and eating.

Sick chicken.  She put her beak in the corner and while still breathing she isn't moving much anymore.

Back when we first started keeping chickens, I was very gutted about each sick chicken.  In fact, to Ian's great dismay, I would create a chicken palliative care unit in our guest bathroom bathtub for each sick hen (though to his credit, he never tried to stop me).  I would line the tub with old towels and provide the sick hen with warmth, food and water in hopes that the quiet, serene environment would soothe her back to health.  I tried this three times and while the chickens never got better, hopefully their last hours were comfortable and peaceful.  

I no longer feel the need to bring sick chickens inside the main house to try to make them better.  I think that being able to accept that death is as much a part of farm life as birth, is a sign of growth in myself as a farmer.  I am now able to leave a sick chicken in the coop with her family and accept that her death is a natural part of her life.  This may not sound like huge growth on my part but if you ever ask my Dad about the hysterical phone call (complete with tears and hiccups) that he received from me the first time one of my hens died, you'll see I've come quite a long way.

While the demise of this particular hen is not surprising since she is quite old and it is very cold outside, it is always sad to say goodbye to one of our feathered friends.  She's been with us for three years and is a good hen.  Hopefully she passes quickly and with little pain surrounded by her family.

I Love the Smell of Ammonia in the Morning

Chickens are easy to raise; all they do is eat, squawk, lay eggs and poop (and poop and poop and poop).  I muck out the chicken coop once a week.  If I leave it any longer than that, the ammonia smell (from the chicken poop) becomes so noxious it gets difficult to breathe inside the coop.  The coop stays cleaner in the summer when the chickens spend the majority of their time outside and the coop windows always stay open; but, in the winter, when they are literally cooped up inside a closed up coop, it gets very dirty and very smelly, very quickly.

Yes, this is poop encrusted straw.

Cleaning the coop is not rocket science; however, it does require the right tools, heaps of patience and some manual labour.  The first step is to move the feeder and water bucket outside and to shoo out as many chickens and ducks from inside the coop as possible.  It is sometimes possible to bait the chickens outside with scratch but the "shoo-ing" is admittedly much easier in the summer.  In the winter, the chickens don't want to go out in the cold (even when tempted with treats) and so they stay inside the coop and get in the way of the coop cleaner as much as they possibly can.  On more than one occasion I have had a chicken stand on my shovel and refuse to move.  They are crazy birds.  This is where the patience comes in.

Some chickens were tempted outside with treats.

The rest of the chickens stayed inside to get in my way.

Coop cleaning requires three main tools: a flat bottomed shovel, a pitch fork and a floor scraper.  The mechanics of coop cleaning are: use the scraper to loosen the straw and poop off the floor, shovel the dirty straw and poop out the little back door into the chicken run, use the pitch fork to load the nastiness into the wheel barrow, push/pull/drag the full wheel barrow out to the manure pile, dump and repeat.  While undertaking these tasks a good coop cleaner must also avoid: 1) whacking any interfering chickens with the shovel (Note 1: much patience is required to avoid intentional whacking.  Note 2: accidental whacking sometimes happens and is par for the course); and 2) getting bitten by Leah the duck when you are not paying attention (easier said than done).

Scrape and shovel.  Avoid chickens.

Load 'em up!

Full to the brim.

When there is snow it is easier to drag the full
wheel barrow behind you out to the manure pile
then push it.

Once the coop is cleared out, you can spread new, clean straw out on the floor (the chickens will help you spread it out evenly) and then replace the feeder (after filling it up) and water dish (after washing it, of course).

Ta-da! - a clean chicken coop.  That gives you one more week until the smell of ammonia threatens to knock your socks off and the whole process must begin again.