Look Before You Sit Down in Paia

The condo we stay in is in Maalaea village. It's in between the ocean front and sugar cane fields. I love the semi-rural, semi-neighborhood here. Population is small and people mind their own business. You can sit in your jammies on the lanai with morning coffee and nobody cares.

You can spend an entire day on the lanai, watching the harbor, observing wildlife... doing nothing. There's a monk seal, a couple of eagle rays, a heron, jumping fish, mongoose slipping through the landscaping, geckos chirping, and brightly colored cardinals contrasting the green grass.

Everyone who visits my condo asks about sugar cane spiders, since the field is so close. I've never seen one, I tell them, but I understand they are very big and run fast. They must like staying out there in the cane, and that's fine with me.

One afternoon, Fran suggested we drive up to Paia, on the Northshore, and do some shopping. Maybe find lunch. We might as well bust a move, we've been sitting so much. So Fran and Judy and I drove 18 miles to the former plantation town, now tourist attraction. There used to be a big sugar mill here, built in the 1880s, and the population was once over 10,000 people.



Sugarcane and Red Dirt

 Most of those people, immigrants from China, Portugal, Japan, Philipines (in that approximate order) lived in camp-like housing. Eventually, as they prospered, they moved into tract houses in Kahului. The camps disappeared and the sites plowed into more sugar cane plantings. The storefronts remain, and are occupied now by boutiques, galleries, and cafes. It's very quaint, no ABC Stores here, like you see in most Hawaiian tourist centers.

Paia is a bedroom community nowadays. Commerce is centered in Kahului, but Paia is a nice place to live. Sugar cane fields border on the mauka (inland) side, and some of the best windsurfing beaches on the makai (ocean) side. People who live here know each other, and are very friendly toward visitors.

The three of us covered ground with enthusiasm once we claimed the elusive parking space. It's nice ducking into an air-conditioned shop in the 86 degree weather. Store keepers are good greeters, asking where we are from, and telling stories about how they came to Paia to stay. It's a hard place to leave, apparently. Some residents hold three jobs to get by rather than return to the mainland.

"Oh, look! Crepes!" I exclaimed. I love crepes. I could smell them baking on grills.
"And French wine, too. This is it!" My friends weren't sure at first. Most of Paia looks shabby and dusty because of the tradewinds. They come from the Northwest, remember, and the beach is just North of the main street. All around are those cane fields and that iron oxide dirt. You can sweep it away, you can rinse it away, but you cannot remove the rusty stains it leaves everywhere. Paia is authentically weathered. Old woodframe buildings have survived over a hundred years of tropical storms, termites, and sometimes neglect.

Storefronts in Paia, Cafe des Amis nearest

We sat at one of the shabby chic tables, and the server brought us a bottle of filtered water and three rustic glasses. Oh, that tastes good! Besides crepes, there are curries and sandwiches, but I'm focused. We will have a bottle of that Cote du Rhone and I'll have that mozzarella tomato basil crepe.

You know the food is good when it's on the table and everybody stops talking.

We paid the bill and left the cafe. Judy decided she needed to go back and use the washroom, so Fran and I waited outside.

Judy ran up to us a few minutes later shaking like a leaf. It's pretty unusual to see her rattled about anything, so it must be a big deal.

"The paper towel roll was empty, so I reached up to get a new one. This huge spider jumped out of it and ran down my arm! He's in the toilet bowl!"

Fran had to go look. "Yep. He's still there, and that's a big one."

Now I had to go look. Wow. He's as big across as a tuna can and not delicate. He was inside the bowl, partially under the rim. I walked to the kitchen and told a server about him, thinking he should be removed before the next customer went into the washroom. The girl shrugged and said that they don't bite.

The cane spider, or brown huntsman spider, does not spin a web. It hunts insects on foot, mostly at night. So the slumbering creature was probably as startled as Judy was. In it's sleepy state, it rested in the toilet where it landed, and unless aroused again, it would probably stay put until nightfall.

But I don't think that's likely.

Two Ducks

My house is on six acres with a two acre pond. It's visited by all kinds of migrating ducks and Canadian geese. This year we watched a pair of those geese raise five young. It was exciting watching the flight training and getting to see the final circle over the water before the family disappeared over the ridge.

A single duck had kind of stuck around during the comings and goings of the small flocks of teals, mallards and widgeons. A bit large for a mallard, but I could see through the scope his beak was a bluish-greenish color, so he's a male. One day, when my friend, Diane and I were feeding the trout, this duck came pretty close to us. Diane threw the fish food as far as she could, and he gobbled it up. "He's starving!" she said, "Look how close he's getting. I bet I can get him to eat out of my hand." And he did.

I've always liked ducks. I had them as pets when I was a kid. My first summer in Anacortes, when I didn't know anybody, my dad gave me a pair of ducklings to play with. They were happy, funny little companion animals.

The day after Diane's visit, I was shopping at the Co-op, and I thought I could get the duck some whole grain bread until I could get to the feed store for proper food. The seed-encrusted loaf with the peace sign on the label looked about right. I went to the little dock at the edge of the pond and I could see the odd duck a ways out there. I tossed a few pieces of bread overhand, and he cautiously swam to them and ate them. Then I dropped a few pieces just below my feet. The duck zig zagged a bit and took them.

Hmmm.... I sat on the step that descends to the dock, several feet from where I'd been standing and tossed some chunks on the dock. He hopped right up and took them, and started waddling toward me. As I started tearing more chunks from the loaf, he got impatient and climbed into my lap to grab the entire loaf! A very nice bird, we visited for quite awhile. I got to stroke his feathers and he nibbled at my toes.

This is somebody's pet.

Brown duck is having a last lunch before being crated for transport.

I don't know how he wound up at our place, but he wouldn't be safe here. There are coyotes, golden eagles, bald eagles, otters and all kinds of villans a tame duck wouldn't know about. The next day I went to Skagit Farm Supply on my way to work to get a bag of proper chow for the duck. I asked the cashiers if they knew anybody who would like a nice little pet.

I should talk to Gary, said someone. Gary came from the stockroom, and we introduced each other.

"They say you might take this tame duck I have," I said. "He's such a nice bird I hate to think of him getting eaten up on my pond."

Gary said, yeah, he'd take him. He kinda collects ducks. He has khaki campbells, pekins, racers and mallards. They follow him around while he does yard work and his grandkids like them. His lot edges Gages Slough so they even have a fresh water source to play in. He takes a few eggs every spring and incubates them to hatch them safely just so the kids have ducklings to play with.

This man likes ducks. We made an appointment for Gary to receive the duck the next Friday. "I'll even give you this bag of food for being such a good guy," I said.

The pass was made, but I'd forgotten the duck food at home. Since Gary's on vacation, I'd have to wait a couple weeks to get it to him.

In the meantime, at the apartment complex we had an especially nasty move out due to an eviction. The tenants were selling drugs, letting small children run loose, and getting regular visits from police and CPS before they finally vacated. Under a tarp on the patio I found.... a white duck. Emaciated and dehydrated, very quiet, just hours from death's door. She was stunted in growth due to malnutrition and neglect. Poor, poor thing.

I've taken her home and cleaned her up and after a week she can walk around and quack. Very sweet creature, friendly and gentle. She's strong enough now for a regular pen and a washtub of water to play in. I'll go see what Dad has in his scrap pile tomorrow. He has all kinds of materials back there.

I'll post a picture of what the white duck looked like when I got her, and in a few weeks I'll show you what she looks like plumped and feathered-out. You can see here she wasn't even getting enough nutrition to clothe herself properly.

Gotta get her gorgeous for Gary. I think she can charm her way into his flock.

Duo

Here it is Friday already, and I have my work lined up. First I have an excise and hotel tax report for the great Hemorrhagic State of Hawaii (that's for the vacation rental income on the Maui condo), then I have four bank statements for Somerset Apartments so I can wrap 2009 and send the books to the accountant, and I have a box of quarters to count and roll. About $700 worth, they come from the laundry machines. Yes, I could take the box to the bank, but they won't pour them into the coinstar device in front of me. They take the box away to a room and send a deposit slip some day. They don't do that with checks and paper currency, so they're not going to do that with coin as far as I'm concerned.

It's my hard head and it's my time.

Out on the pond I see two Canadian geese. They stop here every year on their migration, but in the past there were three of them. I wrote a sweet little story about that last year:

http://denisehoverson.blogspot.com/2009/04/trio.html

And like I said, this year there are two instead of three. I smile and wonder where the third goose is. I think she must have found a love of her own.

Or bird shot.

That's the best I can do today in the romance department.

Lullabye

The southwest wind is really giving the patio doors a shake. The humidity is oppressive, and although I generally dislike air conditioning, the noisy machine does pull some of the stickiness out of the room's atmosphere.

It's been dark for a few hours, and the forecast is for heavy rains and maybe thunderstorms around midnight. The south-facing lanai will be a mess, because this southwest wind, or Kona weather, blows every drop of water that falls from the sky onto the tiles.

But it's kind of exciting. If I can stay awake to see the lighting, the huge torrent of rain drops looks otherworldly, almost like mercury swords slicing through the blackness. I've seen it before.

The geckos have gone into hiding, and the feral cats who have been romancing the past two nights are silent. The queen will not be auditioning the toms tonight. Something's coming and they don't need TV news reports to know that.

Lying on my bed, I listen to the wind. It sighs, it cries, it gusts in booms and slaps against the cinder block building, like unmeasured prelude. The storm and it's overture have not yet arrived.

I close my eyes.

And when I open them the sun is bright, and the easy tradewinds have returned. Morning song is soft and all blue ocean and sky. The blue of clean and washed and new.

No hint of last night's deluge and I have no memory of it.

The lanai is underwater, though, so fetch the mop.

It rained buckets last night. Nothing like a tropical shower. You can smell it coming before it lets loose, and the air becomes cool and moist. We had a good view from here of the clouds moving from Haleakala to Kihei and then over our heads at just about sunset. It lasted an hour or so, and the sky became dark with the clouds and the night. Before we went to bed, the dousing moved on and the stars were bright.

It was cool enough to sleep with just the ceiling fans going, so with the a/c noise abated, I fell asleep listening to the surf and the geckos chirping on the lanai.

Last night's chicken soup was very good.

Just having the carcass and no canned stock to build on, I decided to carmelize the onion first and set it aside. I deglazed the bottom of the pot with some white wine. Then I put the bones and water in the pot with Johnny's Seasoning and pepper (all I have in spice inventory). It simmered all afternoon. The fresh stock cooked down nicely to about a third of what I started out with. I added the chicken meat and vegetables (including the onion) to finish.

That works. I'll do it again. Carmelizing the onion made all the difference between bland and delicious.

We feel better now about eating the cocoa mochi and banana lumpia that Carmen brought us.

Alexander and Baldwin Sugar Museum is on the activity list today. There is just the one sugar mill still working on Maui. Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company in Sprecklesville (of course) is long gone, and the Pioneer Lahaina Mill closed about 1999.

I haven't read much about HC&S, but A&B is a major presence here on Maui. Sugar is only one division, most of the company's focus is real estate investment and development.

These sugar companies built the irrigation systems back in the mid 1800's that are still in use today. You can walk a trail in the Waihee valley and see the concrete ditches and siphons that have changed very little since those days.

I think the girls will enjoy the museum situated alongside the working mill. It is in the house formerly belonging the the plant superintendent, so they can appreciate the architechture of the day. Lots old equipment on the big lawn to walk around, and the old ways are documented with pictures and personal stories inside the plantation house.

Not much to do to get ready for the flight home. But we can't go anywhere until we shower and dress.

I'll make the first move.

Free Willie

We came home last night to the news that our cat, Willie, had not been seen for three days. Our neighbor, Katy, was appointed to Keeper of the Cats and the Bird while we were vacationing in Denver over a long weekend (she fed same twice a day). She is very apologetic, although it is certainly not her fault.

Not knowing which preditor is involved, I have taken the perimeter collars off of the two miniature pinschers and they only go outside on leash now.

Good thing. This morning, twice, a golden eagle has swooped over the lawn between the house and the pond. I went into the game room to tell Ross, and that's when I saw Dustin, the other cat, on the patio. Ross did the math quickly and got Dustin inside pronto.

With it's seven foot wingspan, a golden eagle can carry away about three times it's own weight. When they're really hungry, they are known to attack deer and goats (although they can't carry them).

Ross sits in a reclining chair with Dustin in his arms as I write this.

He remembers when we got each cat. Dustin first around five years ago at the Skagit Humane Society, and Willie three years ago at South Whidbey Humane Society.

The animals you buy at shelters are microchipped and usually named by the volunteers. It was especially important to these people that Willie keep his name. He'd been received the first time as a six day old kitten that they bottle-fed, then as a one year old given up because of allergies in the family.

"That usually means they got a new kitten," said the young girl who presented him. "This is such a nice cat. I've seen one so well-adjusted."

Well-adjusted? That's a description I hadn't heard before.

"Let's Free Willie then," I said. Money was exchanged and he came home us. The first thing he did was get stuck on the roof. Apparently he had no experience with two-story explorations. I have a photo of him I've posted here. He looks like a gargoyle, doesn't he? Two teenaged boys managed to pull him in through a window, but not without shedding some blood.




Cats are very good rodent control, as well as clean pets. We have never had a mouse enter the house with these two guys on the job. Both of them were declawed, but could still pull a bird out of mid-flight (we have discouraged this practice, but no amount of lecturing seems to be effective).

Some people are going to tell me I sent Willie to his death because I let the cats outside. It's nearly impossible to keep them in, even if it was my intent. They are animals and preditors by nature and design. We will try very hard to keep Dustin inside during the daylight hours eagles navigate in.

Coyotes have not been a problem, I think because our house site is open space without much cover. Tough for coyotes to sneak around in, but great touch and go landing strips for eagles, apparently.

So, I feel a little sad today. Can't feel as sad as I would if I knew that eagle or other preditor took Willie, because I didn't see it happen. There's always hope he'll show up at the patio door any minute.

Willie is free again, I think. Free of his cat suit. Not the kind of freedom he'd want. I hope it was quick.

It'll be a little while before I buy another cat. They serve a purpose, but they are affectionate and friendly companions. Willie deserves a mourning period, and I have to think about whether a box of Decon is a better replacement.
I miss you, Willie.

Salad Bowl 2009

What a beautiful day today! After months of virtual wet-blanket weather (short days, mostly cloudy and rainy) we have the sun and it is bright and hot!

I'll wear shorts today! Not being one to reveal the prison-like-pallor of my legs to the gentle public, I applied the fake-and-bake and looked outside toward the pond. Standing on the shore of the island was a very large raptor bird. Not a bald eagle... this was larger, and dark brown with a light colored mantle. Before I could get the camera, it took flight and flew right past the kitchen window! I keep a field guide handy for identification of the many birds that visit, and easily identified this one as a golden eagle! Quite a thrill! I ran out on the lawn to watch it rise up and up and gone.

Now that my blood was stirred up, I looked around for a project. In the direction of the eagle's appearance I was reminded of the raised planter next to the pond. I'd bought seeds a few weeks ago and had been procrastinating. Still on my feet, I made the decision to keep moving and get the project started.

My oldest son, Chris, built the oval raised garden for me. The past two years, we've planted tomatoes in it hoping that proximity to the pond would get enough light from the sky and the reflection from the water to get them ripe before autumn frost. Without a long, hot summer tomatoes are a gamble in this part of the world. We threw the dice and lost twice, so this year I decided we'd plant salad.

I located the double-edged action hoe in the garden shed. A powerful and resolute-sounding title has this tool. Some call it a hula hoe, but I think that sounds insensitive. With it's assistance I was able to prepare the soil in about half an hour, clearing out last year's remnants of failed tomato plants.

The trout in the pond can feel footstep vibrations, and they thought it must be feeding time. I tried to ignore their leaping and boiling while I traced the seed furrows with an alder stick. Basil and spinach at either end, then rows lengthwise of iceberg, romaine, and red leaf lettuces, with one row of carrots in the middle. I planted sunflowers on the pond side edge for decoration.

The last step was liquid applications. Generous watering, then a big circle of a black goopy potion called "Deadline" around the base of the planter. We cannot grow big tomatoes in Washington, but we sure can grow huge slugs. The subject species is called "banana slug" locally because they resemble small, slimy bananas. Without Deadline to quell the pests, the lettuces would never get past sprouts.

Now that the seeds were tucked in, watered, and immunized, I could sit down and visit with the fish. I tossed the chow into the dark water and enjoyed the supper dance of my chilly little friends.

Although we'll still have rainy days through spring and even through summer, we'll have enough sunny days to produce salad greens from mid-June until late September. I'll hope California sends good tomatoes to the local Safeway.

Trio

Three Canadian geese are on the pond this morning. These are migrators, not the crowd that hang around golf courses and wear out their welcome. They'll be here just today, maybe tomorrow for awhile and will continue their travel north.

When we bought this house four years ago, the pond was a big attraction to us. It's about two and a half acres and has a quarter acre island in the middle. It was created by the contractor who built the Scimitar estate up on the ridge. He quarried the rock under a wet area (all permitted by the state) to build the access road for the Scimitar mansion. What was once swampy is now nicely drained. The pond is home to frogs, herons, beavers and an otter . The waterfowl that you see are migratory, and it's interesting to watch the parade through the calendar months.

Two pair of mallards raise their babies on the far side of the pond. They stay pretty close to the beaver dam and only when it's really quiet do they enter my sight. Wood ducks nest somewhere on the ridge. I see the family throughout the summer. Six babies, then five babies, then four babies... no doubt the otter thins them out. Two of them will likely reach adulthood.

I've only seen a beaver twice. They work at night, I think. You can see bits of alder floating in the water. These are evidence of food gathering.

The first summer of our residence, John placed a floating trampoline mid-way to the island. It needed an anchor to stay put, and that was easily done. The boys enjoyed bouncing on it in the warm months. When the Fall arrived John retrieved it to storage for the next summer.

What should we mark the anchor with? What kind of buoy? I thought a duck decoy would look charming out there, so John went to Ace Hardware and picked out a big plastic Canadian goose. It worked very well through the freezes and thaws of winter into spring.

One April morning a trio of Canadian geese splashed down. I watched them from the kitchen table as they pulled themselves up to the lawn for breakfast. They are herbivores, and find nothing tastier than the grass blends we plant on developed plots. They eat alot of lawn and they... well, you know if you've ever walked around where they hang out. Watch your step!

Back into the water, the trio noticed the buoy sitting still about 50 feet away. Very cautiously, they approached, swimming big circles, then smaller circles. Two of the geese went back to the lawn and the one lingered next to the plastic bird.

She splashed. She nudged. She splashed some more and made a submissive mating posture in front of the stoic figure. She swam slow circles around it for awhile, then joined the other two geese on the lawn. She gazed longingly across the water to her new interest.

At the mid-afternoon, two of the geese took to the air for the next stop on their flight plan. The third bird did not join them. She settled down on the edge of the pond without taking her eyes off the decoy. Once or twice she swam around "him" but did not appear to notice the others had left her.

Early the next morning, she was sitting in the water next to her beau. The pair returned and swam close to the single in greeting. She lowered her head and chased them away. The pair stayed all day, flying up and trying to pursuade the single to budge. She would not.

John came home around 4:00 and I briefed him on the story.

"You'll have to go out there and get that decoy. 'He's' breaking her heart." I said.

John took one of the peddleboats from the dock and did the job, taking the plastic goose and replacing it with a nondescript oblong buoy. The single stood on the island and watched the departure.

She swam to where he'd been moored. And stayed.

About an hour later the pair returned. They approached her again. She faced them, but did not chase.

The pair rose to flight and made a circle around the pond, while the single remained where she'd last seen the decoy.

Another circle around the pond. Then one more.

Suddenly the single flapped her wings. She became airborneand connected her flight with the pair's. The three flew west, out of sight. I have to admit I got a little teary-eyed.

For third consecutive April, the three geese are here. I can't be sure it's the same trio, of course, but I like to think so. I'll enjoy their company as long as they stay today.

They are favorites.

If it's Dead, Matt Likes it

I have two little dogs, both miniature pinschers. Tassie is 19 pounds and doesn't look much like the standard. Ava is 12 pounds and although a little chubby, competes with the best examples of the breed; her lineage is almost all champions. She has crooked teeth, which is a fault in the showbiz world, so she is my pet.

I've had Tassie six years since she was a puppy. She's one of the best dogs I've ever owned, and since I'm home most of the day, she's right by my side and I'm very attached to her. John and I travel several times a year and I can't take her along. It's always a worry how to keep her happy while I'm gone. I've hired house-sitters, a few different kennels... but I'd notice she was thin when I returned home. She was so unhappy she wasn't eating well.

What if I got a dog for Tassie? She'd have a friend and she would not be alone when I kennel her.

I found Ava on Craigslist. She was offered by a small but very serious kennel in Monroe. Salina Bailey breeds champions. The top miniature pinscher in the country, Marlex Mr. Chips, came from her kennel and is half-brother to this pup. Salina said she thought the puppy would get along well with us, and let me take her home on approval.

The dogs are very compatible.

Miniature pinschers were bred to be house dogs whose job it was to kill rats and mice. Like most dogs kept as pets, their original purpose seems to become "forgotten" through generations of dogs bred just for companionship. They've got it pretty soft.

We have an acre or so of lawn, and our property includes meadow and woods that surround our civilized claim. Small creatures may attempt to inhabit the crawlspace, the attic or the eves, but John and the cats are experts at defending the domicile from things that creep and crawl.

Except for the lawn. Those small mounds of dirt, several feet apart, were a constant aggravation.

John has tried every strategy put down in print, televised or discussed at backyard barbecues among the most manly of homeowners. Traps, water hoses, poisonous bait... none of them worked. The object of John's military ambition lived under the paved walkway between the roses and the lawn. Only working at night, the mole would leave at least one fresh mound of dirt every morning for John to kick at in defeat and disgust.

One afternoon, Ava escaped the leash and zoomed off in a red flash.

Around the house I chased her, twice around... where is she? There she was, under the rose bush, digging furiously. I got to her just in time to see her grab something small in her mouth, give it several quick shakes, then drop it on the ground. She wagged her tail at me.

Dead mole.

Now what do I do? John would want to see this. My folks would want to see this. I wanted the whole world to see this!

I picked up Ava and put her in the house. I got a zip lock bag from the kitchen and took it outside. Picking the dead creature up by the tail, I sealed it up in the bag, stuck it in the freezer, and went (where else?) to the Yellow Pages: "Taxidermy"

I called the local guy who I know. Jeff preserves big game for local hunters. He's stuffed deer and bears and game birds, but he's also mounted zebras, lions and other wonderful exotics.

He said no. He said, "Hell, no. I can't stuff a mole. Even if I could find a form for it, my friends would laugh their asses off at me. Nobody stuffs moles!"

I expanded my search to Skagit County. No, No, and No. I found a shop called Whidbey Island Taxidermy and dialed the number. An answering machine said Matt would call me back after 6 p.m. if I left my name and number.

"Matt, my name is Denise and I'm hoping you'll listen to this whole message before you laugh and hang up. This is really a point of pride. My little dog just killed a mole that had been tormenting my husband for over a year. It's a nice clean kill, and her very first. It's a big deal and I'd like to make a trophy of it."

Matt did call me back, soon after 6. He was laughing when I said hello.

"Sure, I can do a mounting of a mole for you." He explained that he's preserved all kinds of rodents, birds, and skeletons for the University of Washington. The freezer was the right place for the corpse until I could bring it to him the next day around 4:00 p.m. I got directions.

Matt Klope lives about fifteen minutes outside Oak Harbor. He has a couple of acres with a house and a shop. Taxidermy is not his career, but his hobby.

Inside his shop are preserved ducks, deer, moose, and things you might expect to see. There were also wild cats, bears, a coyote, a wolf and several prone skeltons eight feet and longer.

"I preserve seal lion and whale skeltons," said Matt. He showed me large tubs of stinky black water behind the shed. "The meat rots off, then I bleach the bones and assemble them."

Nice. He performs necropsies of stranded marine animals, too, as a member of Central Puget Sound Marine Mammal Stranding Network. He has a wealth of knowlege about just about anything that crawls, swims, or flies.

Matt's real job involves the science of bird strike studies. He contracts with the US Navy to keep their aircraft safe from birds. You can read about BASH here: http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/media/approach/issues/marapr08/bash.htm I was amazed to hear they use radar to warn of incoming flocks, and specifically plant the acreage around the runways with foilage birds aren't interested in. Sometimes they use trained falcons to repel flocking birds.

Matt beheld the creature in the ziplock bag and said it was a Townsend's Mole, Scapanus townsendii. "Good dog. Nice clean break at the neck." He said he'd see what he could do to make it look fierce.

Ava's trophy sits in it's place of honor on the fireplace mantel. When we show it off, she knows it's hers. She struts proudly around it until it's returned to it's special place.

Doesn't that mole look fierce? Good dog.

Of Fish and Young Men

John and I live in a cottage style house on 6 acres including a 2 acre pond. Skagit County calls it a lake, although it is unnamed. A lake, you see, has more than one property owner around it's shores. On the west side of this lake is Scimitar Ridge Ranch, and a little south a guy named Cliff has maybe fifty feet. The insurance man says that's a good thing, because if it was a "pond" it would need a fence around it to be insurable.

The lake/pond is a depression left behind after a developer quarried for materials to build the road up to Scimitar Ranch. It had been pretty wet land before that, fed by a seasonal stream. The developer built a simple dam after quarrying, and the mosquito populated wet land became a small lake with depths of 7 to 18 feet. There is an island in the center because the rock making it up was hard, unyielding stuff and left standing. It's probably the size of two good building lots.

We have a wooden dock at the lake's edge. We can sit there summer evenings and watch the sun set behind Scimitar Ridge. That's the best time of day because the breeze is just right, it's not too hot, and we can usually find company who can spend that hour with us.
Cliff (you remember the guy with the 50 feet) came to us our third winter and suggested we go in with him on some trout fingerlings. He said the owner before us had done that about every other year and it was a good thing. Cliff told us all about the care and feeding of trout and how pretty they are.

OK. The Trout Lady came in April with her truck and her husband-driver. It's a flatbed with big plastic tanks piled aboard. We agreed to buy 500, just past the fingerling stage, and I wrote a check. They were loaded with a big nylon net into buckets, easy to count, and then husband-driver flung them into the water.

"There they are," said Trout Lady, "They are happy here." You could see little boil marks near the surface, close to the shore at first, then further and further out.

"You won't have to feed them for several weeks, if ever. You have a healthy pond here and the population of trout is in good proportion to their environment. But if you want to feed them, they'll come right to you when they get comfortable. They can feel your footsteps when you approach them, and they'll be waiting for you."

Cliff said he'd bought two 50 pound bags of Purina Trout Chow (yes, there is such a thing). "When that's gone, save yourself some money and buy cheap dog kibbles," said husband-driver. He showed us photos of trophy-sized rainbows taken from lakes they'd stocked. The specimens looked like salmon, and I was informed that rainbow trout and steelhead are the same fish. For some reason nobody really understands, some rainbows take to the sea from the stream and are quite similar to salmon. Genetically identical are rainbow trout and steelhead trout.

I let a month go by, then started throwing trout chow... just a few handsful. No reaction from the mysterious deep until the end of the second week. If I went back to the house and watched through the scope in the kitchen nook, I could see the dots of food disappear one at a time, like they were being sucked downward.

By the end of the second week of feeding, the fish were confident enough to seize the chow as I threw it. At two months, they would be waiting for me, making rings at the water's surface. At three months, they would leap out of the water at the first toss and the water boiled with their excitement. By September, their gymnastics would raise enough water to occlude my glasses.
Midway through this progression, osprey took notice of the lake's new occupants. A pair was nesting about half-way up Scimitar Ridge and a little bit around the corner. At first, both ospreys hunted my fish... each taking one or two per day. Soon, mom stayed home with the chicks.

It's something to see. An osprey is more falcon than eagle in size and weight. It's eyes look forward rather than out to each side, so it looks a little cross-eyed compared to an eagle. It's talons are two toes facing front, two toes facing backward, while an eagle has three toes out, one toe back. The scales on the ospreys' feet grow upward instead of downward, making them work the same way barbs function on a fishing hook. Highly specialized, ospreys eat only fish.

Typically, the bird would rest on a fir tree branch and observe the lake surface for a half hour or so, not making so much as a hiccup. Suddenly, he would plunge at at a 45 degree angle and disappear below the surface of the water for just a moment. Breaking the surface, wings flapping wildly, he'd gain a foot or two feet above the water in wet flight. That's not easy, especially with a load. You could see him adjust the six inch fish so it faced forward (less wind drag), and then take big, long loops to gain altitude before he could climb high enough to navigate home.

"I'm nurturing these fish so an osprey can show up without invitation and help himself twice a day," I'd complain to whoever might be listening.Thank heaven they'll leave for South America when the kids are grown and the season changes.

Even with the culling, I was seeing these fish grow to 10" and beyond. As the weather grew colder and as ice began to form, I cut back their feed, knowing that everything slows down for my scaly little charges, including their metabolism. You can choke them to death by overfeeding.
The thaw came, and with the thaw came cormorants.

From Wikipedia: "The cormorant as a symbol of deception and greed is described in Milton's Paradise Lost, sitting on the Tree of Life, as an image of Satan entering Paradise in disguise before tempting Eve."
About that time, came a boy about 14 years old from the RV park next door. He'd been admiring the pond, and the paddleboats, and had heard of the trout we'd stocked there. He asked very politely if he could fish. "I'll only catch and release," he said.

Jake has been catching and releasing for about three weeks under my watchful eye. Always the little gentleman, he rings the doorbell when he arrives with his fishing pole and tackle, and always rings the doorbell before he leaves to let me know he's all done and going home.

"Those black birds are eating your fish," he told me. "They dive kinda sideways head first and they usually come up nothing, but once in awhile they've got one and they choke it all the way down their necks."

Quite a gullet is built into a cormorant. These are not small fish.

So, this afternoon, I asked Jake if he'd ever eaten one of the trout. No, he said, he hadn't had permission.

I looked into the sincere blue eyes and said, "Well, today's the day. Catch and keep two big ones and take em home. Let me know if they are tasty."

Jake went out in the paddle boat. I could see him out there from the kitchen window as I put dinner together but wasn't watching very close. About an hour later, Jake tapped on the kitchen slider.

He had two. One was about 13 inches long and the other 16.

Wow.

"Can you clean em?" I asked. Jake assured me he could. "Well, just bring us back a little piece. Your family can have the rest."

He came back with a tail section, I think it was of the bigger fish. He said it was very good fish, they'd done a quick pan sear and poach in a marinade.

I took the section into my kitchen and did a simple salt-pepper-butter pan fry. I held it out for John and Ross to try (I don't like most fish). They took a bite, said "Hmmm," and moved on to the dinner course. "It's a little muddy tasting," said John, "Maybe."

John and Ross are not under the same spell that Jake and the cormorants are under.

Between Jake and the cormorants, though, I'll be cheering for Jake.