Monday 30 May 2011

The Smithers chicken run and cutthroat slayfest


In my temporary period of unemployment I decided to head to to the Clong forced labour camp near Smithers, for some poultry-related construction. The view from my holding cell was terrible.


The coop was already built, but they still needed a run to add some range to their freedom. Posts went in first, to a depth of a couple feet. This image of the newly installed posts does not capture the effort involved in the pounding. Alana had attempted to capture the action, but the images were so graphic they self-deleted from her memory card.











Next came the badass homemade door. Somehow it fit flush, and is seriously solid.











We salvaged chainlink fencing from the dog run left by the previous owners, and connected it all up. Chicken wire will be added to the top to get it up to the height of the posts. Lastly a trench needs to be dug around the perimeter, and wire mesh buried a foot or two deep to keep the predators from a tunnel assault. The holes in the chainlink are still too large to contain the chick(en)s, so they are under house arrest for now. Plus, they seem afraid of the outdoors.

























Our reward was a cutthroat slayfest on a nearby lake, followed by the discovery that their property has morels. This was after a bit of trial and error in the morel hunt on the way home.



After finding where the fish were, it was non-stop. They weren't big (1st and 2nd year stocked), but were acrobatic when hooked, and we could have easily filled double our limit.























































Pan fried cutthroat trout, fresh pasta with morel (and other mushroom) cream sauce, blanched fireweed shoots (very bitter... maybe blanching longer is the ticket).

A good end to the trip, and there is an open invitation for me to sleep in the chicken run whenever I return.




2 comments:

  1. Oh boy, I hope you guys are taking reservations, because I would like to a book a few nights chez Clong.

    (Morels? Wow. Just wow.)

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  2. Absolutely - reservations welcome and encouraged!! especially if you are partial to digging in dirt and beating in fence posts ;)

    I went morel picking Sunday in a burn from last year (South of Houston)....Slay day - take 2!! pics to be displayed on our superior blog:)
    a.

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