We had roast chicken for dinner the other week, and I used the recipe from the Zuni Café Cookbook which calls for pre-salting the bird. (I highly recommend this technique: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/09/the-best-roast-chicken-recipe-try-it-with-me.html) When I was salting the chicken and came across the giblets stuffed in the interior, I had a momentary pause of indecision about what to do with the innards. We haven't started composting yet (it's too cold, I haven't figured out where the bin is going to go, excuses, excuses) and I'm still not sure how we're going to deal with animal products when we do. And I'm not a big fan of giblet gravy (if you have a recipe or technique to recommend, I'm all ears). But even though I've thrown this stuff away before, I just didn't want to see it go to waste this time. So I gave some of the organ meat to Clancy (he loved it) and Henry (he ate it only because Clancy was eating it) and Zaida (she refused it; she's too dignified and delicate for offal).
But then I decided to throw the rest of the organs and the neck outside. The chicken pieces flew over the deck in a pretty arc of pink poultry slime and landed on the pristine snow. Well, okay then; I now had pieces of raw meat freezing in our driveway. What animal was I hoping to attract? Maybe I wanted to foster happy relations between me and a nonexistent family of gentle and intelligent Fantastic Mr. Foxes. Or I wanted to entice our occasional raven visitors. What I really succeeded in doing was preventing the chicken from rotting in my garbage, really just delaying the inevitable decomposition until spring.
Full disclosure: in addition to feeding ravens french fries on the wharf in Juneau, I also left out carrots in our backyard in the hopes of attracting a lovable fluffy bunny to be my pet. I was always mystified as to why no bunny ever took the bait; that is, until recently, when I glanced at the fluffy bunny habitat map in John's book of mammals from childhood and discovered that fluffy bunnies don't live in Alaska. Hares do. But I didn't want a hare; I wanted a bunny rabbit. I remember my mother enthusiastically encouraging me in this foolhardy pursuit; I think she just hoped I would concentrate on attracting nonexistent rabbits rather than stopping at the Juneau Animal Shelter to bring home a stray cat or dog as a real pet, which is eventually what I did when those uneaten carrots finally broke my heart.
The next morning, I glanced out the kitchen window to check on my frozen chicken piece friends. They were gone! From what it looked like (based on the tracks in the snow), a large bird (most likely a raven) swooped down and either ate them there or whisked them away. I hadn't been this happy since the french fries! I never managed to take a picture of the wing impressions in the snow, but it kind of looked like this: http://alreadyfriday.blogspot.com/2006/04/disappearing-rabbit-trick.html (Imagine the rabbit tracks belonged to the chicken pieces and the owl's wing imprints were the raven's.)
Success, right? First step in opening up a dialogue for raven/human relations! So a day or two later, I used the roast chicken carcass to make stock for Avgolemono soup. And I had a bunch of leftover roasted chicken skin too. I decided to proceed with step two of United Nations avian goodwill efforts and left the carcass and the skin outside in an appetizing pile as yet another offering for my soon to be best bird friends. I was allowed to leave the chicken outside under the strictest of conditions that I would be the one to clean things up if no creature came to remove the carcass, not John. I promised him that no matter how pregnant I was, no matter how laden with child, no matter how strong the contractions, no matter how treacherous and icy the terrain, I would be the one to go outside and remove any unclaimed meat and bone. I asked John to place bets on how long it would take before the ravens came to eat it. I think he guessed 24 hours.
Well, that was rather optimistic, as a week later, the chicken was still outside, collecting a layer of snow. It didn't look very attractive, I had to admit. The carcass was gray and frozen and untempting, but I figured ravens would see through all that and realize its true deliciousness. I saw and heard ravens fly by, but they never stopped to check out the chicken leavings. John suggested that maybe they preferred their meat raw, or that I should have let the carcass get nice and rancid before putting it outside so it could develop an appetizing stink. Maybe I'll try that next time with a nice piece of rotting salmon. We agreed that I didn't need to pick up the chicken immediately since it was frozen and wasn't going anywhere, but that it was probably in my best interests to retrieve it before the spring thaw. I couldn't stop thinking about the scene with the maggots from the movie "Sunshine Cleaners." Then John forgot about the chicken and promptly proceeded to plow the driveway (thanks, baby!), thereby scattering what until then had been a discrete pile of bones and skin into various snow berms, making clean-up efforts that much more challenging.
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| Oh well! I'll find all the rotting pieces when the snow has melted. I also include this picture to let you know how industrious and manly John is when he uses the snow plow. |
John's plowing also obliterated some of the moose tracks along the perimeter of our yard. As we left the house the other morning, John abruptly stopped the car on the uphill slope of our driveway. "Do you see those? Has someone been here?" he asked, pointing to some tracks in the snow wandering from the edge of our yard to the neighbor's. We figured out they weren't human tracks at all, but moose. They led directly to some small willow trees that had been decimated, so we figured the moose stopped for a snack at our place on its migrations.
We hadn't seen any moose in our area for awhile, but my parents saw two of them in our driveway on Christmas morning. Seeing moose in Fairbanks is such a low-key non-event. They're everywhere. They're like deer, only larger and more intelligent. I'm not used to seeing these large ungulates just roaming around, so it's still a novelty to me. In Seattle, our closest wildlife encounters were hearing the raccoons mate in the trees outside our neighbor's patio (not a pleasant sound) and seeing the occasional ugly possum hiss at us through our patio door. Moose just seem a lot more majestic and interesting. So I really liked thinking about "our" neighborhood moose snacking on our willows and hoped that I'd catch a glimpse of it someday.
It was a sunny, clear, cold morning. As we drove along Murphy Dome Road, I saw some cars and commotion up ahead near Coyote Trail. I recognized the scene and knew before even being able to see the details what was happening. People were stopped because a moose had been struck by a vehicle. As we zoomed closer, I could see the moose laying prone on the ground. As we approached, I realized it was already dead and the people gathering around it were skinning it. There was blood in the snow and on the pavement. It was zero degrees and I could see the heat rising from the pink flesh.
It caught me off guard. All at once, I was thankful that people in Fairbanks are resourceful enough not to waste the meat. If an animal is going to die, at least there would be some use, some good to come of its death. But I couldn't help but think of that dead moose as "our" moose, the one who had wandered into our yard to nibble on our willows. Matching up this bare sinew and muscle and blood to a creature who had only recently walked through our yard just didn't seem right or real. When we returned home that evening, there were new moose tracks in our yard, so maybe it wasn't the same one.
The temperature in the hills over the weekend was in the mid 20s, so John and I took advantage of the warm weather to take a little walk up Keystone, the road just past our driveway. We didn't see any moose. But we discovered a snowshoe trail to the summit and a nice spot to view both the ski runs of the nearby Moose Mountain Ski Area and the Alaska Range to the south.
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| John would like for you to know that his scarf, rediscovered in the move, is like 25 years old, probably even older. Moose Mountain ski runs can be seen in the background. No skiing for me this season because of the potential for injury to the baby (my dad scoffs at this, saying he's known plenty of women who ski while pregnant). But I can't wait for next winter so I can bring out my ancient and embarrassingly hot pink skis! |
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| I let the cats out yesterday so they could explore the deck. |
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| This is them exploring. |
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| Zaida didn't want to go explore outside because that would mean leaving behind her beloved Bob Seger record. Here she sits, gargoyle-like, standing guard over it. |
