Fishy mis Adventures Part II Trout Rapture

One fish, two fish, dead fish....*sigh*.....

Recall from Part I, when we decided to take out a few fish to eat, my thought was, "what can it hurt?" Well, apparently, it can hurt a lot.

The next day, January 4, I found a floater in the tank. I dont know what caused the fishs death. In reading about humanely treating fish, I came across a lot of catch-and-release articles. A couple of things I learned - first, try not to take the fish out of the water at all. Its like suffocating them. Next, if you must handle the fish, make sure your hands are wet. If you touch a fish with dry hands, you are effectively "burning" the fish by removing some of its protective slime. Also, the protective slime is part of the fishs immune system, so besides causing the fish pain, you are damaging its immune system. I read on several different sites, that often, if you release a fish and dont handle it properly, it might swim away, so you think the fish is going to live, but it actually swims away and ends up dying. See photo below. Note that this is on a standard-size dinner plate (10" or 12"? Im too lazy to go measure it).

Big Dead Fish

Knowing that, when we removed the fish from the water, we tried to put the ones we were going to eat back into the water immediately. Also, we did not touch the fish with our hands. I dont know what caused this fish to die. Maybe it was just shock. But, it turns out, it was about twice the size of any of the fish we ate! I think it was the granddaddy trout in our tank.

OK, so one fish down. I think I should be down to 30 or 31 fish at this point, so everything is still good, right?

Wrong.

Today, I go down to take care of the dogs, and there are FOUR dead fish floating around. And a sort-of-alive one hovering near the top of the tank. The nitrate levels are off the charts. The water level was a little low, so I added some water, but the nitrite levels were still out of range of my little chart, so I did a 50% water change. During the water change, yet ANOTHER dead fish comes floating by....AHHHH!!! Frustration.

The only "good" thing about todays experience is that it has been unseasonably warm all week, with today being the warmest day yet. It was about 65-70 degrees outside today, so at least I didnt have to do this in subfreezing temperatures. Its a rather wet and messy process. It did, however, take me three tries before I found a hose that wasnt frozen, but at least I didnt have to carry the water into the house in buckets. My back is too old for that kind of work.

Anyway, heres another picture of fish carcasses. :-(

This is starting to seem like a rather morbid blog....

More Floaters

Now heres where the trout rapture comes in....this is weird. My son and I were shining the light in the tank, and it seems like there are only two fish swimming around! Hopefully, the rest are just so healthy and fast that theyre avoiding the light every time we move it and hiding in the corner (is there a corner in an oval tank? whatever). Usually, we can see a bunch of fish shadows swimming around, but now we only see a couple, so my son is convinced the other fish have been raptured.

I still dont know exactly what happened, but Im guessing one fish died of shock and floated in the water long enough to contaminate the water and kill the other fish. I just checked the nitrite level again, and although its a lot higher than it should be, at least it seems to have gone down a lot since the water change. Im hoping that if I dont feed them for a day or two, the level will stabilize.

On a happier note, my plants are still alive. Actually, I dont know that I would call the plants "happy," but they are alive. Theyre a little yellow, and growing really slowly, but they are still alive. If I decide to continue with this, I will have to come up with an artificial light solution. Here are a couple of pictures taken January 3. I think I planted the seeds at least two months ago, so you can see that the growth is extremely slow. I think if I had planted these outside in June, they would be about this size within a week or two.

The good thing is that I didnt lose very many plants when we had the super-sub-zero temperatures a few weeks ago. There is a gap in the dog door that lets in raw, cold air, and I was afraid it would freeze my plants. I think it got down to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, so it was pretty close.

Bed 1 - Strawberries on the Right, Lettuce and Herbs on the Left

Bed 2 - Sickly Tomato Plant and Some Broccoli and Herbs

Well, thats about it for now. Not much excitement this winter until recently, so there really wasnt anything to report. Hopefully the next update will have better news!

Thanks for stopping by! :-)

Montana Morning Coffee

Its Monday morning! Have you had the best cup of coffee in Montana yet?

You can find cups of gourmet coffee in every corner of Montana, from Alberton to Wibaux. There are even many places where coffee is roasted on the premises. Youll find your own favorite coffee as you travel around the state, but I urge you to stop at the Dillon farmers market (opening July 10) and look for Montana Morning Coffee.

Montana Morning Coffee is roasted one bag at a time by one woman, Mary Anne Wofford, whose passion for good coffee is revealed in many ways.

"Im selling Montana," Mary Anne told me when I visited her to see how the process works. "Im selling everything that goes with Montana, through the ambiance of a cup of coffee, through the ambiance of the morning, the mist, the fresh air."

She is also selling some mighty tasty coffee. She says shes heard "This is the best cup of coffee Ive ever had" many times. In fact, her business started soon after her son came home one day in 2006 and said just that about some coffee he had drunk. She found the source and started asking questions. Her first experiments began with a hot air popcorn popper.

"Smoke was filling my house, there was chaff flying everywhere. We went through a lot, a lot of stuff to figure this out."

Mary Anne graduated to a small home roaster and did a lot of fast talking to keep her warranty intact, promising the manufacturer she would buy a commercial roaster next time.

Finally, Mary Anne purchased the fluid bed roaster she now uses. This method of roasting is similar to the popcorn popper she once used, with the coffee beans cooked by being tossed in hot air instead of banging against the hot surface of a drum roaster that larger companies use. A drum roaster is not cleaned after every use and oily residuals can build up, slightly altering the coffee beans taste.

Mary Anne can roast only one pound of coffee at a time, but this attention to detail makes hers a true specialty coffee because she can adjust the process for each customer. She keeps meticulous records of each roast so that customers can ask for the same thing they had last time, or request something lighter or darker.

She says several shops have wanted to sell her coffee, but she prefers taking her coffee to the farmers market or other places where she can have one-on-one contact with customers. Part of her business is to educate people about coffee as they buy a cup or a pound.

She is also careful about the beans she buys. She researches online and buys the best she can find, organic and Fair Trade when possible. If there isnt enough information about a bean to satisfy her, she doesnt buy it. "I dont want bad coffee," she insists.

Once you buy the coffee, Mary Anne suggests using it within 10 days if possible. Otherwise, put the whole beans in a good-quality plastic container (no bags or glass, according to her research) and store in the freezer up to two months. You can use the beans right out of the roaster, but their quality peaks in 4 to 24 hours. A French press is the method of coffee-making Mary Anne recommends, although the drip method is fine.

When she sells cups of coffee at the market, she uses reverse-osmosis water, from jugs she refills at Safeway. She also has a formula packet that she adds, which results in "150 total dissolved solids, and that makes the best chemical reaction, the best extraction and bonding of the coffee molecules to the water." She sells these formula packets, but only one customer regularly buys them. Ordinary water is perfectly okay, she says.

But Mary Annes passion does not stop at selling the coffee. By her couch is a pile of books and magazines about coffee. She showed me one called The History of Coffee, printed in 1922, from which she has gleaned some marketing ideas.

In the mid-1800s John Arbuckle began roasting and selling coffee by the pound. Until then it was roasted at home -- or at the cowboy chuck wagon -- in a pan, a process that could result in burnt beans. Soon bags of Arbuckle coffee included premiums, like a candy stick.

"I just get really excited about this kind of stuff," Mary Anne said, her eyes sparkling. "Back then a peppermint stick was a big thing. Now kids have too much candy. But what Im banking on is drawing it all together and bringing the late 1800s into the 2000s, and thats where the excitement will come in, not just the piece of candy."

At the end of our conversation, Mary Anne said: "I like what Im doing right now. I dont want to talk about [making] oodles and oodles of coffee. I want to talk about one pound at a time and going to markets. I love it. I just love it. Its just so much fun."

As shown below, Mary Anne ably described a complex process so that even I could understand it.

Mary Anne will measure just over a pound of coffee to go into the roaster, which you see behind the can she is filling here. She is a stickler for cleanliness, but she can be a bit more casual at the pre-roasting stage because the beans will cook for 20 minutes in 400-degree heat.

Mary Anne usually stays nearby during the roasting process. Although the machine is computer controlled to her specifications, she still uses all her senses to tell when the beans are ready. Sight, smell, and hearing are each important. For example, there is a first crack and a second crack to listen for, which sound something like corn kernels popping.

The roasted beans look -- and taste -- good.

If you cant wait for the farmers market to open to get a gourmet pound of coffee, contact Mary Anne at montanamorningcoffee@q.com.

Tipsy Cupcake

Any day is more special with a cupcake, dont you agree? And here it is Christmas, and the Tipsy Cupcake in Billings is helping folks celebrate in a very sweet way.

Kari Jones, the cupcake queen who owns the Tipsy Cupcake shop and makes all the delicious treats for sale there, told me, "We hope to bless people with a little treat every day."

The cupcakes are fresh each morning and come in an imaginative variety of flavors, which vary from day to day. Above, sporting the Merry Christmas tag, is Salted Caramel (delicious). Below, you see it along with (starting at the upper right) Lemonhead, Chocolate on White, and Black Tie (all equally delicious).

So if the cupcakes are fresh each day, what happens to leftovers each night? Sure, folks come in all day to buy goodies and to snack before and after the movies next door, but inevitably there will be a few cakes lingering when the doors finally close.

Kari told me that she donates extras to (and sometime makes special batches for) area nursing homes, schools, youth groups, and the womens and childrens shelter. She also caters weddings and other events and supplies corporate gifts for area businesses.

"Were all about love here," Kari admitted. Oh, yeah, thats easy to believe. You can feel the love just by looking around the cozy shop.

Repeat customers are common, and Kari enjoys thinking about each one. One man comes in from Miles City to buy bribes for his kids. An elderly couple buys several to freeze and thaw out over the coming week for evening snacks. (I can personally assure you the cupcakes freeze well.) Others drive in from faraway places like Great Falls and Wyoming. Not just to buy cupcakes, of course. But then, maybe they do . . .

Kari emphasizes that this business is "homegrown" and not a franchise. Its her very own creation, made small batch by small batch.

"Its a lot of work, but fun," Kari assured me.

And I believe her. The atmosphere is warm and friendly. Everyone who enters the shop comes in smiling with anticipation. What flavor will they choose? The shops Signature Pink Champagne? English Toffee Crunch? Wedding Cake? Root Beer Float? Peppermint Mocha?

Or perhaps a milkshake made from a cupcake crumbled into ice cream?

The gals behind the counter feel they are part of a blissful experience and find no trouble in following Karis philosophy that they treat a customer as if they are welcoming a guest to their home.

After all, isnt a cupcake what makes a home a happy one?

Have a cupcake . . . perhaps Orange Creamsicle?

Tipsy Cupcake

1001 Shiloh Crossing Blvd., Suite 7

(next to Shiloh 14 movie theater)

Billings

(406) 656-5666

Emigrant Peoples Market

Midway between Livingston and Yellowstone National Park, along Highway 89, watch for the sign to Emigrant and then turn west at the blinking light. Youll also see signs pointing toward the Peoples Market and thats exactly where you want to go.

In its second year, this is a small market, with an average of about ten vendors, but youll find a wide variety of items to look at. And because it is small, vendors are happy to describe their products and make sure you get exactly what you want and need.

I found pottery . . .

healing oils (this was the first time I saw Black Pepper oil, which is useful for many ailments, including arthritis and digestive upsets) . . .

and Bos Blankets, which I wrote about last week.

There was even a table with lots of stuff . . . fun stuff!

Jo had quite a collection, including her own photographs. In the spirit of recycling, she cuts up photographs that dont quite print right, puts a label with her contact info on the back, and hands them out as a kind of business card -- she also has traditionally printed cards, but I will treasure my oddly shaped photo of a charming rustic porch.

I throughly enjoyed talking to Bev of Healing Earth LLC, who explained the uses of various herbal tea blends.

Bev buys many organic herbs, but said that she gathers echinacea (a prairie variety), St. Johns wort, and arnica in Montana. A deeply purple mixture of elderberry and honey looked good enough to scoop out right there with a spoon, but she explained this is actually an immune booster, to be taken as you develop a cold.

Later I visited the Healing Earth store in Pine Creek -- if youre returning to Livingston, take the side Highway 540 and youll pass right by this charming (and good smelling!) shop.

Mike Smith, the beekeeper of the business, was tending the store when I arrived. I zeroed right in on the jars filled with honeycomb and had to take one with me. Mike has been keeping bees near Livingston for three years, and he couldnt stop talking about how fascinating they are. I learned that there are 55,000 miles of bee activity in each pound and a half (approximately 1 pint) of honey. Mike pointed out that a few bees are inevitably killed when combs are removed from the hive -- after all, they are protecting their work, home, and factory -- but that is far fewer than are killed when you put pesticides on your home garden. And, he added, the bees dont really miss the honey -- they just make more. Thats what they do.

But back at the market, I also chatted with Yankee Bob, who loves to bake cookies, breads, and cakes with healthy ingredients. I tasted his applesauce cake and almost swooned.

Bob sells some baked goods in a tea shop in Livingston, but he makes a steady profit at community events around Emigrant. He almost always sells out. Bob learned to cook from his mother, but it wasnt until the 1980s that he began in earnest when he was asked to donate goodies to a church bake sale. He concocted a fruit cake from a Betty Crocker date bar mix, which turned out to be so popular that he went on to perfect his recipe. When the mix was discontinued, Bob cobbled together another winner from six different recipes he saw one day in the Los Angeles Times.

Imagination took off, and he now makes a variety of oatmeal-based cookies along with his applesauce cake and banana strawberry bread, to name a few.

If you cant make it to market, Bob can supply you by mail, just send him an e-mail: rtelljohn at bresnan.net.

Joyce Johnson is the manager of this market, which she calls an "eccentric, eclectic group. Theres a little bit of everything here." During the markets first year she saw that there would not be much produce appearing and changed the name from "farmers" to "peoples" market to better describe the collection of goods available.

Other community events take place on the wide lawn behind the vendors, which is adjacent to St. Johns Episcopal Church, the sponsor of the market: perhaps a dog training demo (bring your own dog for some personalized tips) or fiddlers.

Emigrant is a small village, but the population is spread throughout Paradise Valley. There are several organic farmers in the area, but they prefer to sell at the bigger venues in Livingston and Bozeman. Carting fresh produce to market is a big chore, and the sooner a farmer sells out the better.

But Joyce is optimistic that with more word of mouth and direct advertising, the Emigrant market will continue to flourish. There is a huge amount of seasonal traffic to and from Yellowstone Park, and Chico Hot Springs is only 10 miles away. Local residents also add to the flow of repeat customers.

Although, of course, vendors hope to sell their products, money isnt everything, Joyce explained. "Sometimes encounters [with people] here are more fun than the money we make."

"Were a scrappy little market," Joyce said.

Emigrant Peoples Market

Lawn of St. Johns Episcopal Church, Emigrant

Saturday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

June until the weather changes

Readjusting measurements and putting in insulation

Although weve had some significant winds in the past two years since I installed my greenhouse there has been no problem with missing panels or wind damage. I figure I should insulate the structure to provide for year-round aquaponics, however, I have to avoid any significant added weight to my plastic and aluminum greenhouse. I used 1/2" x4x8 polystyrene foam to line the north walls and ceiling. I drilled holes in the struts on either side of the ceiling in four locations and strung plastic coated clothesline wire across from wall to wall at ceiling level to support the foam against the ceiling. I simply taped the upright panels to the north wall and taped all seams with some 3" wide industrial tape that seems to be holding very well. On the south wall, from the ground to four feet up, the upper level of the grow beds, I used conventional sheets of foam insulation that I had in storage. I also had some mylar/aluminum coated bubble insulation which I used on the west wall up to a level of four feet. That is to protect my fish from getting too much light. Above the insulation I used 1/2" interval bubble wrap that came in 30" wide lengths about 27 feet long. I taped the pull-apart seams with postal tape and taped the several strips together. The material is very light in weight, an advantage in the situation, and quite strong when the pull apart seams are taped. I chose this material instead of using poly sheeting because of the additional insulation factor. I had underestimated the width of the bins that I plan to use as grow beds which led to readjustment in the size of the supporting tables. Im not using concrete blocks because of size constraints and my two level setup.

Crop Choice and Water Temperature

The summer and autumn seasons of my greenhouse aquaponics were a limited success. I grew edible crops and found ways to combat excessive heat gain in the greenhouse with materials I had on hand. Winter has presented a more difficult challenge.
My tomato plants were killed by the low temperatures of early December, however the herbs I planted in the other half of my bins have survived the cold and remain green. The attempt to heat the greenhouse with a chimenea turned out to be destructive of the insulation on the ceiling, but the insulation which has deformed and withered probably kept the polycarbonate roof from melting. I plan to do more work on the use of other methods such as a rocket mass heater, but at this time I will continue to use a propane heater to moderate the air temperature.
We have now focused on keeping the water system stable and preventing freezing. We have a titanium fish tank heater on order and we have wrapped the pipes in the system with heat tape and added tube insulation. Freezing in the pipes creates imbalance in the dynamic flow of the bell siphon system. It also threatens structural damage to the tank and pipes if the water freezes hard and expands.
Herbs and green vegetables such as spinach, mint, beet greens and cabbage resist cold air temperatures and continue to produce in the winter.
I can start crops like strawberries and tomatoes earlier in the greenhouse and keep them longer as the weather cools, but it is evident that I should switch them out for more hardy crops before sustained sets in.

Hysham market

New in 2010, the Hysham market is a family affair, with children running everywhere and lots of cookies and cupcakes and bite-size tomatoes and other treats just right for eating out of hand. With only a weekly average of 4 vendors, theres still lots to look at.

Some markets may close when the weather gets rough, but this market goes inside or out. Today, as rain pelted down, vendors took refuge in the firehouse. There was plenty of room for both emergency vehicles and a small farmers market.

Youll have to excuse todays photos. Im not used to taking them indoors, and so they seem to go between being blurry and over- or under-exposed. But take delight in what I saw.

Bright candles and beautiful etchings . . .

Delicious baked goods . . .

Lots of mouthwatering produce and jellies and syrups and relish . . .

Take time to visit this special little market.

And if youre wondering what there is to do in tiny Hysham, you can visit a museum or eat at the cafe or bar, or fish or take a walk at Hawreys Island just west of town. Or stroll around looking at statues made by a local artisan. There are a lot of statues! How many can you count?