Anshu Pathak's Farm

I've been a customer of Exotic Meat Market for many years and I've tried a lot of the products that they sell. I've gotten to know the owner, Anshu Pathak, and his wife, C.c. Claudia, and they have become friends. My grandgirls were visiting in August and I asked Anshu if I could bring them to his farm, a place I had not visited. Anshu graciously said, "yes," and he and Claudia met us there one early evening, in Perris, California, near Lake Perris, about a 30 minute drive from our home. It was following a recent thunderstorm and things were pretty muddy, so Anshu invited us back a few days later, to spend some more time when conditions were better at the farm. 

While Anshu and two of his workers provided grass and corn to the animals and water for the geese to preen in, Claudia took the grandgirls under her wing and encouraged them as they stalked various birds to try and catch and hold them. With the patience of Job she taught them how to hold the birds safely and encouraged their crazy ideas, like their desires to ride an emu. 

Following are an abundance of pictures that chronicle just a small portion of what we did at the farm. The girls had a great time, as did their mother (my daughter), and I.  

Perhaps the girls' favorite animal at the farm, and probably mine too, is the emu. I don't know the exact number, but Anshu must have about 60 of them, held in several different enclosures with other animals as well. The emus are about the height of the girls and bold enough to come in for an occasional peck at a hand, or some hair, the back of a shirt, or for my youngest grandgirl, a piece of her foot. Their course gray and brown feathers look like feather-dusters and their blue necks and faces look like old ladies that have done a horrible job of applying their blue eye shadow. Claudia even assisted my grandgirls' desire to ride an emu, hoisting each one of them on to the back of an emu and holding them up as the emu immediately lurched forward, trying to leave the grandgirl behind and the grandgirl shaking with laughter. 

The odd and amazing looking emu.

Emus lined up at a trough eating corn, along with an alpaca. 

Anshu raises ayam cemani chickens, an Indonesian breed of chicken that is totally black, including the meat and bones inside. They also raise blue foot chickens which they get a considerable amount of eggs from.

Here my grandgirls victoriously hold two chickens in the air. Bug (an online nickname), on the left, holds a blue foot in the air, and Squirrel (an online nickname), holds an ayam cemani in the air. 

Squirrel with an ayam cemani.

And with a blue foot. She was in heaven. 

Anshu just started raising Emden geese this year, a large goose raised for its meat. They hung around each other squawking loudly. Anshu brought out clumps of long grassy sod for them and filled large tubs with water and watered the ground around the tubs. The geese luxuriated in the water and snipped at the grass. 

Squirrel and Bug both captured Emden geese. Most of these photos, particularly the ones in the dark, are from Claudia, who was patiently watching the girls and encouraging their escapades. 

Anshu has a good number of chukar partridges, a Eurasian gamebird that has been introduced to the U.S. These were the first birds the girls set out to capture. They were a little less intimidating, given their small size. 

Anshu also raises lots of turkeys, particularly "heritage turkeys" or Eastern wild turkeys, the kind of turkey the pilgrims ate. They were a challenge to capture. The girls started with small ones, then Squirrel finally captured a large one and held it proudly. 

Bug and a small turkey.

Squirrel with a big one. I think it was about as much as she could handle. 

Another of my favorite birds is the Guineafowl, a bird we saw wild in Africa and which is also fantastic eating. Squirrel finally caught and held one of these elusive birds, but we have no photos of it. 

The Guineafowl's head is weirdly fantastic.

I'd never noticed before how their protruding cheek flaps make them look like they have huge jowls. 

We did not spend a lot of time with the llamas and they were quite skittish and difficult to get close to. 

Here a combination of llamas, Dorper lambs and Boer goats feed on hay.

The Dorper sheep, white with a black head and neck, was bred in South Africa as a meat animal. There was a young Dorper lamb that the girls fell in love with and spent considerable time trying to catch and hold. One fun moment was when Claudia almost had it and then slipped and fell on her back, causing all of us, including Claudia, to laugh. Finally, Joe, one of Anshu's workers, caught it and the girls each got to hold it. They also took turns riding on one of the larger sheep.

Bug struggles to hold this lamb aloft.

Anshu has the most beautiful goats I've ever seen, Boer goats, also bred in South Africa for their meat. Unfortunately, I did not get any good pictures of them. He has some absolutely huge, beautiful rams. 

There are a few muscovy ducks at the farm that the girls were able to feed corn to. They were such easy pickin's that I don't think they tried holding any of them. 

The real stars of the farm are the ostriches. I can think of at least six ostriches, but there may be more. In particular, there are four segregated in their own pen, one huge male and three females. The male is quite an intimidating force and he can be quite dangerous when he's feeling territorial. We walked in to their pen with Anshu, Claudia and Joe running interference and feeding them hay and grass turf. The girls got to touch the females. At one point Squirrel wandered further into the pen than she should have and the male puffed up and started to charge her. Claudia threw herself in front of the male to stop him, in a show of bravery that impressed all of us. The most fun thing about the male ostrich was when the girls neared the pen and he went into a mating dance, stooping almost to the ground, waving his feathers and showing off for them. There were more than a few laughs over this.

The male flapping his wings.

The females flapping their wings, something they did not do nearly as often as the male. 

Anshu encourages Bug to pet the female ostriches. They were mighty intimidating.

She gained confidence and reached out for their necks. 

Claudia gave the girls an ostrich egg and they stand in front of the large male. 

Bug loves the male who is doing his mating dance. 

Anshu has three or four large water buffalo. They are too large and dangerous to go in and interact with. He also has quite a few Canada goose. Squirrel finally managed to catch one, in fact, she caught it after Joe tried and failed. It was quite dark by that time and my pictures of her holding it must not have turned out because I can't find them. 

Claudia sent the girls home with a box full of eggs: ostrich, emu, ayam cemani, and other types I'm not sure of, probably turkey and goose. Also a large gallon jar full of quail eggs, which the girls love, and some blue foot chicken eggs which we had for breakfast with Chinese pancakes. 

The girls had a blast. Anshu and Claudia know how to put on a good show. 

Black-tailed Jackrabbit - Cabeza Prieta

I've previously posted on the black-tailed jackrabbit, but a recent sighting in Cabeza Prieta NWR, located in southern Arizona, inspired another small post. I've seen quite a few jackrabbits in southern Arizona but have never gotten any good pictures of them. On a recent trip I was near a holding pen for the endangered Sonoran pronghorn when I saw two jackrabbits together in an area full of creosote. As I stopped and pulled out my camera the two rabbits jumped in unison, something I wish I could have captured on film. By the time my camera was ready and focused, one of the rabbits disappeared. 

I did capture the remaining rabbit apparently licking its paws which made it look rather kangaroo-like. 

It, too, then disappeared. 

There are 17 subspecies of the black-tailed jackrabbit, but not enough readily available information to properly identify this one or those in my previous post. There is another species of jackrabbit in this area, the antelope jackrabbit, but this is definitely not of that species. 

Whole Iguana II - Sous Vide

Iguana was a meat I thought I had figured out. It was just plain good: easy to prepare, mild and good at taking on the tastes you choose to go with it. That was, until I just tried it again.

I'd tried it three times before. First, was barbecued iguana cooked by some of my friend's laborers from Mexico. It was the best. Second, was iguana pieces I grilled on our grill - pretty good. Third, was a whole three pound iguana I skinned and cooked sous vide - very good. I'd decided I wanted to try a bigger iguana. That desire was fueled when we saw some large green iguanas in St. Thomas on our cruise to the Caribbean.

Green iguana on St. Thomas, one of many we saw.

I found a large six pound iguana in the freezers at Exotic Meat Market located in Grand Terrace. I picked it up and had it in our freezer waiting for an opportune time. That time arrived when my granddaughters arrived for a visit. They are adventurous eaters and they love lizards. I thought they would love seeing this big iguana and then getting to taste it. 

I love the orange legs and feet.

Surprisingly, the larger iguana seemed harder to skin than the smaller one. The rough skin was like sandpaper and roughed up my hands as I clipped and pulled and yanked to get the skin off the iguana torso, legs and tail.

My granddaughters give some conception of the size of it. 

After I had the skin off, I cut it into pieces to put into vacuum sealed bags for the sous vide. 

I tried different ingredients in different bags. In one I put in chopped and fried jalapenos, Anaheim chilies, dark cherry balsamico and a good dose of Robert Is Here Florida Orange and Vidalia Onion Hot Sauce (great stuff). This combo of ingredients was fantastic. In another bag I put in onion, garlic, rosemary, cayenne pepper, lime juice, salt and pepper, along with some of the jalapeno and Anaheim chilies. This was also a very nice combination. 

I put all of the bags in the sous vide at 60 degrees Centigrade and cooked one bag for 3 hours, 40 minutes. The ingredients in the bag were fantastic, we used is as gravy on baked potatoes, but the iguana was stiff, not tender at all. My previous whole iguana I'd cooked for 9 1/2 hours and I realized I might be taking it out too early, but it was dinner time and we wanted to eat.

The ingredients cooked with the iguana were delicious and made nice gravy for the potatoes. 

So the rest stayed in the sous vide for a total of about 27 hours. The downside of such a long cooking time was that the beautiful pepper condiments were mostly mush. The taste was nice, but the presentation and mouth feel was not anywhere as pleasing. The iguana was much more tender with the extra cooking time, but still nowhere as nice and tender as my three pound iguana after 9 1/2 hours. That surprised me. 

Note that the peppers are not as pronounced on the iguana meat. We ate it the next day along with a kale salad with avocado and oranges and a mixture of corn, black-eyed peas, olives, and chopped tomatoes. 

In thinking through my cooking post-mortem I've concluded a couple of things. Smaller iguanas are more tender and a better choice. But if you want to try a larger iguana because of a larger crowd or just the fun of doing one that size, then brine it over night to break down the meat and plan on a long cooking time, perhaps several days (perhaps trying part of it after 10 or 12 hours to get a sense for how it is going). 

Iguana is a very fun meat to cook. It is exotic looking, it provides lots of meat, and it combines well with many kinds of ingredients. 

Gambel's Quail

Gambel's quail are found mainly in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona and Mexico, but they extend into southern New Mexico, up and down the Rio Grande in east Texas, and along the Colorado River drainage in California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado. 

A female.

Pictures of this covey show both male and female walking through a wash with some mesquite branches jutting into the photo. 

I like the photo blurred by vegetation as it kind of conveys the world of the quail from their level. 

They are pear-shaped with short legs and roundish wings. They are gray above and buff below (the male almost more of a white on some specimens) with chestnut flanks striped with white. Males have a black throat, face, patch on the chest and head plume (known as a top knot) and have a red cap and a white stripe above the eyes and going down the side of the face. Females have a less prominent plume and do not have the red cap or black coloration. 

This male and female together provide a good contrast for the difference in markings, particularly on the sides. 

This picture provides a contrast for the male and female from the front. The two at left are male and the two to the right are female. 

Two males from the back show the extent of the red cap. 

They are found in the hot deserts, particularly in desert mountain foothills, mesquite springs and mesquite lined drainages, and areas receiving slightly more rainfall than the surrounding area. The quail photographed above were in Cabeza Prieta NWR in southern Arizona in gravel drainages lined by mesquite trees. 

Harris Hawk

I saw my first Harris Hawk in the wild and I've been excitedly using Lightroom to edit the pictures and lighten them up to confirm that it was, indeed, a Harris Hawk. 

The Harris Hawk is dark with a white rump and white undertail and a white tip on the tail. The shoulders and the thighs are chestnut.  It was spotting that white rump what got me excited. Its legs and the bare skin on its face are yellow. The tail is also crossed with dusky bars. 

In the U.S. they are only found in portions of southern Arizona, about a third of Texas and a small patch of New Mexico. However, they are fairly widespread in Mexico and portions of South America. 

I love how the early morning light is catching this saguaro. 

Its English name was given by Audubon after his friend Edward Harris. 

I saw this hawk in Cabeza Prieta NWR just north of Organ Pipe Cactus NM and west of Ajo, near the Charlie Bell Road. It was on a saguaro near a large wash and flew between several saguaro while I followed it around.