What Happens When Novices Buy Chickens....

As was posted before, I bought three chickens in hopes of fresh eggs. Ha Ha. What I got was two roosters and a hen. Not conducive to anything but hen abuse. Chocobo was promptly relocated to a friend's farm where he now resides with many other chickens and has a new girlfriend, whom I'm told he visits every day............across the street. I guess long distance relationships aren't a problem for roosters. Maybe they could give the males in our species some pointers. (Cheap shot, I know.) So now we have Huevo and Poachie left to terrorize everyone and make no mistake about it - they do. Huevo merely sees a person and drops his wing and starts sidestepping - this apparently being code in chicken for," Look alive human.....I'm getting ready to beat you like a drum." Even hens are kind of ornery. One day I was walking through the yard and felt something hit my leg - not terribly painful, but definitely with a little force. I looked down and there was my sweet little Poachie - attacking my leg! What gives? My sweet little chickens have left only to be replaced by freaky feathered terrorists!

Living the dream..........?

Well not exactly. For years I've enjoyed baking bread - not only for great bread but for therapy. Sadly, it went from being therapy to torture when for some reason my bread-baking mojo left the building. Now - I can't even fix a decent pizza. What's going on here? When I was visiting my parents recently my mother came up with the answer. In an attempt to help me with my weight problem, i.e. excessive consumption of carbs, God has taken away my bread-baking mojo. Not her words exactly but that's the gist of the discussion. Who knew? Seriously - I couldn't bake a bread dough ornament -it's that bad! So, I have completely let go of the bread ideal - no more wonderful smells emanating from the kitchen: no more fresh-baked bread; and maybe worse - just one more little piece of my identity chipped out and fallen by the wayside. That's a bummer. First, it was running and now this. What's next - are they gonna take beer off the market?

They're Big Girls Now

It amazes me how fast the chickens have grown - they are gorgeous, extremely independent and even willing to be held and snuggled. The other day, I was mowing the lawn and the girls decided they needed to investigate, so in their little posse of three, they came truckin on out to the front yard to see what was going down, as the above picture shows. As it turned out, the whir -whir of my reel mower did not impress them and they went back to the backyard post haste. Hopefully in another couple of months, we're going to be having some fresh eggs, assuming that these girls will leave their eggs in a place where I can find them. I've heard stories. We built a little chicken coop since that's what you're supposed to do, but as time as has gone by, we slowly discovered that "free range" has less to do with the health of whatever we as humans are going to consume and more to do with their health and quality of life. Since we've left the door to the coop open, the girls are loving life, roaming anywhere and everywhere they choose, hopping into the coop when it rains, and sleeping with the goats on the porch. These girls take their job as the poster chickens for the non-confined life very seriously. So - if we get fresh eggs it will be a wonderful bonus, but if we don't, well then there are three lucky chickens in my backyard living the good life - and three lucky humans loving it.

And Then There Were Chickens...........

Well, it had to happen sometime. In the name of better living through fresh eggs, we acquired three chickens about one week before Easter. How original. The names aren't originals either - you can tell somebody has been watching a little too much iCarly and someone else has been playing a little too much Final Fantasy. (I plead guilty on the iCarly charges, but Final Fantasy - niet, nein, nanka! So these little girls - no cock-a-doodler's here thank you very much - are named Poachie, Huevo and Chocobo. They are Rhode Island Reds, they are priceless and in fact, I am so deeply attached to them that I can now add chicken to the list of things I cannot stand to eat because it might hurt my feelings.
Chickens are awesome, I'm tellin ya! I never knew how cool they are. When they get to about 3 and 4 months old, they at least appear to be fully grown and they know no fear! It's sooo funny. We were really worried about how our cats were going to behave and keeping the chickens safe. Ha. And. Ha. We need not have worried - chickens do not have time to be bothered because they are so incredibly busy checked everything out - and I do mean everything. The back porch, under the back porch, the playhouse, the goats, the goats horns - you name it. They are also very sweet - I enjoy holding them and smoothing their feathers and they enjoyed being held and smoothed. They are sort of like clucking security blankets.

In Bread We Trust

Well, we've been enjoying the good weather so I haven't visited the blogosphere. I must say the Struan I mentioned in the last post turned out very well - unquestionably the best toast bread ever. And I haven't even brought up the grilled cheese sandwiches. Yum. I'm not really big on photographing food, so I don't even have proof of my culinary effort , which I realize is quite remiss of me in a world where blogging about food without pictures is like eating movie popcorn without Junior Mints. Hardly believeable. I am a mere amateur (an experienced amateur, but amateur nonetheless) but trust me on this - if you are a baker then Struan is the dream you are waiting on to come true. It is real, it is truth in bread........truth you can hold in your hands. If you do the work you will reap the rewards. A beautiful loaf inside and out. I love the history of Struan. The bread that was -according to the legend - baked by the oldest daughter of the family to celebrate the harvest. Gifts of grain to the family and fellow farmers. When I work with the dough I feel as though I am part of the history, albeit in a very distant way. Corny? Maybe,but I enjoy the vision of the daughter kneading the bread on a table in front of a fireplace with happiness in her heart for a bountiful harvest when I am kneading my dough on my contemporary American counter. Sound corny? I don't even care because my family is consuming something made with a thankful spirit; real through and through, instead of the questionable contents of a plastic bag. Serve up a loaf of truth t0 your family; talk about what real bread means with them at the dinner table. Let them know that it's not just food for the stomach - it's food for the soul. Trust me - it's worth your time.

Faith in Baking and Baking Soda

The goats are tired of rain and so am I. Thought I heard Wallace quack this morning when I was leaning out the bathroom window. It's hard to get into the whole creative process when you're straining your neck muscles to keep your head above water. Okay....I exaggerate somewhat. Still, it's hard to work outside when the ground is squishy, and let's face it - I'm not six years old anymore - that squishy stuff is no longer appealing. My to-do list for the inside is long enough to keep me busy for quite some time so I guess I really shouldn't complain. Top of the list today is bread - specifically - Struan. I haven't attempted Struan in many years, my first attempt being somewhat off-putting. I've decided that for some reason I need to make a bread with some real meaning behind it. (Of course, all my bread really has meaning behind it - it means we'll have something to eat!) Okay - get a hold of yourself. Seriously, Struan has a long story behind it - it was a harvest bread that was usually made by the oldest daughter of the house. From what I can determine, it was a tradition that came from an area in Hebrides known as Struanmoor. You can read more about Hebrides here. You can read more about Struan from Brother Juniper's Bread Book by Br.Peter Reinhart ( who is an amazing baker, but that's a whole nother story). Get it here. Brother Juniper's Bread Book has some fabulous recipes, but I have to admit that the method requires (perhaps not coincidentally) a leap of faith for someone used to doing things a little differently. Much of my bread baking education has been self- taught, from this book and that, but I have to admit that when I made the white bread out of Brother Juniper's Bread Book, my eyes were opened. I'm not even a white bread kind of gal - I just wanted to make something that seemed simple, but it turned out two absolutely amazing loaves of bread. Now I am very inspired to try the Struan again, so here's to faith in baking and in all things.
Cleaning the house. Eeeep! No longer one of my favorite things since somewhere along the way, I lost of control of my house and now it controls me. Being controlled by a house is just not a good thing, let me tell you. It's very hard to regain control because once it's gone, you just want to bury your head in something that isn't too dusty and forget about it. I lie awake in bed in the early hours some mornings and angst about it. (Today was my day for lying in bed angsting about the goat house - tomorrow will probably be the day for angsting about house cleaning - I usually fall back asleep before I can fret about more than one thing. ) I am a baking soda/vinegar/essential oil kind of girl since I became unable to tolerate chemical/toxic waste smells. I absolutely cannot tolerate any of these perfumes that people bathe in before they go to work, or wherever it is that they're going. Candles, air fresheners, cleaners - it's all toxic. I know I am so far from being the only one terribly disturbed by this stuff that it's not even funny. I think laws should be passed against this kind of pollution - I really do. I read about one lady who couldn't even leave her house because she developed such a sensitivity.
And this is not getting my house clean. (sadly....though heaven knows if surfing the Internet could push the broom and move the dust rag, my house would be spotless!) It's time to get out the vinegar, baking soda and rosemary oil and swab the decks.

But first, I'm going to start some Struan. I'll let you know how it goes.

Ask- a -Goat

I'm finally off on a Saturday - and it's cloudy. Bummer. It's been raining for the last couple of days so it's not even optimal conditions for digging in the ground. I've got to build a goat house.

How is this going to happen?

On top of all this, I've got all these thoughts rumbling around in my head.

For example:

Most days, I think about getting rid of my tv and my computer. I long for simpler times.

I want to be a farmer with lots of land, animals and vegetables.

I've got to build a goat house.

If I believe in God, which I do very much, then why does Buddhism seem so appealing sometimes?

Why do I sit in this chair so much when I feel so much better getting up and doing stuff?

And this one, a new thought: why is John Turturro, in the second Transformers movie, ripping of his pants to reveal some really scary.......underpants?

I've got to build a goat house.

Why are organic foods and products so expensive when organic is the way foods and products should be? It's like giving a child a reward for doing something he's supposed to do anyway.

Why are entertainers paid so much and teachers and cops paid so little?

Is trying to stop global warming really trying to go against God's plan?

Why is it so hard to not spend money?

I've got to build a goat house.

I've got no answers.

Maybe I need to ask Twister.