Wordless Wednesday: Spring(ish)

Note to self

Even if I promise to remember this time......
Never never never never ever put an egg in my pocket.

For Goldie

Kettle
(Ameraucana)

Mabel
(Buff Orpington)

Kettle and Little Mabel

Ethel and Hattie
(Dominique and Rhode Island Red)

Pot (Ameraucana)

Check this out: Handy-Dandy Chicken Chart: An Alphabetical List of More than 60 Chicken Breeds

Eggs

Adventures with Chickens

Loving husband built me a chicken coop. (Technically, he built a chicken coop for the chickens so that I wouldn't have to build it myself, but you knew what I meant, right?)


Isn't it nifty?

One of the way cool things about the chicken coop is the ramp. The idea is that during the day the chickens run around in the bottom pen, then go up the ramp into the coop to roost. The ramp raises and lowers so that the chickens will be shut up safely at night.

Here's the problem: The insult "birdbrain" was coined for a reason. And, quite frankly, chickens aren't exactly the Einsteins of the bird world.

The chicks can't figure out how to go up and down the ramp.

After two nights of crawling under the coop to push them up the ramp, I think to myself, "There's got to be a better way." Last night I had the bright idea of coaxing them up the ramp with food so that they get the idea of walking up the ramp all by themselves, only to find themselves -Surprise!- in their cozy chicken haven.

I opened the side door of the coop:

I reach into the coop with my arm stretched as far as it can go down the ramp. Instead of the nice pristine floor you see in the picture, there are shavings and....well, chickens aren't potty-trained.

"Here chick-chick-chick!"

They know my voice. I wasn't kidding in the first chicken coop post when I pretended they were calling me "Mom." They think I'm some kind of giant chicken with weird feathers and a cluck impediment. So they perked up and started looking for food.

Inching up the ramp bit-by-bit, I coax the two smartest chickens ("smartest" being relative, of course) into the coop. Woo-hoo! They settle right down into the corner together, snuggling chicken fluffballs.

Two down, two to go.

Another problem: Not only are chickens dumber than a fencepost, they're also flock animals. At this point the two chicks below realize that they've been separated from half their flock. Never mind that they watched their companions climb the ramp up to chicken heaven, all they can think is "Our friends are gone!" and run around frantically cheeping as though the sky is falling. The frenzy of the chicks below alarms the chicks above, and they completely lose their minds as well. The place that they can best hear one another is through the crack in the floor---ceiling--depending on where they are, so the chicks, above and below are running back and forth along the edge of the coop.

To recap, picture this:
Me, stretched all the way inside the coop by now in an attempt to distracted the crazed chicks below with food, lying in God-only-knows-what (ok, I know what too, but I'm trying not to think about it) with chicks frantically jumping in my hair.

Not one of my finer moments.

I gave up and crawled under the coop to retrieve the remaining chicks. "Oh, thank God! It's you, giant weird chicken Mom!" they said when they saw me. Not in so many words, obviously, but I could tell. I managed to scoop them both up, wriggle my way back out from under the coop, free one hand to open the side door by tucking a struggling chick under my arm, and put them to bed.

Stupid chickens.

Tonight I was gone until after dark. I left the ramp down. When I came home I went out to put them to bed. Inside the coop there was a cozy ball of chickens snuggled together.

All by themselves.

Hey! I heard that! Who ya callin' birdbrain?

Home, Sweet Home

Loving husband really loves me. I know this not because he brings me flowers and gives me expensive jewelry, but because he's willing to invest a sizeable chunk of his leisure time in building a house for a bunch of birds about whom he really couldn't care less.

Ok, I guess he could care a little less. I mean, he appreciates fresh eggs. But if our chickens dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow he'd be sad for, say, ten minutes and then he'd be over it.

Even though he's not really a "chicken guy," he built me a chicken ark. Now that's true love.


It has nest boxes and an egg door.


The bottom opens so that we can let the chicks out into the yard if we so desire. Or not.
It has a side door for cleaning.

The chicks are no longer in the dog crate in the basement, which was fine when they were cute and fluffy. But not so much now that they look like real birds. I'll bet they're complaining about the cold right now.
"Um, Mom? When do we get to come back inside?"

(Chicken coop plans here.)

Chicks

We picked them up this morning. Welcome to the family, little ones!

Well, we'll use the word "family" loosely.

Most family members won't end up in the crockpot if they don't earn their keep. Just in case, maybe we shouldn't give them names. For weeks after Lucy, er, left us, every time we had chicken for dinner, the fine young gents asked, "Is this Lucy?"

Oops. Too late.

The names are, apparently, Kettle, Pot, Cotty and Squirrel. I did not name them. Obviously. Who names a chicken "Squirrel"? A seven-year-old, that's who. His five-year-old brother came up with Pot and Kettle. And Cotty.

We are all smitten.

A Chicken Picture For My Young Friend Sean

Hattie and Ethel.

Lucy....well, Lucy is no longer with us. Her leg was injured, and it would have cost at least $50 just to walk into one of those little vet rooms with her. So she made her way into our freezer instead. (Sorry, Sean.)

My kids are fascinated, by the way. For a couple weeks, every time we ate chicken they'd ask, "Is this Lucy?" Ew. I prefer not to name my dinner, thank you very much.

How to Make Excellent Chicken Soup....

...Or, Know Where Your Food Comes From

For a fresh chicken

1. Get up at 5 a.m. Or 5:15. Or hit the snooze until 5:30, which leaves no time for a shower. It's okay not to take a shower. You'll see why in a minute.

2. Drive around looking for coffee. Can you believe it? I couldn't find a single coffee place open at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. All of the coffee drinkers must be lazy slug-a-beds on Saturday mornings. I wouldn't know, since I'm usually asleep at this hour. Finally I happened upon Cal's Donuts, which doesn't officially open until 7 a.m., but the OPEN sign was lit and the coffee was ready. I got two donuts by mistake-- I meant to say a coffee and a buttermilk donut. My mouth said "Two coffees. No, two donuts. I only need one coffee." Rather than fuddle the old guy any more by changing my mind again, I just paid for the extra donut. Clearly I needed the coffee. Maybe I should have gotten two coffees after all.

3. Drive to the farm and spend the next six hours or so up to your elbows in chicken guts. This is why not to bother with the shower. You're just going to get bloody (and worse) anyway, so why waste your time? A helpful hint: Eat your donut as you drive. Even for the non-squeamish the sight of an upside-down chicken dripping blood into a tub can put you off your tasty donut.

Last week, in a rare moment of kindness, I offered to help my sister butcher her chickens. It's a hard job and no one else in her family will actually gut the chickens. I'm not squeamish and I like my sister, so along with her husband and the oldest kids (I guess they all like her too), I helped butcher chickens this morning. They cut off the heads and feet, and we...er, eviscerated them. "Eviscerated" sounds so much better than "pulled the guts out," don't you think?

It takes a lot of work to get chickens from this:

To this:

To this:
(Don't worry, even though that's Hattie-the-chicken's photo above, and though I've often threatened to make Ethel-and-dumplings for dinner, my own feathered friends are safe and sound. For now.)

4. Come home with chickens that look a heck of a lot more like something you'd find wrapped in plastic at the grocery store than they did just a few hours ago when they were clucking around, or when you were trimming off the scent gland or chopping off the feet or eviscerating them.

5. Pop a chicken in the pot. Wash it and put it in a large pot, toss your favorite broth fixin's in with the chicken, and turn up the heat. Less than six hours from clucking and squawking to the pot. It doesn't get much fresher than this.

6. Take a quick shower. Don't look in the mirror, and try not to think about what might be on your face. But wash your hair twice just in case. By the time you're done with your shower the pot should be boiling and you're well on the way to Delicious Chicken Soup.

---

Delicious Chicken Soup

For the broth, you need....

A whole fresh chicken (A grocery store chicken will do if you're sqeamish or don't know a chicken farmer)
Onions
Celery
Carrots
Salt
Optional: Apples, white wine, peppercorns, whole cloves

Pop a whole chicken in a large pot, including the neck. I cut up the chicken, just so that it will fit, but it's not necessary. Throw in some carrots, a quartered onion or two (peel and all), celery stalks (the ends or those pale center pieces will do just fine), a bay leaf, a couple apples (also quartered) and about half a cup of white wine if you've got some handy. Add a little salt if desired. Put a few whole cloves, whole peppercorns, and a sprinkle of oregano and basil into a tea ball and drop that in too. Add water until everything in the pot is just covered. Bring the whole thing to a boil, then reduce the heat to bring it down to a nice simmer.

After about 30-40 minutes of simmering, remove the chicken from the pot. Leave the neck in and leave the pot simmering on the stove. Let the chicken cool until you can handle it and pull the meat off the bones. (I'm always in a hurry, so I use tongs to pull off the meat while it's still hot.) Chop the cooked meat and save it in the fridge, then toss the bones back in the pot. Let the pot simmer on the stove for another hour or two, until you've got time to put a strainer or sieve on a large bowl and strain the veggies and such out of the broth.

Allow the broth to cool for about 20 minutes, then use a paper towel or a fat skimmer to get the grease off the top. If you don't need the broth right away, cover the bowl of broth and put it in the fridge until tomorrow-- you can easily skim the hardened fat right off the top. If you want clearer reduced chicken broth, strain the broth a few times through several layers of cheesecloth and boil it until it's reduced. I don't bother because the unfancy way looks kind of murky, but it only takes ten minutes to prepare, ten minutes to pull the meat off the bones, and a few miscellaneous minutes to strain it, then I put the broth in the fridge and clean up. It takes some cooking time, but for most of that time the broth is just simmering away while I do laundry or chat on the phone or watch mindless television.

(If the broth recipe seems familiar, it's because it's the one I use when I make Delicious Chicken Pie.)

From broth to soup....You need:

Chicken broth (Homemade or ~gasp!~ from the store)
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
1-2 onions, chopped
Bay leaf
Salt and pepper, to taste
Noodles (uncooked) or cooked rice
Diced cooked chicken
Parsley, chopped (optional)

Place your broth in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add the carrots, potatoes, celery and bay leaf. (You may have to adjust the amounts of vegetables according to the amount of chicken broth you're using.) Simmer until the veggies are tender, about 15 minutes. If you're using noodles, bring it to a boil, add the noodles and cook until tender. Add the chopped chicken and simmer until the chicken is heated through. If you're using rice (we usually have leftover rice in the fridge), add the rice and chicken at the same time and simmer until heated. Add the parsley if you like parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a green salad and homemade buttermilk biscuits.

Delicious.

Just for Sean

Lucy

Chickens After Dark

Chickens put themselves to bed, which is one of the things I love about chickens. I have to tuck in the gents, tell the lovely ladies it's lights out time, call the cats. But the chickens put themselves to bed. Unless, of course, they fly over the chicken yard fence into the big back yard. It wasn't quite as dark as it seems in the photos, but the chuckly biddies were sure happy when I opened the gate to their yard so that they could waddle their way back to the coop. Why can they fly one way but not the other?

Today, loving husband and I decided to put an end to their sport, especially since last week an escapee made it into the neighbor's yard while I was gone and had to be chased by my very dedicated friend B. This afternoon we clipped their wings. Easier than giving the gents a haircut. Loving-but-not-so-sure-about-the-chicken-thing husband held the chickens for me while I clipped, and he was visibly relieved that it wasn't completely awful and thinks that chickens might not be so bad after all.

For directions on clipping a chicken's wings, complete with diagram and pictures, click here. Another set of directions here, with tips on how to hold the chicken and emergency directions in case you clip the wrong feathers and your chicken starts to bleed to death.

A couple weeks ago we put a glass egg in the nest box and started getting eggs within a few days. First Hattie with her dark brown eggs, then Lucy, whose eggs are a light pinkish-tan. Ethel has finally started laying too, eggs the same color as Lucy's, so we're getting 2-3 eggs per day. Sweet husband was absolutely charmed when he collected an egg still warm.

Wonder what he'll think when I tell him that now I want pigs too?

Speaking of chickens....

Chicken Pie

In Which We Make a Chicken Pie from Scratch

The night before:

You need....
A whole chicken
Onions
Celery
Carrots
Optional: Apples, white wine, peppercorns, whole cloves, salt

Pop a whole chicken in a large pot, including the neck but not including the guts that they always leave in the middle. I cut up the chicken, just so that it will fit, but it's not necessary. Throw in some carrots, a quartered onion or two (peel and all), celery stalks (the ends or those pale center pieces will do just fine), a bay leaf, a couple apples (also quartered) and about half a cup of white wine if you've got some handy. Add a little salt if desired. Put a few whole cloves, whole peppercorns, and a sprinkle of oregano and basil into a tea ball and drop that in too. Add water until everything in the pot is just covered. Bring the whole thing to a boil, then reduce the heat to bring it down to a nice simmer. After about 30-40 minutes of simmering, remove the chicken from the pot. Leave the neck in and leave the pot simmering on the stove. Let the chicken cool until you can handle it and pull the meat off the bones. (I'm always in a hurry, so I use tongs while it's still pretty hot.) Save the cooked meat in the fridge and toss the bones back in the pot. Let pot simmer on the stove for another hour or so, or until you've got time to put a strainer or sieve on a large bowl and strain the veggies and such out of the broth. Cover the bowl of broth and put it in the fridge until tomorrow. If you want fancy clear reduced chicken broth, strain the broth a few times through several layers of cheesecloth and boil it until it's reduced. I don't bother because the unfancy way looks kind of murky, but it only takes ten minutes to prepare, ten minutes to pull the meat off the bones, and a few miscellaneous minutes to strain it, put the broth in the fridge and clean up. It takes some cooking time, but for most of that time the broth is just simmering away while I do laundry or chat on the phone or watch mindless television.

The day you'll make the pie: The fat will have hardened at the top of the broth. Skim it off (I've found that a flat metal spatula works best) and save 2 1/2 to 3 cups of broth. Freeze the rest for later use.

If you really want to skip the whole broth step, you can use leftover chicken and canned chicken broth. Wimp.

Pie crust: Either the night before or sometime on the day you're making the pie, make your favorite double pie crust recipe. Pat it into rounds about 1/2 inch thick, wrap them in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until you have time to make the pie.

Pie Filling:
This will give you enough filling for two pies. Just pop the extra filling in a freezer bag, and the next time you want a chicken pie all you've got to do is thaw the filling and make a pie crust.

You need....
4-5 red or yellow potatoes, peeled and diced
3 medium carrots, also peeled and diced
3-4 cups cooked chicken, chopped
1 package partially thawed frozen peas
6 tablespoons butter
1-2 small onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
3/4 cup flour
2 1/2-3 cups chicken broth
1/3 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg (don't skip this, it makes the pie delicious!)
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, add carrots and potatoes. Once the boil returns, blanch the potatoes and carrots for 2-3 minutes. Drain well. In a large bowl, toss the carrots and potatoes, peas, and diced chicken. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Before the next step, I measure out my ingredients and set them in my cooking space so that I can just add things to the pot without having to stop and measure while I stir. It seems to work better that way. Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onions and garlic and saute until softened. Stir in the flour. Keep stirring for a bit to toast the flour. Add the chicken broth, the white wine, and the spices. Bring it to a boil, stirring constantly, then lower the heat and simmer until it gets really thick. Pour it over the chicken and vegetables and toss.

Roll out the pie crust, and put the bottom crust in a pie plate. Pour in half the filling. (Set the rest of the filling aside and put it in the freezer once you've got the pie in the oven.) Put the top crust on the pie and make a fancy curly "C" on top for "Chicken." Or make your own initial to show your pride in your pie. If you can crimp the edges of the pie crust, go for it, make your pie beautiful. Place the pie plate on a cookie sheet, put it in the hot oven, and bake 45-55 minutes. Let the pie cool for at least one hour before serving.

It's perfect served with a simple salad.

This is the best chicken pie ever. It reads like a lot of work, but it's divided into shorter tasks that can be completed in those little interstices allowed by school, chauffeuring, and parenting. And the long cooling time makes this dinner perfect for, say, choir night, when I've got to make dinner then go pick up a kid then come home and serve dinner before I shuttle another kid off to a different activity.

Tuesday Ten: Chickens

The Barn Yard ~Claude Guilleminet


Ten Cool Things about Chickens

1. They make chuckley homey little chicken noises. Some day I'll get out there and record their chicken noises and put them on my blog. Or else I'll think about it every once in a while and think, "Yeah, I should do that."

2. Chickens sure are pretty. If you've never met a well-cared-for hen, you probably don't realize just how pretty chickens can be. They're lovely.

3. They're also a little bit ridiculous, which is endearing. They bob when they walk, they peck at the ground, they squawk and ruffle at the cats, they chatter and gossip with one another just like little old ladies.

4. Fresh eggs. Yum. Chickens earn their keep. Farm-fresh eggs taste better, the yolks are bright orange, and there's something satisfying about eating eggs laid by your very own chickens.

5. Chicken sayings. "Coming home to roost." Chickens actually do that. "Pecking order." Yup, they do that too. "Running around likes chickens with their heads cut off." Oh yes. As a matter of fact, when I was a kid, my sister and I used to have to watch the chickens to see where they went after Dad cut their heads off. Otherwise they'd get lost in the tall grass behind the chopping block. Those darn chickens ran everywhere, spurting blood. Morbid child that I was, I thought it was great fun. And waaaaaaay better than having to do the stinky messy job of helping to pluck the darn things. Bleah!

6. Chickens eat snails. And slugs. And bugs and weeds and all manner of things with which I do not care to deal. I love chickens. Any creature willing to eat a slug is tops in my book. They'll also eat old lettuce, celery tops, apple peels, leftover oatmeal....and think they're getting a great treat! The list of things that we can throw out in the chicken yard to make the chickens happy is nearly endless.

7. They have personalities. Lucy is brave. She's the chicken leader. She's bossy and independent and likes her space. She doesn't like to be held but she'll tolerate it. She was the only chicken willing to walk around in the snow. Ethel's kind of, you know, a chicken. I'd say pardon the pun, but I did it on purpose because I know you can't throw things at me. Ha! Anyway, Ethel's not an adventurous gal. She absolutely refuses to walk in the snow. She's spent the entire time since it's snowed in the coop. Except for the snow thing, she follows Lucy around like a shadow, mostly because, I suspect, she's not too bright. She doesn't want to have to think for herself. She squawks like I'm a fox or a raccoon every time I pick her up to move her. Hattie is a pretty mellow gal. She doesn't mind being picked up and held and petted. She's kind of her own chicken, though. She's not in charge like Lucy or brainless like Ethel. She hangs out with the others but she'll go off on her own too. Hattie's my favorite. For a chicken she's kind of sweet.

8. Fried chicken. Chicken and dumplings. Chicken noodle soup. Chicken pot pie. Barbequed chicken. Chicken salad sandwiches. I'm not going to eat my three feathered friends, but I sure can't wait until the day I can raise chickens to eat.




9. There are lots of different varieties of chickens. You can even have chickens that look like feathered poodles. Chicken people get all excited about different kinds of chickens. It's a little bit scary, even. Kind of like...oh, homeschoolers getting all carried away by math books and stuff. (Uh, not that I know anyone who does that. Heh...heh...)

10. Chickens remind me of growing up on a farm in the country. Gathering eggs, chasing the chickens (shhh...don't tell my mom), climbing the trees next to the chicken pen, throwing out scratch just to see the chickens come running....

11. They put themselves to bed. This cracks me up. No need to round them up. When it gets dark they hop up into their little chicken house. All you have to do is go out and shut the door so that other critters don't decide to join them.

And last, but not least, because I couldn't stop with just ten tonight so may as well make it an even dozen (just like eggs)...

12. Rubber chickens are funny. Cliche? Sure. Ugly and kind of weird? Well, yes. But still funny.

Cristy's Ten Random Thoughts about Chickens

Manners

So...do you think it's bad manners to go check on the chickens while munching on a chicken salad sandwich?

Meet Hattie

Meet Hattie.

I got some excellent name suggestions:

Lovely lady, 11, gave me a three-page list of chicken names, including Alyssa, Charmaine, Bryanna, Iliana and Deeondra.

The gents came up with a descriptive name-- Brown Chicken.

Other name suggestions from some mommy friends included Laverne and Shirley (I almost renamed Lucy and Ethel after reading that one, then decided that my dad's wife might not be thrilled to have a chicken named after her), Ricky, and Camilla. Camilla after Gonzo's Camilla.



Then my Irie sister sensibly suggested that we name the chicken after her previous owner, who loved having chickens. And Hattie is an awesome name for a chicken, is it not? Hattie laid us a perfect brown egg this morning. Hattie the Chicken, that is.

I hope Hattie the Person doesn't mind sharing her name with a bird.

Name That Chicken

Her chicken friends have been named.

Meet Lucy....

...and Ethel.

Chime in: What would you name her if she was your chicken?