At the Cock's Crow

Here is a little video Josiah took of our head Rooster "Big Boy." He enjoys crowing . . . at all times of the day. :-) He has one sassy hen who talks back to him sometimes. The large Barred Rock you see in the nesting box is Sphinx. (Don't ask about the name) Shortly after this filming, she laid a large egg, with light purple speckles! I kid you not!

~ Faith

The Chicken and the Egg

Hallelujah!! The Chickens are laying eggs! We have been collecting 6-8 per day, the last few days. Most are quite small, but are getting bigger every day. It is so satisfying to have your own source for home "grown" eggs!


Here is a sweet little Buff thinking about it.

She gets some company from a pesky Rhode Island Red. They argue in subdued chicken voices for a while, before the Red finally decides to move to the next box.

Well, pluck me and call me a chicken!! Did I just do that!!

A precious egg! Free-range, organic, fertile . . .chicken egg. Yum!

Here's looking at you, Chick!

~ Faith

PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals (Rated PG14)

Dear Friends and Family:

This post contains some potentially disagreeable content. Please be advised that those of you with a weak stomach might want to just skip it. I apologize in advance if anyone is offended.
(Two animals were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

We are now full fledged farmers, country folks, red-necks, backwoods-men, or bloodthirsty murderous villains . . . whichever you prefer. We also now have a very real appreciation of where our food comes from, and that life on a farm is not always glamorous, but at times, and of necessity, can be a bit gory.

Once upon a time we got some cute innocent little chicks. Who, with our loving care, (and hundreds of pounds of food!) grew into big chickens. (no really!) This is the "End of the Story" for two of the five roosters we raised. The above picture is our very high tech "Butchering Board" that Dad made, along with Joshua's Bowie knife. It is the before photo, and below is the after.

I won't go into details here; let's just say that we learned a lot about how not to butcher roosters, and that a shark's death roll, ain't nothin' compared to a chicken with its head chopped (or shot) off.



Whew! Once the nasty work was out of the way, I enjoyed the plucking and gutting part . . . kind of. The headless horsemen . . . um . . . I mean Rooster, was dunked in a large pot of hot water and then plucked clean. Let me tell you something folks; the smell of hot, wet feathers, is not exactly one of the finer scents in the world.



Next I cut the feet off. Baby, who was very attentive during the whole process, greatly enjoyed the scraps we tossed her. It was quite amusing to see her trotting around with a chicken foot hanging out of her mouth.



O.K. so I had never gutted a chicken before. The laptop came in very handy as Christianna read me cut-by-cut directions from a website. It actually was easier than I thought. Granted it took me over half and hour to finish the first bird, but I didn't rip the intestines or cut anything that I wasn't suppose to, and the second one was a whiz.

Here he is, all clean and packaged for freezing!

And here they are, nice and comfortable, in a bed of veggies, rubbed with oil and seasonings ready to be popped in the oven . . .



. . . for a tasty Sunday dinner! And boy were they good!

And to all you real PETA people out there . . .Get a Life! (and eat some fresh, farm raised, roasted Chicken) Genesis 9:3

~ Faith