The Judgement is In

So today was rooster sentencing day, and no they didn't get a fair trial and I'm afraid the sentence is death.

We butchered 6 roosters today four of which are destined for the soup pot, while two will either be roasted or fried.. maybe grilled. I did learn a couple things from this batch of birds. First, I had read a number of times about how it is easier to skin your birds instead of plucking them. Yeah... personally? For me skinning them took twice maybe three times as long to do. The biggest problem is the feathers got in the way of me seeing where to run my knife to remove the skin.

The second thing I learned is that turkens are easy to pluck. It took almost no time for me to get the feathers off the body of it. Even better the skin doesn't look like it had the feathers in it over half the body. It was also the largest of the birds after butchering and it was one of the youngest ones we butchered.

Silver is going to make some home made stock from four of them and the feet from the birds (well the feet that were healthy, two of the Leghorns had sores on them). The feet have a lot of cartilage on them and some fat(s), it is simple to clean the feet too once you learn how. You boil some water, take the water off the fire/burner and drop the feet in the pot. Now you take them out one at a time and starting at the nails pop the sheathe off the nail and start peeling the top layer of scales off. As you go to the leg joint it gets more difficult but it is easier to start at the claws.

My biggest problem with these birds (I got them for free so it's only a half assed complaint), is most of them have had feet problems. Two of the white leghorns we got had feet that couldn't grip the pearches, couldn't grip at all and they had sores in the “palms” of the claws. The guinea fowl we had had one badly broken leg that healed wrong. There is a brown leghorn hen who has no toes. These were all in the birds we got for free last fall. Bothers me a bit they were like that. I'm just glad that they are living here now, so they have good lives till they wind up in my stock pot!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Happy Friday!

Well I'm sitting here waiting for my chicken bones to de-pressure so I figured I'd write something today.  Not as much as yesterday mind you... btw in case you were wondering it came out to about 4 pages on my word prossesor when I converted it over.  Looks back a few words.  I love those spelling mistakes that the "suggestions" have no correction for even when you know you spelled it wrong; but cannot spell it right.

I have watered all of my plants that I put in yesterday and they do seem to be doing rather well except for 1 of the red cabbages.  That poor thing is drooping.  I think I know why too, it got only about 1/2 of the roots available when I had to cut them apart.  So it probably does not have enough roots to make it.

We discovered this morning that the 2 hoses we are using can reach everything but... The pecan tree and the current.  No biggie, we need at least one new hose as one of the 2 like I said has a leaky connector.

I have discovered this morning that we have 1 small frog living near our pond.  I hope there is more but 1 is a start.  My blue berry is looking very promising so far and I hope it produces well this year.  It has buds everywhere, it looks as healthy as the Elderberries do.

Once I get my soup going I get to go out and do some clearing near all of my plantings from yesterday.  Just to ensure no over crowding and plenty of sun for my new plants.  I did notice the Kale seems to have sprouted finally, just when I was ready to give up on them.  I also may have one carrot sprout, we'll see as it grows.

Time to go work on the soup,

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...