Touch your food~!

February 11, 2011

Count Down To V Day!

I'm actually counting down the hours until Paul gets home. He has had a miserable few weeks at work and it will be very good to have him home again. He will even get to be home for Valentine's day.

This last week I saw my predator friend only twice which is a blessing. It has been bitter cold and the ground covered in snow so the chickens didn't mind being cooped up. Next week things are supposed to warm up again so I need to try and figure something out before then. They love to eat the fresh grass that is starting to come up. Last time when we had a thaw I sat outside in the grass watching them eat. You could tell they were so happy. On my last post I mentioned that O'Brahma Boy was killed by the hawk. It tuns out I decided to feed him to the dogs. The hawk had put a few puncture wounds in him and I was concerned about bacteria.

I quickly learned that I didn't have any good sharp knives. That will be a must to fix before I process chickens in the fall. So I did it the old fashioned way of chopping off his head and feet with my little ax. Zoe saw the flash of yellow flying in the air and quickly chowed down on his feet. I panicked... what if she choked???  I quickly ran in and jumped online to google dogs eating chicken feet. That is when I came across a very interesting website about feeding dogs & cats raw food. http://www.rawlearning.com/  I got so excited about this I just cut up the small bantam chicken into quarters and fed him to the dogs after I cleaned out his innards. They loved every bit of it, including the bones!



A couple of days before the thaw



If you haven't touched your food that intimately before I encourage you to do so. Two summers ago we went camping on the James River with my friends small group. Paul & I had caught some fish and our friend Chris offered to clean them up for us. He turned it into a basic biology lesson for the children. They gathered round and watched with fascination when he gutted the fish and explained how they breathed and taught about their different organs. One of the kids dared him to eat a fish eye and well... next thing we knew he popped the little sucker in his mouth! Hat's off to you Chris! There were many lessons that day but the most important was to not dare Chris to eat anything.

What I'm trying to say is that it is sad that we have become so far removed from our food. I am just as guilty as I would guess anyone is from my generation. We stopped growing our own food. We stopped touching our own food. In come cases we stopped cooking our own food. This I believe has led to all sorts of health issues for us that we are only beginning to understand. I do not think there is a misconnect between our current eating habits and things such as obesity and food allergies. I believe these things to go hand in hand.

Zoe & Rocky

On the next step of raising chickens I am trying my hand at hatching eggs. I have collected 9 eggs which I hope are fertilized and placed them in my old fish aquarium. I'm using a grow bulb on the tank in addition to a desk top lamp with a 40 watt bulb. So far I have been able to maintain the temperature around 99 degrees with 65% humidity. I candled some of them today and I can see the heart! I just hope I don't goof something up and they don't hatch.

I remember as a child when my grandmother would bring home a chicken from the store and clean it up. I would then proceed to beg her to make the chicken dance. She would stick her hand back into the cavity she had cleaned out and sing a song in French and make the chicken dance around on the counter. I would laugh for ages over that. She and my grandfather grew a lovely garden one summer and in a coffee can they let me grow my own corn. They taught me how to take care of it as it grew. I remember fluffy yeast rolls raising on the stove. I also will never forget all of the clothes she lovingly made for me. Sadly, she died before she could teach me about any of those magical things she could do. My mother had these same skills but she was very busy raising two children on her own and never got around to teaching me. Now that she too is gone I have a longing to be able to do all of the things these amazing women could do.

I am baking a fresh loaf of bread for when Paul comes home. I am learning day by day... article by article, blog by blog.

Lastly, with help from Jonathan Jones (Thank You!) I was able to get a logo for my travel business. I feel that things are coming together very well indeed! Now I can finally start doing some advertising. After 20 years in the travel industry I can't believe I've finally gone out on my own. Yeahhhhhhhhhh me!