Chicken anyone?

When I came home on Friday, another tragedy had occured. Almost all the chickens had been slaughtered by the dogs again. We irrigated and the ground got soft enough for them to dig under the fence. None that I could see survived. But then Saturday morning, I get up and look outside and who do I see being chased around the backyard by the dogs again? Tina. The survivor. I was so upset by the carnage in the yard, I made my dear manly man clean it up. The owner of the dogs is going to pay us something. Travis told him we'd invested $300 dollars. I don't know about that, but the pain and suffering alone is worth it. They've killed 20 chickens in 8 months. That's alot of chicken. I called Becky and she asked if we wanted to come over for dinner. Matt said in the background, "We're having chicken!" That made me laugh despite my despair.
This morning Tina was still alive and well. Obviously she performs well under pressure because she laid 2 eggs overnight. Crazy hen. And then 5 of her offspring must have inherited some wherewithall from their mother, because they showed up in the coop. Let's put it this way: when Matt told me last night he tried to get me a chick, I told him I have no desire to get more chickens until I can control the perimeter and the sex of every chicken I raise. Small scale production from now on.

New additions

You know how I found Tina the other day sitting again on a bunch of eggs? With the addition of a more mature rooster to our flock, I was wondering if she was actually going to hatch them. To my delight this morning I went out to feed the chickens and heard the piercing cheep echoing in the coop. Sure enough, she's hatched 9 of them. I called my husband and said "Honey, you're a Dad! Happy Father's Day!" Now our flock has more than doubled....The challenge will be to keep them alive. But this time I know better than to let Tina do it herself... I think I'm going to lock them up in the coop together and feed them separately.

The survivor appears

Just a quick not to say that we found the "rooster" today(Travis and Jordan gave me such grief the other day-- swearing adamantly they knew it was a rooster because men are always smarter about chickens, right?) I've been looking everywhere for her-- the bushes, the back pen, everywhere. Everywhere but the coop. She's in the coop. Tina is at it again. Sitting on 12 eggs. She's been busy with Arthur (we finally named the red rooster-- it just seems to fit). I'll keep you posted if they happen to hatch.

The Taming of the Shrew

Tina, our resident hen, has been tamed. Yes, tamed. But not completely. She sleeps in the coop now (again) and is definitely subdued into submission. It is quite a sight to see her tend to her new found husband, the red rooster. We still do not have a name for him. The red chickens remain aloof from naming. Maybe its the distance between us; as adopted chickens, they don't quite have the same pull on our emotional naming connection.
In other news, Travis is taming another shrew--the land-- and by that I mean the dust. This is quite a feat here in the desert. He is giving our lovely Hyundai a washing before we go out for a night on the town. Our friend Chuck Nam is in town and he is taking us out to dinner in Scottsdale for... drum roll please... sushi. Yea! Lean fish on fresh clean rice with salty soy sauce and crisp ginger and take-your-breath-away wasabi. What could be more delicious?
We don't have much else going on this weekend here on the ranch; Travis is going to hold down the fort while I go away for a little trip to Maryland. Emily is going to tame another beast- the piano- in her final performance as a student of her teacher Svetlana Gorenman. With a name like that, you can probably imagine what kind of Russian teacher she makes. She has been a wonderful teacher. Demanding, but excellent in all she does. Emily has stayed with her for over 10 years now. Svetlana is in her late 60s and when she and her husband immigrated she supported then through her teaching. She is battling cancer and Emily is one of her oldest and most accomplished students. It will be a wonderful performance, I can be sure.

Homeland Security

Wanted: A Guard Dog of Great Proportions with a Gentle Heart.

Wanted Dead not Alive: Two Pointers

We have had a breach in security along our fence line-- we lost 4 chickens and have experienced a sad setback in our Egg Production Project.. Three survivors, all hens, have earned their mettle against the coniving pointers--Brownie, Jimmy and Gecko. I let them out in the morning to scavenge, left for a meeting at 9:30a and returned home at 6:30p to find Spike, Emma, Joshua Quinn and Afro scattered dead about the yard and canal. Goose is still MIA.

What I am most grateful for is that I won't have to tell the Zigler boys that I was a delinquent Mom and that they all died, as I had initially anticipated last night. I also found the missing adult hen on the search for my babies. She is brooding again and I have a plan now. I will take all of her newly hatched chicks and raise them myself for a better living ratio.

Travis and I need a stronger homeland security for animals and creatures in general. This has been the week for unwelcome and strange critters: I must confess-- I have jumped three times this week. I have never shied away from creepy crawlies, or been timid of burying dead chickens. The week has proved me more tender than I assumed.
Along with visitors from the East Coast, we have had a slew of local visitors: on Sunday I found what appeared to be a large, dead scorpion in my sunken living area. Then, Steve poked it, only to prove it was dead. It was not. It had been pretending the whole time. I didn't know they do that. Now I do. I have been tip-toeing around my house in socks and shoes.
Then on Monday, we had a flock of predatory roadrunners. I thought they were prehistoric creatures. Raptors to be exact. Janis said something like, "Now you know you aren't in Kansas anymore". Nothing could be truer. Travis laughed at me. How was I to know? Have you ever seen a flock of small raptor-like birds scurry around your yard?
The final straw was literally the icing on the cake. Besides the fact that I kill about 5 flies every day, I found a spider at eye level as I was icing my Easter Cookies. I squealed.
But that's life.
Life in the country.

How we got the baby chicks

Today we got eight baby chicks at the San Tan Feed & Seed. And now we are going to have a snack. Hello from the Zigler boys-- Dalton, Garrett, and Cade to everyone...

Nesting Instincts

The babies leave their nest every day with Mama Tina (the Survivor).
And we are finishing our nesting here at the ranch. I am checking off the To-Do list one thing at a time, with a big push last week. We finished putting in our new backdoor, finished the bedrooms off, painted the hall closet, made the middle bathroom presentable, hung bathroom mirrors, bought a twin boxspring and set up our twin bed, borrowed a dresser for the yellow room, hung more pictures, cleaned up the game room /office, reorganized the laundry room, bought a couch, washed off the back porch, and put one more coat of stain on the dining room chairs.

Are you tired yet? I was.
Our goal was to host our first dinner party on Friday night. Steve and Janis put so much work into the house and we wanted to bless them. I followed Steve's request: "Nora, I want you to make me the spiciest Szechuan shrimp you can!" So our menu was set:

Crudite with Peanut Satay Sauce

Roasted Spiced Cashews and Almonds

Three Citrus Salad with Shaved Fennel and Red Onion

Black Sesame Grilled Chicken

Spicy Szechuan Shrimp

Brown Rice with Green Cilantro Sauce

Sambal *Chili Garlic Sauce*

Grapefruit Curd with Marscapone Cheese and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies

The best part was that Connor helped me cook. He went with me to pick up the couch, he treated me to Dairy Queen and then he helped me get ready for our dinner. Thanks bud!

Ranch Resurrection

The computer seemed dead.
The chickens had died.
Creative inspiration was fraying
Although everything else was fine
But new friends arrived
All situations are redeeming and alive
Three days of unpatient waiting
The computer arises and two survived
Along her tail end closely staying
Came three baby chicks close in a line.
--2/10/06

And then came the egg...

So we made an omelet that fed two. And one made its way into some sourdough egg bread.

Since we are on the topic of sourdough, let me give you some history.
Sourdough originally was a substitute for yeast in leavened products. When I was getting into bread making two years ago, I found a website touting the history of it (San Francisco and wild west stories). I purchased some that was reportedly from a starter that made its way out west in the 1800's on a covered wagon and got handed down through the generations. I mailed a SSE away and a few months later a letter came into my mailbox with a ziploc baggie of brown granules. I added it to my own starter which I had begun true Laura Engels Wilder meets Alton Brown. So my starter should now have a good East Coast meets Midwest meets, now, Southwest flavor.
I also have an interesting story to prove I am not the only one who is intrigued by food history. In December, I went to a dinner party at my friend's Elizabeth's husband's aunt's farm. I met the aunt and she served us some of her 'famous' sourdough bread. I asked why her bread was famous and it turns out, she made her sourdough starter in India with buffalo milk 30 years ago. It has followed her around the globe for 30 years. After years of travel, it now lives in Great Falls Virginia. That is why food continues to fascinate me.

First comes the chicken...

then the EGGS! I just had to write that we have our first eggs. We are officially a ranch now. I collected eight beautiful pale brown eggs this morning from the red, broken down chicken coop. I have been slowly transitioning where I put the feed, creeping it across the yard from the goat pen to the coop. I guess my trick worked because the hens nested themselves down into the dusty hay last night to do their magic. The incredible edible egg...scrambled, fried, poached, custards, creme brulee here we come!

Meet the Flockers

A story to rival all love stories. While I was nineteen in England, I met an older man who wore coveralls and hands that had worked the dirt. He was a normal middleclass citizen with normal box frame house and an above average kitchen garden. But one thing set him apart. He owned chickens. That meant, he had fresh eggs. I was in love. With his fowl.
Every since then, a secret wish grew in my heart for my very own chickens. As a chef I value the product, but I've always had a fondness for chicken since I watched the first grade's chicken project.
Enter suburban living in Montgomery County. Not since the King's farm sold milk has there been much room for fowl in Gaithersburg.
But dreams come true. Travis called me and told me that we were going to rent a house. It was on a piece of land, it was three bedrooms, two and half baths, a fixer-upper....and it had five chickens and a rooster.
Meet my chickens: the plumed rooster who rules the brood is Kenneth, named after our good friend Kenneth Maresco, a true patron of free-range chicken (not). The other plain black rooster is Fred. And one black hen is named Jememiah but we haven't been able to get a face with a name yet.
If you have suggestions, please post your votes and we would love to have our friends name the chickens... just don't get too attached to them because we haven't secured them yet in their coop.