Chick, Chick, Chickens

My chicks were 7 weeks old this past Monday. They're growing so fast! It's very exciting. If chickens aren't exciting to you, well just go with it. =) They're very fun to watch grow and sort of develop little chicken personalities. They're at some sort of a milestone too. I say that because they've started transitioning from making cute little "cheep cheep" chick noises to making grown up "bok bok" hen noises. It's very funny because one of them will make the grown up chicken noise and then look around like, "what was that?" and get very quiet.

So i took some pictures today. I'm very proud of how healthy they look and how fast they seem to be growing - not that i have anything to compare to.

I haven't given them names yet because i can't really tell them apart. But i might have to name this one Hawkeye 'cause she always has her eye on me.



I stuck some grass through the wire - partially for photo ops and partially because i wanted to give them a treat. They've weathered the unending rain very well. You see Hawkeye still has her eye on me.







They're so cute all in a row like that.



I actually have 6 chicks, not just 5, but this one is almost always off by herself. She's not sick. I thought she was at first. I think she just likes her space. So in the picture with the grass up above, you see Hawkeye, keeping an eye out, then the four musketeers all cute in a row, and then this one. What should i name her? She likes her privacy.

Meme's Turnip Stew

My friend and neighbor, Meme, passed from this earth a week ago yesterday. She lived a long life and had many children and grandchildren. At the end of her life, her health was not good, but she quickly adopted as her own anyone who came near, and that included me. Meme and i had some good heart-to-heart conversations during the short time that i knew her, and on our last visit, she gave me a quart-size bag of frozen turnips.

I am going to miss Meme, and yesterday, one week after her death, i decided to cook those turnips as my own little memorial to Meme. So this recipe is not Meme's, but it's in her honor. I never ate turnips before Meme gave them to me, so i will probably always think of her if ever i eat turnips again.

Here's the recipe. It's pretty good.

Ingredients

16 oz great northern beans
1/4 coarsely chopped white turnips
4 oz of bacon
6 oz of sausage
one large onion, diced
1/2 cup milk
water
salt and pepper or nature's seasoning to taste
1 TBS of mustard

Start by cooking the beans, slowly and stirring often in order to make a good gravy. Add cooked and chopped bacon with bacon grease, onions, and turnips. Cook slowly, watching for it to get too dry. Stir often. Once turnips have cooked down a little, add sausage, cut up however you like it, milk, mustard, and seasoning.

I'm actually still cooking, but i had a sample, and it was pretty good. I just have to adjust to the texture of the turnips. But the taste is fine. Good comfort food.

Thanks Meme!
Miss you.

Edited to add:

After trying the finished product, i think that it would've been good to make the turnip pieces a little smaller and to add about 2 cups of chopped red potatoes. The sausage i used has a pretty peppery flavor, and that was good for this mix. Over - all it came out really good. Healthy and filling too.

Resurrection Fireworks

The home i was raised in, by most people's standards, was to say the least, very conservative. Let me explain.

In regard to holidays, i was taught to know what i'm celebrating. And if some part of the prescribed celebration of a holiday did not fit with the reason for the celebration, or if the reason for celebration did not have a place with our beliefs and faith, then that celebration was clearly deleted from (or never showed up in) our traditions and celebrations.

For example:

Christmas - celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ on the Earth. Household celebration includes modest gift-giving, prayerful thanksgiving for God's gift, and warm fellowship with family and friends. Because of pagan origin of Christmas trees, household celebration does not include Christmas tree, and i was never ever told by my parents that anyone, much less Santa Claus, was going to come down my chimney and give me presents for being a good girl.

Halloween - no redeemable reason for celebration could be found. Halloween was not celebrated in my home, trick-or-treaters were not given candy, and if my class was having a halloween celebration, i was pulled from school.

Easter - named Resurrection Day in my household, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which was the means by which He overcame sin and death after paying for our sins on the cross. Celebration is worshipful thanksgiving to God and does not ever include anything about a bunny or an egg.

Now my friends never really understood why i didn't go trick-or-treating or why the tooth fairy didn't come to my house when i lost my teeth. But i feel so much richer for having parents who instilled in me a certain integrity about holy days and celebrations with meaning.

Since i have been married, i have not kept with all of the same conclusions my parents came to, but i have retained the desire to know what i'm celebrating and why. And i, having married into a family that celebrates most holidays the way everyone else does, have sought to find ways to bring meaning to, shall i say, secular celebrations.

Of course, the reason all this comes to mind right now is because yesterday was Easter. I carefully avoided the Sunday morning church service because i couldn't bear, on this particular Sunday, the sight of Easter baskets in church. This scene is one that has taken me by unpleasant surprise more than once, and i simply didn't have the stamina for it. If you haven't climbed into my head on this matter yet, understand that seeing easter baskets and eggs in church is right next to blasphemy for me. But since i recognize that those perpetrating these traditions are by no means intentionally disgracing the house of the Lord, i try to avoid situations in which i might inadvertently externalize the emotional response within me that wants to run screaming through the church and ripping easter baskets from the hands of unusually well-dressed little girls who will have no idea why i just lost my mind. I love my egg-dying friends and family, and i have tried to have influence, if at all, by means of...positive reinforcement instead of wild antics that would probably never be forgotten and not make the proper point.

That was a rabbit trail. I apologize. Back to me and my husband in the kitchen on Easter morning...

I was sharing with my loving man that i was avoiding the easter egg hunt at my church and that i wanted to go to a play about the resurrection of Jesus that evening. And as we talked, we stumbled upon what i think will make for a very enjoyable and appropriate celebration. We hope to institute it next year.

On the holiday called easter, i recognize and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. This, as my husband pointed out, is cause for great celebration. I agree.

I've never seen any distinct food tradition in regard to easter. It's always just a loose copy of Thanksgiving. A ham and fixin's and of course easter eggs.

Luke records that after Jesus rose from the dead (which is what we're celebrating, remember) Jesus appeared to the disciples. But the disciples, having witnessed His gruesome and thorough death and burial, were frightened and thought they must be seeing a ghost. So to prove to the disciples that He was not a ghost, Jesus asked them if they had any food. Someone gave him a piece of broiled fish, and Jesus ate it in front of them to show them that He had truly risen, and that it was really His body in front of them, and not a spirit or a vision or a hallucination. On a different occasion after His resurrection, Jesus also fed fish to the disciples - and used the catching of fish to illustrate His will to His disciples.

So, next year, my husband and i are planning to host a Resurrection Day celebration which will involve an afternoon fish roast, followed by evening fireworks. Fish, for the reasons described previously, and fireworks because - what better reason to celebrate with fireworks! It is possible that our location may prevent the legal use of very showy fireworks, but we'll at least have some very festive sparklers! =)

Doesn't that sound like fun!

Sneaky Chickens

Yesterday morning, April 1, i woke up to the sound of dogs barking at chickens. I looked out the window and saw one of my chicks OUTside of the pen being corralled, as it were, by my dogs. I've read awful stories the last couple days about well-meaning playful dogs and broken chickens' necks, and i bolted outside in my pajamas and socks to find all the chickens safe and sound inside the pen and no holes in the pen.

And i was in wonderment all day, thinking i know i saw that, but i couldn't have. My eyes don't work so well in the morning, but they don't usually fabricate things that aren't there. I could see that chicken very very clearly OUTside of the pen.

I told my husband that the animals had played an april fools joke on me. It was so weird.

But it turns out, they're not that clever. They did trick me though. Later in the afternoon, i looked outside and saw all the chicks crouched together in one corner of the pen, and one of them with her head and shoulders OUTside of the pen. Ha! I'm not crazy. The chicken wire was curled up in one place, just enough to allow a tiny little chicken to get tricky.

This morning, it's raining - again - and from what i can tell, chickens don't dig rain. But they're sheltered under a covering, so they're not getting wet.


Can you see 'em? They're so pretty. I never thought i would call a chicken, "pretty."




Now if i can just get rid of this awful cold. I'm in the cough all the time and think you have energy until you try to do something stage. I hate being sick.