Field trip to Aquarium

It is always nice to go to all these wonderful field trips with Savannah. A lot of the times I get to go with her alone so we get to have a little mommy and Savannah time. Here is her class and her teacher.

Almost our x mas/ new yr cards

The Meal

Our very first meal with our very own chicken meat. It actually turned out really good. I had read somewhere that sometimes eating a chicken over 6-8 weeks can be tough and sinewy. Also this breed of chicken was a "Dual Purpose" chicken ( eggs & edible) not the "meat" chickens/ broilers that are big, fat, double breasted ones that you normally buy from the grocery store. I am not a huge fan of dark meat so it was a little umm weird for me at first. Every bite I thought of my chicken and it was slightly creepy to me but I assume I will get over that. It would be like seeing non blemished, perfectly shiny red apples in the grocery store compared to real organic non shiny, marked apples from the tree. Just a state of mind really. Greg on the other hand gobbled it up and said it was sooo delicious! He loves dark meat. It was just ever so slightly chewier than commercial chicken you buy at the store. Can't wait to try our chickens breast meat.

Thank you " Big Daddy" RIP-not for the faint of heart.

Well as you all may know we have been striving to take some steps in being more self sustainable. We understand that we are not there yet nor nearly there but all we can do is take small baby steps. Greg has really been wanting to "process" our own meat. He said he wanted to get a deer or something, I suggested we start small with our own excess rooster- " Big Daddy". He was kind of an a** anyway which made is easier in my own mind. Greg and Cyrus plucking the feathers after dunking in boiling water. Which makes the feathers come out easily.

Grammy is here visiting from Maine. Memories and pictures to take back home..haha. She used to have a farm with chickens and pigs etc.

I heard she was such a big help with gutting the insides. Especially with the liver, heart and gizzards which supposedly are edible and somewhat a delicacy? Eww not at all appetizing for me..I really dislike any liver products..tastes like blood to me. Bleh!

It looks like we are some country hicks living on a farm in Georgia or something.

Well lots of eggs!

Well now we are getting 10 eggs a day so far..and we have plenty! One day very soon we may be gettin 17 eggs in one day. Oh my! I will have to definitely be making a lot more egg dishes. I better get good at this. We will also be giving eggs away and possibly selling some in the future? When eggs get consistent in size.



Bowl now overflowing..
These are washed and ready to give away to my first friends/family. Aren't they pretty.

Very Eggciting times! January 29th

Having chickens is soo fun. I absolutely love it. It is soo neat everyday to look in the nesting boxes and see how many eggs you have recieved that day. You begin to know who has been slacking off the job and who has been consistent. I can't say that for all my girls since only roughly 6 ( of 16) are laying. It is also so very neat to share this experience with Savannah and Malia. They are learning so much besides respect and caring for animals, but what they give to us, self sustainability, recycling and somewhat a feel for farm life. I want them to get them into 4H when they are old enough because I think it would be so fun. I should have been in 4 H when I was little, I would have loved it. So every day we visit our chickens and give them our left over food scraps along with picking weeds/grass and scratch. ( seed mix)

Here is one of our first green eggs laid by and Easter Egger chicken often times miscorrectly called Amerarcauna. These hens lay green/blue sometimes even pinkish eggs naturally.

Assorted colored eggs! Aren't they beautiful. 3 days worth.

Here is 4 days worth of eggs. ( sofar) Soon we will be over our heads with eggs by the 4th day. lol!I can't wait for more eggs and more colors. All of these eggs are naturally pigmented that way. My next adventure/goal would be to add a chicken/chickens who lay deep chocolate colored eggs!

Eggtastic! Jan 16th 09- Our first eggs!

First Eggs! We are sooo eggstatic and excited for these eggs. This has been a long time coming and finally we are seeing some reward for all those labor intensive small chicks in the house crapppy deal ( haha) Our first eggs came from 1 or our 2 Golden Laced Wyandotte. I would say a med size egg? The 1st one is the smallest brown egg ( first are typically smallest) then the second was the other brown egg. The white egg is a commercial egg put in there to show size difference. It is weird but I feel so proud of my girl..? I am sure I will post more when more eggs start coming. We now have gotten a large brown egg ( grocery store size) from our Rhode Island Red hen. Pics to come.
It had been fertilized
Here she is.
Look it that mug!