Roasted Rooster Red

Another interesting day in our homeschool…

We have lost many a chicken to different circumstances, this time we were about to loose our Roster Red. About a week ago he dislocated one of his wings, we did some research and decided to give a go at trying to bandage him up. Unfortunately he lost all his spirits and became utterly depressed 😦 so we decided to butcher him.

Never having butchered a chicken, rooster or any other animal for that matter (ok maybe a frog when I was a kid), we found ourselves delving into the YouTube archives for guidance. I was not prepared for the emotional charge I felt when life vanished from that animal, I cried like a baby.

As far as it come to homeschooling we had prepared the children for this event. They opted to not participate in the actual butchering… But both were involved in feathering and preparing the rooster for roasting. My husband scooped out the intestines and organs for a study on what kept this rooster alive.

Our daughter surprised me with her active interest in the feathering, her enjoyment in the quality of meet and interest in raising chicken for meet production. Go figure that a six year old can be so inclined to such reasoning. I on the other hand did cook our rooster but definitely was challenged by eating him, which was also the case with out son.

Fortification of Fort Box

A new attempt with the chickens. We are now putting a triple layer of chicken wire around the coop, burying part of it under ground.

Roasted chicken a la Jamie Oliver with a green smoothie

Fort Knox

Well, where do I even begin…

Yesterday I got to the Atlanta airport at 6am, ready for my flight to NY to see my brother. Haven’t been on a trip without the kids for 5 1/2 years and I was so ready for it. Just as we were about to board they cancelled the boarding, a malfunction had appeared on the plane. After 10 1/2 hrs of waiting, the plane was still broken, the last few remaining flights for NY were still oversold and my First Class Boarding Pass was all wrinkled up. I walked out of the airport with tears in my eyes, I had really looked forward to this little getaway. But in my gut I felt that it was all happening for a reason, all of my efforts had been futile, they got me no where, maybe I wasn’t supposed to be on that flight. It was utterly disappointing though…

Before I had left the airport I learnt that my accommodation in New York had fallen through. Felt a bit better already about not making it there.

So I started my drive back to the mountains, stopping via the Atlanta Ikea. Now that was the redeeming factor of the entire trip 🙂

On the way home my hubby called that his bee sting from a few days ago had all of a sudden become very sore and his foot was swelling up. By the end of the day he was already immobilized, I sure was glad he wasn’t left alone with three kids in a new town. All of sudden I didn’t mind so much that I wasn’t in New York. Got home with some Benadryl and he soon started to feel better. We both fell asleep with a great storm hanging on top of the house.

In the morning the foot was still sore enough that he could only lump around. So I took it upon myself to go let the chicks put of their coop… Trallalaaa… I ran in the rain and thunder…. Opened up the coop….

The chicken were DEAD!!!!! Three were missing completely and only two remained, headless!!!!! What?!?!?!??!!!!!

Oh dear, I had to break the news to the kids.

Well, that is kind of what we expected country life to be like. These were the lessons that we wanted our children to learn, we wanted to bring them out of the cotton that we were raising then in. So I swallowed my own tears and broke the news. All day I have been explaining how God created the chickens as well as their predators, how He has been in control of the situation and allowed it to happen, but He also made sure that I was here with the family also. He allowed us to have this set back, loose some animals, feel some sadness, but most of all learn from it. Then to pick up our spirits and start again.

The kids and the hubby are now in the hardware store getting the equipment for making that chicken coop into the Fort Knox of all coops 😉

So all in all, I am so very thankful to God that I didn’t get to have my amazing Big Apple experience. I hope I get to have it some other time, this weekend I would much rather spend helping my husband heal his foot and comfort our children with their loss.

What a weekend…

Gardening with chicken and children

I was working away in the garden today, putting down some seedlings and enjoying the day. Low and behold our super friendly chicks decided to join my ventures with a twist, Feather chick literally jumped to my leg and from there to my back and began to peck. Yeah I know, I am also wondering what kind of ‘no-seems’ were crawling on my skin.

Morning coffee

Sitting in the yard surrounded by the laughter of kids and little chicks pecking away, a cup of hot coffee and the sun shining on my face… Is there a better way to start the day?

The past 10 years of nomad life are making this experience all the better 🙂

Clean up, clean up

Nothing better than working hard on the dirty chicken coop, then smelling the fresh bread from the bread maker 🙂