In between the weeding and feeding and lifting and pulling.
And cooing and catching and patting.
And watering and weeding and pruning and picking and shucking and bagging.
I read a trashy novel.
The whole thing. It is true I am a fast reader. I am not going to tell you the name of the book as it really was a TRASHY novel. Well written though! Sometimes it is nice to have a thoughtless, light, unapologeticly trashy read.
Good morning.
Have a lovely day. It is Sunday here. Daisy is calling, she wants her corn stalks. Oh I almost forgot. Between pages yesterday I ordered 50 little Red Ranger broiler chicks. (Red rangers grow well but are still able to walk and talk their whole lives. Unlike some broiler chickens who have leg problems due to their weight. I don’t want that kind of carry on!) Hopefully they will arrive at the beginning of next month.
There are a few families going in together on this venture. The chickens take three months to grow and at this time of year I can take full advantage of everyone’s autumn abundance in the gardens and orchards to feed them. One of the Dads is going to make a chicken tractor for me so I can pull them across Pats paddock with the mower. Pat’s Paddock is to be resown this autumn so the chicks will do the clearing and fertilising. There is a very good little abattoir down in Amish country who will dress them for us. So they will be cleanly processed and bagged.
How about that for a plan.
Have a lovely day.
your friend, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
73 responses to “Trashy novels and the Big Fat Chickens Plan”
I love that plan!! We just did a slow cooker meal of a farm-raised chook and there is NOTHING like it. They have them periodically on the farm we belong to. Moving them about can be a bit of a job, but the benefits are all worth it and have taught Leandro where his food REALLY comes from. Have a gorgeous day!
We sometimes find one too and he meat is so much more.. well.. meaty as opposed t jelly like which makes me unsettled. I will have it hooked up to my ride on mower, so every evening they will be locked into their roosting area and i will drag it along. Well that is the plan anyway, we will see how it works out!! c
Love when a plan comes together.
This sounds like such a good plan! I love having chicken on the table that I have raised myself but I am not crazy about the despatch and cleaning part. Oh and all that good chicken manure. Sounds like a real win win! (And I just polished off a bit of book fluff recent myself – goes down a treat in the hot weather doesn’t it?)
Sounds like a great plan for a great day 🙂
Good morning Ruth and welcome to the Comments Lounge. Lovely to see you! c
Lucky you, real organic chickens, our chickens are so full of antibiotics and growth hormone and that’s before brine pumped into them to up the weight before selling. Looking forward to this project, couldn’t face the despatching part myself, but you have that all sorted too. Laura
As long as the little guys have a decent life, I’m game for that.
Brilliant! Real Pasture Raised Chickens. Mine are for eggs only and have full run of the garden, but the local Farmers Market do great chickens, so I don’t miss out (or have to deal with the dispatching LOL).
Have two new babies, two male kittens from different litters. One a black and white long haired (they say he is 12 weeks but I am sure he isn’t much over 8 – all skin and bone too!), his name is Oreo. The second is a grey with darker grey stripes which I believe could be 12 weeks. His name is Oliver as he has a twist in his tail (I think it may even be broken – off to vets tomorrow to get them checked out so will find out then). Got them yesterday at the local county pound (what a sad place to visit!!). They are in quarantine at present in my office and the other animals are sniffing under the door wondering what Mum has hidden in there LOL
Have a wonderful Sunday Celi.
How wonderful to have found two new treasure at the pound, and now for the fun part of fattening them up! Good that they can get to bond with each other first then be introduced to the rest of the family after the vets ok.. Well done Lyn. Onwards and Upwards! c
Sounds like a grand plan, how nice to share the project with other families too. I have heard of red rangers before but I dont think we have them here in Australia, good to know that it is still possible to get a meat bird that grows a bit slower and is able to support its own body weight.
I have a question, a wee while ago when charlotte and sheila went through a bout of dry itchy skin you mentioned adding oil to their feed, I cant remember what kind though? Grateful if you can recall.
Flaxseed oil. (you can buy a stock grade out here hope you can too) They have it every day now in their feed and we have had no more problems. Initially though i just dipped my hands in olive oil and rubbed it all over them, (in fact at one point I just poured it over them and rubbed it in) this cleared up the rough spots super fast. Plus they loved the massaging. Hope that helps.. c
is that the same as linseed oil? We used to put some in the horses’ feed to put a shine on their coats, and Jock uses nothing but linseed oil for finishing his furniture pieces.
well they are both from a seed so i imagine it might have the same make up. I shall do some research. You can get flaxseed oil in Australia. I use linseed oil on all my wood too.. excellent stuff.. c
lin is French for flax – or rather linen from the flax plant.
ha, well that is interesting, so it is probably the same thing?.. c
Flax seems to be the name for the oil gained from the linseed plant. There is plenty of flax oil available here for human consumption but it seems there is no cheaper livestock equivilent (so far in my search any way). However linseed meal comes highly recommended for pigs and is available, its whats left after the flax oil is taken. In the meantime I will follow up with the olive oil which I have. Thanks again.
You should find animal grade flaxseed oil at your local stock feed agent.
i sure wish i lived closer to you so i could be in on this plan! great idea!
ah..here comes the crunch..If you are a Red Ranger broiler chick then its not a good plan!
But for humans I guess it is ok…I would be useless on a farm where you had to kill animals
I am sure there a lot of vegetarians who would agree. But I am an omnivore and if i want to eat meat with my vegetables I choose to grow it for its whole short life and ensure that it is well treated and cared for. If everyone who was squeamish about killing for meat did not eat meat, then these big feed lots would go out of business. No demand for cheap meat would sort it all out quick smart. An interesting thought isn’t it. But i do respect your choice not to eat killed meat. Killing for food is not something anyone should be good at. Then there is a kind of balance. Does that make any sense? .. c
I read about this method in Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” It’s a virtuous circle!
Marvelous plan, C…A freezer full of chicken for the winter!
Have a lovely Sunday…ours is off to a quiet start, but we all know THAT won’t last!
Hope you have some help today so Gran can have a coffee in the sun break! Speaking of wich are you chilly over your way. We are in the 50’s this morning. it is cold. overnight we went down to 48! I have given the piglets more straw to cuddle into! Crazy! c
Not chilly now, but we had 2 days last week where the highs were in the 60’s – it felt like fall! Looks like ‘normal’ summer for the next week – low 80’s for highs, and mid-60’s for lows…I can live with that! 😀
reading, relaxing, rejuvenating. planning, plotting, poulet!
clever girl!! I guess a little down time has its advantages! c
🙂 always
I see a bunch of Sunday chicken dinners in your future.
Oh yes, with jugs of gravy. I do miss chicken. c
A well written trashy novel is sometimes just the ticket Celi. Last week I flew to Northern Saskatchewan to spend a week my sisters. The flight was a trashy novel long and I left the book behind on the plane for the next passenger to perhaps enjoy. V.
Oh I do that as well .. we call the the Leavers. So at the beginning of a journey i always have one book that is a Leaver and the next one I will be hopefully still reading when i land. Being a fast reader means that from here to NZ is a two Leaver and one Keeper journey!