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”
Great idea and home grown ones really do taste superior. I’m sure it’s down to the care and better food 😉
and exercise, i have a theory that animals that are allowed to move about are tastier and more nutritious. c
Not to mention all minerals from the soil and bugs they get to eat when they are on fresh pasture. I think all of this adds to the taste, gets in the bones somehow. In England you can roast a free range chook then use the cooked bones for stock which will have flavour. Here in Australia the free range chook has still been raised fairly intensively and will not have had access to fresh soil and pasture, just a bit more overused outside space really, and they are no where near as flavoursome as a chook that’s eaten grass and worms.
I’m super excited to be having my mommy and daddy over for supper. They are down visiting from Johannesburg at there holiday home in the village where I live. I am serving roast pork with crackling, roast spuddies, pumpkin fritters, cauliflower cheese sauce, creamed spinach, gravy and some rice on the side, just for good measure – a good old fashioned Sunday roast.
Have a beautiful day and week ahead C.
🙂 Mandy xo
oh that sounds just divine. So much beautiful food. love the idea of pumpkin fritters! bet they are good.. c
Thanks C. For the fritters – there is no real measurements – about 2 cups cooked pumpkin to half a cup flour and an egg mixed together. Place spoonfuls in a pan with a little oil and cook until golden brown on both sides then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar – oh so scrumity! xo
Ha! It is good to get in a good mindless read every now and again.
Nothing nicer than a free range farm raised chicken…
I was in need of a trashy book, too, today, so spent a couple of hours plunged into a recent Jeffrey Archer! He might be trashy, but he surely can tell a story. I worked myself to a standstill this morning.
Have a lovely day.
Vx
Jeffrey Archer is certainly a perfect read when you don;t want to have to do too much thinking! Well done Viv. Good to hear you took a break. Shifting is very hard on a person.. c
That is a brilliant chicken plan C.! Nothing tastier than a homegrown chook! We have what is called free mini libraries here in the Seattle area….people take their “leavers” and put them in a little house of some sort outside their front door, or on the curb with a sign or note attached for anyone passing by to help themselves. Some of the little hand made houses are quite clever and cute! Some up on posts, hand-painted…some look like old milk boxes or bird houses but it’s a great way to get rid of all your old books…and very successful! You can leave a book if you want to but not necessary! We live quite aways off the main road but are thinking of putting a book box at the end of our long lane! 🙂
Google free-mini libraries of Seattle! It’s fun!
What a stupendous idea.. I just love this idea and the little cute personal boxes too, i have never heard of anything like this before.. how brilliant. c
I keep thinking about getting a few urban chickens for the Vancouver garden. I remember grandma and grandfather loving the chickens in the gardens. We’re allowed to keep up up 10 chickens in the city, but no roosters. So tempting for the eggs, but they’d become pets and named and then if something happened to one C and I’d be heartbroken. 😦
you reallly really should, a little pretty chook house would fit beautifully into your garden, such an excellent way to reuse all your kitchen scraps too. They live for years you know. they will only lay for a few years but some of mine are almost 6 years old now.. Though even the old birds still scratch up the little weeds in the garden and eat bugs and leftovers.. I think you should.. You will outlive a chicken but thats ok.. you will be fine.. c
We no longer keep poultry, waterfowl, livestock and horses. We gave that up about 8 years ago now and our neighbors no longer farm either. However, the nearest renter to us left a rooster behind when they moved a few months back and he is our ♫ good morning ♫ alarm clock now.
I bid a sad farewell to my last two horses – chocolate soldiers who reached 30 years of age. I miss the hens and chicks but most of all I miss the last and best of our roosters. Al was a Plymouth Rock Partridge Bantam. I was involved with 4H and I hand raised a Grand Champion who loved me. No kidding, chickens can and do have special friends. When Al saw me coming he trilled and ran full tilt for me. When he reached my feet he would sit and burble or bop up and down waiting for my arm to be offered so he could fly up and tour the property while perched on my shoulder.
When it comes to big, thick trashy historical novels you’ll get a confession from me too. Every summer when I go to the beach I have one in my beach bag. So when the swimming is done and the time has come to loll about, out it comes and as I bury my toes in the sand I bury my nose in my novel of the year.
Oh yes a novel at the beach, that sounds fantastic. I love that your rooster loved you so and rode on your shoulder! . Maybe you could get just one teensy weensy flock. I just grow enough of everything for the families that I feed and my home. Not for money, just for food. It would be hard to make a living at it though. c
What is a trashy novel? It is one written by dimwits for dimwits. I refuse to believe you would read those. ‘Well-written’ is also a clear indication it isn’t. Some of the enduring classics are light and enjoyable.
You don’t want to know about my mental picture of chickens in some sort of harnesses being towed by a tractor …
You are so right. A nice light story, with not too many characters, a duke, an heiress, fabulous costumes, gentle lighting and an Old Pile all strung together with short words and a couple of obvious sub plots. And Of Course the happy ending. Not written by a dimwit at all. You are very right. Now, excuse me but i must get back to sewing the harnesses. They have to be ‘just so’ .. we don’t want any ruffled feathers!!!.. c
🙂
The last trashy novel I read and enjoyed was Stephen Coonts’ sci-fi novel, “Saucer”. The characters were so two-dimensional, but it really was a ripping good yarn just right for giving my head a rest. My daughter, who has two young children says her head will only take lightweight fluffy chic-lit and romances just now. There’s nothing wrong with reading trash sometimes, just for the sheer relaxation of it.
Thank you Sarah, i shall write this one on my list, I completely agree with your daughter.. and you are right.. it is relaxing.. now I am into a very good book though (like you i am never without one) The Lotus Eaters by Tanjana Soli and so far it is excellent. Only 20 pages in though!! c
Red Rangers are delicious as well as entertaining. They are buggers for finding a way out of their electric fence when they are smaller, however! I had to have a chicken wire fence (not so easy to hump around) inside the electric poultry net until they got bigger. Good luck!
Another adventure in the works! A chicken in every pot, prosperity in America.
Your rhythmic and ordered life would make a great, and definitely not trashy, novel!
When I was newly married my father-in-law saw me reading a book and said, “How can you fill you mind with all that nonsense? You could be learning something.” You may think this is strange, but ever since then I feel guilty if I read a light, trashy novel. And they were such fun!
How awful. When we read we do learn things and whats more we TRAVEL!! poor fellow.. I cannot go to sleep without reading.. ever. c
Good for you! Sometimes a trashy book is just the trick. And, good to know you’ll have a freezer full of chicken for the winter.