City Chicken Weekend

The weekend is almost over, and it has been a full one!  We started it off with City Chicken for Friday supper. This is a new dish to our table.  I personally never heard of it before, but it is something that Ross grew up eating and thought only his grandmother made (until he did some research and realized that many others had grown up with it too).  Although the name states chicken it is actually not.  Ross' recipe calls for a mixture of beef and pork.  I guess in the old days beef and pork were cheaper than chicken so City Chicken was the poor man's dish.  All I can say is that it was quite tasty, and as you can tell by the picture we had plenty enough for leftovers.

Speaking of chicken,  all four of ours are now laying eggs pretty consistently.  On Saturday I took the camera with me when I went to let them out and collect the eggs.  I took this picture of these three brown beauties waiting for me.  We are now getting more eggs than we are using so either Ross is going to need to bake more, or we are going to have to start giving them away.  I am amazed, and feel somewhat bad, that these little hens push out something relatively so big on such a consistent basis.  I guess there is no rest for the little cluckers.

The ladies are also getting accustomed to their new run.  The first couple of days they tried to escape via their not so great flying, but realized very quickly that their was no escape from Chicken-traz (think Alcatraz-my other name for it is Fort Clux like Fort Knox).  They also went from wall to wall looking for a way out to no avail.  Now they go about their business like it's old hat.  They even found a little space to have their dirt baths.  They are so adorable as they roll themselves around in the dirt.  They get it all up in their feathers.  When they are done, they give a grand shake and release a plume of dust.  It reminds me of Pig Pen from the Peanuts cartoon.  They are my little dirty birds.

Ross and I also spent part of Saturday replanting his largest fig tree and changing out some of our spent annuals with mums and asters.  I have a thing for mums.  I just love their smell and the bright colors.  It is one of the things that I love about the late summer/early autumn period.  I will definitely post some pictures later once they start to bloom.  So far I picked up a couple of smaller pinks called Gigi and for the front planters I got a couple of oranges named Hannah.  Ross also picked out one that has a yellow center that radiates out to white; it is quite pretty.  In the evening we ran into town and got some more chicken bedding and food from the Tractor Supply store and then grabbed some supper.  When we got back it was dark, but it was still nice out so we took our kitty Daisy out to the rock garden with us.  I used this time to cut the flower stems off the lavender so that they could be bunched together and dried.  It was nice to just sit, talk and share a moment with our little girl who is quickly winding down (damn cancer).

We awoke today to rain.  Now I normally would be a bit down about a rainy day on my weekend, but we are in such need of water that I found it refreshing.  The rain caused a bit of trouble to my rain barrel though.  Those in the know know that I have had fits with this barrel since I got it.  It was sent to me as long wood slats with these small metal bands to hold them together.  Inside the barrel is a plastic bladder to hold the rain water.  The problem with it is that these metal bands cannot withstand the outward pressure pushed on them by the water.  I have now had three of the bands break so I went to Home Depot to see if I could find a solution.  Now my rain barrel is being held together by nylon tie downs attached to tensioning ratchets.  If it works...

I have included this picture of peaches I took Saturday because peaches permeated the whole weekend.  Our peach trees are young but have given us several tasty treats to snack on.  All I can say is that I cannot wait for these trees to mature so that I can stuff my face with peach after peach.  So, so tasty.  

So now I must go as I hear Ross in the kitchen working on his salsa (he finds so many ways to preserve all the tomatoes).  I also promised him I'd do the dishes, and then I think he wants to make a batch a red cabbage kraut this evening.  With all this still pending I'm really hoping to get to bed before the day's over.  Wish me luck!