Tomayto, Tomahto

     The quirky weather had me despairing that I would ever see a ripe tomato in my garden.  Oh what little faith I had.  My tomatoes have produced in abundance.  I have spent the last 4 weeks canning pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, salsa, whole tomatoes, pickled hot peppers and green tomatoes, vegetable soup and tomato soup.  We have also eaten our green tomatoes fried and our big yellow slicers on home-made bread.  The definition of tomato heaven is in my garden.
     What are pickled hot peppers and green tomatoes you ask?  Check out Singing in the Kitchen for a recipe that's sure to please anyone who likes a little jarred heat in the winter.

   

This bowl full of tomatoes was one of three that I washed and prepped for soup.

This is my recipe for tomato soup.  As you can see, it's been used many times.

I couldn't resist including this picture because the soup is cooking in my shiny new stock pot.  I spent 20 years burning tomatoes and apples on my stove before I realized that maybe I needed a pot with a heavier bottom.  (I'm obviously a slow learner)  Oh what joy to cook in a pot that bubbles without burning.

Not a great photo, but I was rushing because the crackers were dissolving.  Soup anyone?

The chickens get the leftover skins and seeds.

There are still so many tomatoes left, that I am contemplating ring and run tomatoes.  Don't be surprised if you hear a knock and open your door to find a box full lurking on your front porch.

The Prodigal Chicken Returns

     The prodigal chicken has been returned to the roost.  Those of you who read my blog regularly will remember that in September I wrote about our wayward hen.The Prodigal Chicken Shortly afterwards, Joe captured her and locked her up in the chicken house for three days.  Since hens have brains the size of a walnut, he figured that was long enough for her to forget all about her previous adventures in town.  But, as soon as Joe let her back out, Hen Rietta waddled back out to the road and resumed roosting under the trailer.  Why didn’t the chicken cross the road?  Because she didn’t have to.  The men working on the bridge welcomed her back with cheese doodles and potato chips.  Then another chicken joined her and the two old biddies were spotted regularly about town.  They became somewhat of a tourist attraction, visiting the store, the post office and even the church.  Last week, two friends and I were taking our daily walk when we spotted my rebellious hens strolling along the sidewalk across the road.  Caroline and Lori offered to help me chase them down, but I vetoed the idea.  As a veteran of the first chicken war, I knew the only result of our efforts would be some mighty fine entertainment for passing motorists.

     Then, last night, the local storekeeper called the house to report that she had one very mad hen boxed and ready for pick up.  Apparently Hen Rietta stuck her head just a little too far into the Stonewall Grocery and Joannie dropped a box over her head.  The other hen must have run home.  We retrieved our boxed biddy and brought her up to our farm, six miles north of town.  If she gets a yen for cheese doodles, I think we can count on Tip, the Chicken Chasing cat to bring her home.  

Prodigal Chicken

     Imagine my surprise when I pulled up to the little country store in McDowell and discovered one of our red hens preparing to make a purchase. She was perched on the edge of the concrete step, perhaps considering what type of butter to buy for her bread, but when she saw me hop out of the car, she skedaddled. Zigging and zagging, that sassy clucker dodged under a truck and when I went left, she went right. We continued this game of tag for ten minutes while the two old farmers loafing on the edge of the porch watched and laughed. Finally, they sauntered over and all of us flapped our arms and feinted left and right until we had her headed in the general direction of the farm.
     The farmers turned the chicken herding job back over to me and I followed the little red hen back down the road to the driveway that leads to our barnyard. But instead of turning left and joining her flock mates, that little feathered fiend continued straight across the pedestrian bridge and into the construction zone on the main road. I chased her until she ducked under a trailer and then gave up.
     A hard-hatted worker strolled up and asked why I was chasing their pet chicken around. It turns out they’ve been feeding her breakfast, lunch and supper. Biscuits, sandwich crusts and small treats three times daily are far better fare than she gets in the henhouse. My chicken on the lam is living high on the hog. The worst part is that, apparently, she brought a friend to dinner yesterday. At this rate, In three more weeks, my barnyard will be bereft of cluckers and the men on the construction crew will be tripping over chickens. It would serve them right for harboring fugitives.
    

Selling Chickens

     Yesterday morning, Joe and I went to the chicken house early and separated out twenty hens to take to market. It’s a task neither of us relished but culling a herd or flock is part of living on a farm. These twenty girls had simply aged out of our egg production program. Young hens lay an average of an egg every 26 hours, but at two or three years of age, their ovaries slow down. Our customers expect eggs every week, so we bought some younger chickens. Feeding the non-productive hens was too expensive, so with heavy hearts we gathered up the old girls and placed them in crates. We lined the van with a tarp and then placed the crates in the back.
     Joe had heard about a once-a-month chicken sale held in a parking lot on the edge of the city five mountains away. On this gravelly acre, chicken farmers gather with crates of birds to sell to any takers. In our area, those takers are usually Mexican or Russian families who buy the birds to butcher, or back yard farmers who buy the birds to take home. When we pulled up, the lot was full of vans and trucks. Their hatches were open and cages of birds were stacked up behind them. We parked beside a Ford Explorer. The owners, like us, had elected to transport their birds in their family vehicle, but unlike us, they had no tarp under their cages. The back was covered in chicken crap.
     We pulled out our old-fashioned wooden crates and waited for customers. We soon discovered that most of the buyers had come and gone. Apparently, immigrant families rise at the crack of dawn to shop. The day was chilly and we blew on our fingers and stomped and then wandered around to inspect the other birds. On our left, a man was selling roosters. One was a big old New Hampshire doodler who surely could have taken on an eagle and won. The other was a banty, no bigger than a dove. They commenced to crowing when they saw our hens, and what the banty lacked in volume he made up for in shrillness and enthusiasm. I almost bought him just for his cocky attitude and good looks, but then remembered my chicken chasing cat. A bird that small wouldn’t have a chance.
     Finally, a doting father bought one of our hens for his daughter. Then, another man, a backyard farmer, bought nine to take home and release in the woods behind his house. Just when we were ready to pack up the remaining ten girls and take them home, a young boy with his mother and aunt showed up. None of them spoke fluent English and the women wore head scarves. They might have been Indian, but we weren’t sure. We bargained for a while and they agreed to buy the remaining hens. One of the women asked in broken English if she could butcher them on the spot. I nodded squeamishly and watched as the boy opened the trunk of their small passenger car and pulled out a sharp knife and a large plastic pan. Then, unsure that on-the-spot butchering was allowed, they changed their minds. Instead, we found some string and tied the legs of the hens together before tucking them into the trunk of the car. I suspect that the family, who said they lived over thirty minutes away, stopped at the nearest picnic table and completed the job.
     When the last customers drove off, we packed the crates back into our van. Because we had sold all of our birds, we decided to drive on to an orchard where we picked up a bushel of apples. My van now has a distinct bouquet characterized by the earthy odor of chickens overlaid by the acidic notes of ripe apples. Perhaps we can bottle and sell it to those who long to return to a simpler way of life.

Egg Sunday

      It is Easter Sunday and, like the Easter Bunny, we are delivering eggs. Ours are dyed various natural shades of brown, and they are so large it is often hard to close the top on the carton. The chickens who donated them range all over our property eating bugs and grass, so the yolks are bright yellow and dense with a rich flavor that can’t be found on a store shelf.      Scott started this egg business soon after his grandma died. She loved chickens and he loved her, so it was a natural way for him to remember her. He has over 50 chickens which means we collect over 20 dozen eggs a week which are delivered to customers on Sunday afternoons. When Scott is home he drives up and down the valley making the deliveries, and his 30 minute route often takes him over two hours because everyone wants to visit with him. Sometimes he even comes home with plastic bags full of cookies or slices of cake pressed on him by his baking customers. When he’s away, Joe and I keep the business going for him. Joe does the bulk of the work, but I help out when I can and lately I’ve been riding along with him on the egg run. Today is a beautiful sunny day, with the green promises of spring in every field.
     We drive north. Our first stop is a home where the husband and wife, who have finished raising their own two children, are fostering three teenage boys. What a difference they’ve made in those boys’ lives. Three boys eat a lot of eggs so we leave them with two dozen. Then we turn south and bump down the half mile driveway to a farm house tucked off the road. There are goats and pigs stretched out in the sun next to the barn and cows grazing on dandelion-speckled fields. We rumble over one cattle guard and the farmer’s youngest son, who is fifteen, runs out to open the other gate for us. He takes the eggs to his mom who is cooking dinner and returns with change. I smell fried chicken when he opens the door.
     Five miles further south, we stop at a house where there are four children under the age of twelve. The two littlest girls run out to hug me and take the eggs before leading me to the kitchen where their mom waits with a check. Then they lead me back out to the truck and demand more hugs before we pull out. At the next white farmhouse, a half a mile further on, we leave eggs on the kitchen table. No one is home, but the door is unlocked and the table has empty cartons for us to recycle, plus money for the eggs we’re leaving. We are collecting quite a stack of used cartons on the front seat of the truck. At every house we pick up last week’s empties which we’ll refill next week.
     Finally we reach the village where we stop several more times. At one house there’s a man recovering from surgery. He is happy to have company so we chat for a while. At another, The Three Beauties have bicycled down to visit their grandmother. They laugh about burning off a big Easter lunch and then wave and hop on their bikes for the uphill ride back home.

     Our egg run is done, and we load hay and bottle feed a lamb.  Then we have a genuine Easter egg hunt, climbing around the barn to gather eggs out of the hay mow where the hens have hidden them.  After washing and sorting them, we head home.  More eggs wait for us there.

Sanctuary

There’s something peaceful about chickens. Joe’s out of town for a couple of days so I have inherited egg duty. After slipping on some old clothes, I grab the battered pail that serves as our egg bucket and walk across the back forty to the hen high rise. The end of daylight savings time means that the sky is silver and pink by the time I get around to this chore. Most of the hens are inside on the roost because they are smarter than humans. They don’t stay up past their bedtimes watching TV.

The door to our chicken coop has an old fashioned peg latch on it. I slide the latch to the left with a soft snick and push the wooden door open. The hens chuckle and snuggle against each other, huddling against the intruder (me). A stray feather drifts to the floor. In the subdued light, the hens look like fluffy brown pillows tossed onto the thin sticks that make up the two corner roosts.

I turn to the nesting boxes and feel around in each one for the five or six eggs the hens have taken turns depositing there. The eggs are smooth like river rocks and the last few to be laid are still warm to the touch. I check to be sure the chickens have some food and water and then walk over to rub my hands through the feathers of the closest hen. She squeaks a little, but lets me ruffle her head. Chicken feathers are silky, and the hen and I mesmerize each other as I run my fingers down her back. Her bottom eyelids rise up to meet her top ones and she relaxes.

I thank the hens for all their hard work, and admonish the rooster to take care of his girls. On my way back to the house I say a little prayer of thanksgiving for the simple places and rituals on a farm that provide sanctuary from busy days.