**Stop the Presses, the Chicken Layed an Egg

I thought this moment would never come.  All of the time spent and work has come to fruition.  Chasing chickens, changing the water, scraping up chicken poop, getting pecked, having a heart attack when Khan almost got Agnes....it was all worth it when I saw the egg!  I feel like a real farmery person now, my livestock is going to start to feed me instead of the other way around.  As far as I know it was Agnes who layed, I used my awesome deductive reasoning skills... really not too hard considering only the barred rocks lay brown eggs, and I am 99% convinced that Pearl is more of a Perseus, she has a big comb now and I think that means rooster.  Hooray for Agnes, she is the star layer by default.

Like Magic

I love my chickens, every time I see them I wonder, "why doesn't everyone have chickens".  When I get home from work and start to go about my chores, the girls (maybe one boy) all line up and peck at the hardware cloth of their coop, it reminded me of convicts clanking their cups against the bars in a demand for release.  They love their evening constitutional and flap around the yard with such gusto that I always have to stop and watch them for a little while, it makes me smile no matter what kind of crap day I had a work.  

The rabbits are doing nothing but eating and pooping, I can't wait till they start to produce.  I am trying to think of different ways to cut down on feed costs, I will let you know how that develops.  

Marzipan the goat is starting to get fat! What a pig, I need to cut her feeding back from alfalfa hay to just plain timothy hay and see if that does the trick, if not we will have to start going on walks.... she is a not going to be a fat goat on my watch, sitting there pigging down all the food.

I've been working on the garden

ding dong the rabbit is dead

Alright! Here is my much delayed post about the bunnies.  Jesse and I decided that we needed to slaughter two of the male rabbits.   They were not named, I had absolutely no attatchment to them, to me they were more or less food eaters and poop makers.   I was slightly apprehensive about the actually killing part... I didn't want them to suffer at all, I wanted a quick painless death for them, I felt it was the least I could as they were going to be feeding me later.  We used a less traditional method of a ladder, yup we used a ladder, it is hard to explain how exactly it happened but we managed it so it was a cervical dislocation and the bunnies instantly died, no muss no fuss.

Jesse did the skinning, gutting and butchering of the first rabbit and I took over and did everything for the second.  I really thought I would be upset by all this, but truthfully and without trying to make myself sound a couple steps away from being a crazy, I actually enjoyed it.  It felt good knowing that I was learning how to do something as basic as making food go from live animal to my table.  We tried to give the dogs the liver and kidneys, but those snobs turned their bullmastiff noses up at it.... what a disgrace to dogs everywhere.  I was very disappointed in them, maybe I should have withheld their dinner but I didn't because I am a big softy.  

For the momentous occasion of having our first rabbit I decided to pull out all of the stops and make hasenpfeffer.  To those of you who are not in the know, it is a dish that is featured on bugs bunny.  I liked the irony of making that for the first dish.  So how did the rabbit taste?  Well, it tasted exactly like chicken.  I honestly don't think I could tell a difference between rabbit and chicken, which sounds odd but is completely true.  Rabbit is the other other white meat and it is delicious.  

The second picture shows what is called a rabbit "wringer"  it is mounted on a wall and used to help break the necks quickly, and the other implement is simply used to hang the rabbit upside down by the hocks for ease of cleaning.  One of the doctors at work made them for me which was totally awesome and I am excited to use them, it will be nice not to have to use a ladder.  We are truly professionals now.  

He is deceased

Tools of the Trade