Meet the Girls

So, I have been growing an herb garden in my apartment. It is going to do wonders for my cooking my basil is enormous. Every once in a while I will walk over and pull off a leaf and snitch dill, oregano, basil, mint or chives. There is nothing like the freshest of the fresh food. This has got me thinking. I have decided to grow heirloom tomatoes, maybe some carrots and peas in the apartment as well. I have made my own butter, ricotta and yogurt. I got a dehydrator and have been using fruit to make granola using maple syrup from the trees in my aunts backyard. Lately have been exploring the possibilities of cooking with fresh buttermilk. This is better than the farmers market, this is instantly fresh food, this is my food. I feel ownership over its creative processes. Lately I have tried to make everything that can be made possible be made from scratch all our bread, noodles to tortillas, yogurt and some simple cheeses. And I often have thoughts like wouldn't it be cool to have grown these black beans which are in my quesadilla? Or how strong would a fresh picked onion taste in this salsa along side home grown cilantro? One question in particular has been nagging me. What would a fresh egg be like. A really, really fresh organic egg? An then it hit me. We NEED chickens. mmmmm.... imagine newly created hours before breakfast. Now that could be one amazing omelet. I researched chickens and have been reading all about them while Patrick was at work. Then last Wednesday I confided in him my secret desire to have chickens. His response... We live in an apartment, where would they go? I had two ideas move... this idea was out of the question, or keep them on the balcony... also out of the question. I was discouraged then Patrick said sarcastically, "All you need to do is convince someone to raise the chickens for us." He thought it was a joke, but I called my sister. At first she was hesitant, but her husband actually seemed to think raising chickens in their backyard wasn't a big deal.

Last Friday I had a cold and was at the pharmacy buying cold remedy stuff when I ran into my dad on the way out. This resulted in eating lunch together. I explained to him my chicken idea, no you don't need a rooster for them to lay, they lay at around 20 weeks old, they can eat your table scraps, and when they quit laying tada! Barbecue chicken for dinner, yada, yada, yada. Then we talked about other things. 3 hours later I got a voice message from my mom. "Patricia, I really need to talk to you dad is buying chickens? we are at the store we need to know which breed is best call me back." Evidently my dad (the man from whom I got my foodie tendencies) thought chickens were an excellent idea and went that day to purchase 6 Rhode Island Reds... that's right 6 chickens!

Several days later Catherine, Mike and I had a chicken meeting where we discussed different breeds of chicken and decided on four breeds. Monday we bought the chicks and brought them home to our apartment where they live in a box... atleast for now until they get too big and then they will move to my sisters backyard.

Meet our girls:

This is Meatball. She is a Buff Orpington, she will most likely be our biggest chicken... right now she is our smallest.



This is Coco. Catherine named her after Coco Chanel. I call her Cuckoo because she is a Cuckoo Maran and will lay dark brown eggs.



This is Cuisine Mary. She is a Black Sexlink- a hybrid most likely between a Rhode Island Red and Barred Rock. She is the oldest... and suprisingly seems to be the last of the pecking order.





Last but at the top of the pecking order- meet Cazuela, named for a Chilean meat stew. She is an Araucana which is a Chilean breed of chicken. I thought we should have named her Psycho or Spaz because she runs around in circles all the time... not the brightest bulb in the box.



And these are my dad's chickens with names like: Constance, Phyllis, Edna, Birdie, and Wanda.