Sic 'Em On A Chicken

I’ve been thinking about the fate of roosters on our little homestead lately as I have a couple of hens determined to hatch out chickies and that always means…several more roos. We have few rooster stories around here. There’s the one with me chasing Big Red in my sock feet with a newborn attached to my breast as the giant rooster tried to chase my 4 year old into the street.  There’s the one where Kent thought he would eliminate the said rooster with his bow instead of more tried and true rooster harvesting methods…(it did not go as planned). Then there is the tale of Sir Lancelot who became Sir Limpsalot after taking a serious disliking to a certain Helenator. The most gripping tale of all though comes from last fall in the dramatic final chapter of Redneck the Horrid Roo.

 

Poor Redneck started out very meek as a rescue bird from Uncle Jake’s farm. He was the low man on the totem pole both in his former life and, at first, his new life as the only rooster in our flock. The hens wouldn’t allow him past he lowest rung on the roost and he emerged every morning with a little poop on his back. His spurs began to grow though, and it wasn’t long before he took his place as leader and protector of the flock. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens when the underdog finds himself in a position of power, he became a bully. He actually killed one of my smaller hens and, in his new found audacity, began to randomly attack me, Helen, and occasionally Wyatt. The last straw came one afternoon as I was landscaping my front flower beds. I asked Wyatt to retrieve a shovel from the barn and he was gone for less than a minute when his blood curdling shriek pierced through the music on my headphones. Sprinting around the side of the house I was faced with the image of my six year old with a large flailing rooster where his head should be. I knocked the attacking rooster from my son’s head with a roar and was doubly horrified by the blood that now ran down my son’s face. I could hardly contain my rage long enough to clean Wyatt’s puncture wounds but once that job was done…I was hunting rooster. My initial weapon of choice was a broken shovel handle. It was with this that I herded the unruly rooster into the enclosed chicken run. I tried to dispatch him with well-aimed swings of my makeshift club but my hand/eye coordination is notoriously inadequate and I only succeeded in working myself into a further frenzy. My next idea was to grab a wooden crate and trap the rooster underneath it. I had more success at this but was soon stuck with the conundrum of what to do once I was seated on top of a crate full of rooster. If I leave…so will he. I finally convinced my son that it was safe to sit on the crate just long enough for me to grab a concrete block to weight the crate down. With the rooster temporarily secured under the crate, I made a quick phone call to my husband to confirm that the shotgun was indeed the proper choice for ending the battle. He called me back within a minute or two to say, “DON’T SHOOT THE ROOSTER! Ammon will take him!”

Too Late.

Now, I have a headless rooster on a hot summer day.

I know how to process a chicken. I have done it many times before. What I did not, at this moment know was where in the heck I was going to find a sharp knife. I later set aside a stash of razor sharp knives and a pair of chicken shears (a gift from my amused mother upon hearing this tale). On this particular afternoon though, I was stuck with a rather dull hunting blade, a sense of mental and physical fatigue, and a determination that I would finish what I started. I ended up processing the bird as Wyatt held up my phone with my best friend on speaker phone googling chicken butchering techniques because in the intensity of the moment, I COULD NOT recall my own knowledge on the subject.

Half the bird went in the freezer labeled: The Great Chicken Fiasco 2014. The other half was slow cooked into a delicious pot pie.

 

Post script: We have butchered one rooster since Redneck. He was a no-name hatch who we knew was destined for the freezer as he started showing aggressive tendencies very early on. I actually videotaped the process as we did it clinically and he went quickly and peacefully to the great scratching grounds in the sky. The most recent rooster dispatch came in the form of adopting out our older rooster to friends when he became too aggressive for my young children. I find great appreciation in knowing where our food comes from and most harvests have an almost spiritual aspect to them. The end of a happy life comes quickly and without fear. The death of Redneck was, I admit an act of revenge from a VERY angry Mama.

Confessional

Today I made a questionable decision. I had two objectives for the sunshine this afternoon. I planned to get a second planting of peas in the ground, and I intended to get the lawn mowed. The peas could be done with the children in the yard but mowing with a two and a three year old who both take exception to my refusal to pile them on the mower with me is well nigh impossible. With this in mind, I set my hopes on naptime. As any mother of young children can attest to, naptime should NEVER be counted on. Gideon, who goes down easily and sleeps long, chose today to break his pattern and refuse to nap at all. I really try not to hold on to my ‘to do’ list to tightly but…I just could not let the mowing go. When Wyatt got home from school, I left the children putting away their laundry and decided I’d just mow the back yard where the grass had really become overgrown.  About twenty minutes into my mowing I looked up to see my two year old wandering across the yard towards me…covered in blood.

 

First, I screamed. Then, I jumped off the mower and raced over to him. Wyatt followed him out and seemed just as bewildered as I was by the state of his younger brother. “He said he got into Helen’s food,” was the only explanation he could offer. My mind was racing. Gideon seemed unharmed but he looked like a lion cub fresh from a kill.

 

WHAT did he DO?!? He got into Helen’s food, or ate her??

Entering the house did little to calm my nerves. It appeared to be a bloodbath.

 

I called Helen. She came in, perfectly clean and dressed as a pixie.

I followed the trail of blood to it’s origin: a tiny pool on the kitchen table…next to the steak Helen requested for a snack…and a steak knife. (I must be clear here: Helen did not have a steak knife…but, I had cut her steak with the knife and stupidly left it on the counter…apparently within reach of two year old fingers that decided they needed a steak knife to go with their pilfered steak). The next step was to clean up the steak thief and attempt to locate the source of the blood. I found it on his pointer finger, tiny and no longer bleeding.

Mommy may or may not attempt yardwork in the future but she will definitely be more careful with the steak knives!

Draggletailed Guttersnipe

Around 2 AM I was awakened by a tapping. My six year old had woken from a nightmare. He stood hovering over his father’s side of the bed and was tapping on the mattress in the vain hope of waking his father. The vibration jolted me from my sleep and contributed to the likelihood that I would experience my own nightmares as my brain tried to process the pale face hovering over the dark mass that was my husband’s sleeping form. “I had a bad dream.” The high pitched whimper aided in bringing me fully conscious. He came around to my side of the bed where I held him close, prayed the nightmare away, and advised him to read a little from a book he enjoys to keep the bad dream from returning. As I tended to the boy, I became aware of another incessant tapping…that of rain on the roof. This realization brought with it the unwelcome recollection that earlier in the day, I had noticed one of the gutter downspouts scattered in pieces across the lawn. I tried to ignore the prospect of rain water filling the basement yet again but visions of transfer pumps and shop vacs filled my head and drove my weary form from bed. I pulled on galoshes, grabbed a flashlight and headed into the downpour. My memory had not failed me and an open gutter spout was, indeed, gushing water directly down the siding and against the foundation wall. As I gathered the strewn pieces of downspout, I quickly realized that the challenges I face in the vertical reach department were going to make a simple job rather more difficult. Undeterred, I grasped the first short piece of downspout and strained to fasten it to the gutter opening…my height factored in and I ended up creating a funnel that shunted the river of water through the piece of downspout and directly down my coat sleeve. I muttered some high pitched whimpers of my own, leaped back from my work and re-assessed the task before me. I considered dragging my soaking self back up the stairs and waking my capable husband. But…I was already wet, I was not yet cold, the husband was sleeping peacefully, and I am loath to admit defeat. I persevered, and shining the flashlight around, caught sight of a washtub leaned against the side of the house that just might give me the height I required. I also pre-connected the pieces of downspout so that I would have a minimal amount of fastening to do while water was flowing through the pipe. However I coordinated the process though, I could not get past the necessity of attaching that first piece and again creating a funnel of gutter water above my head. Finally, I gritted my teeth, climbed onto the wash bucket, and stood under my gutter water funnel until I could reattach the longer downspout and divert the water from my head to the lawn below. While completing the necessary task, and indulging in some rather unladylike grunts and utterances, I could not help but imagine my poor six year old nightmare sufferer. I truly hoped that he was not attempting to tap his father awake again, unable to find his mother, and hearing unholy bangings and moanings coming from the rain outside.

In the end, the spout successfully reattached, I required a complete change of clothing, a thorough towel dry, and the rinsing of gutter water from my eyes but… my family slept peacefully and the basement averted disaster. I managed sleep almost immediately thereafter and dreamed dreams of downspout horror. (Although, in the dream version my efforts were supported by my friend Holly who offered moral support from the lawn).

Spontaneous Combustion

Occasionally life hands you mystery.

Yesterday I began the process of restoring and maintaining my outdoor furniture. First, I wiped it all down with a dry rag. Then, I lightly sanded each piece with a sanding sponge (this was the part of the process that my daughter ‘helped’ with, getting very upset when she found me re-sanding the areas she 'already did'). After the sanding was complete, I washed the set with a mild solution of warm water and Murphy’s Oil Soap mixed in a large metal bowl. When I finished with the washing process, I poured out my bowl of soapy solution, temporarily stored the damp rag and sanding sponges inside the metal bowl and left them sitting on the front stoop while I proceeded to treat my furniture with tung oil.

 A couple of the pieces I am working on

 

This afternoon, I headed out to give the wood a second coat of tung oil and noticed I had left my mixing bowl on the stoop overnight. Not wanting to leave the sanding sponges out long term, I picked up the bowl with the intention of returning its contents to their proper locations…and discovered the mystery.

My first thought when I caught sight of the contents of the bowl was that the rag in the bowl had been the one I used for the tung oil and that the oil had somehow disintegrated the rag. Upon further inspection however, it became apparent that the reaction that had taken place in the mixing bowl was one of combustion rather than disintegration and memory served to remind me that the rag never came in contact with the tung oil. Somehow, a metal mixing bowl with a soapy rag and two dark colored sanding sponges ignited a blaze sufficient to turn a good portion of the rag to ash, char a couple of nickel sized holes in the sanding sponges and blacken the side of the mixing bowl.

 

Mysterious. I am fascinated by the perfect storm of circumstance that must have been required for my inadvertent science experiment, grateful that the blaze remained contained within the mixing bowl, and quite sure that I couldn’t repeat that particular little accident even if I tried.

The Best Laid Plans

Today I was sympathizing with a chicken again. We were both so sure of our purpose for the day…and both so wrong. I woke with determination to avoid the guilt trap that is so often my morning. Every morning I have guilt that I did not get up early enough to make my husband breakfast or send him out the door with lunch. That guilt then transitions into the inevitable guilt over how long I spent over coffee and Facebook and the fact that, no matter what my intentions, it is ALWAYS 10 AM by the time I have little people fed, the kitchen halfway put back together and the obligatory load of laundry in the wash. Today would be different. I rose before everyone and began on Kent’s breakfast. As I tossed last night’s scraps to the chickens I noticed that my broody mama was off her nest, foraging with the rest of the flock. Curious about the state of her eggs,  I peeked under the porch which she had chosen as her maternity ward. This is when I discovered the hen with plans of her own. Summer, Joan’s sister was sitting placidly on her own nest. I had known that one of the other hens was preparing to brood because someone was feathering the nest next to Joan. I had been collecting the eggs on a daily basis though, thus hopefully thwarting the actually brooding of any additional chicks. When I saw Summer puffed around what I was pretty certain had been an empty nest last night, I wondered what she could be sitting on. So I lifted her gently and discovered…a rubber ball. A rubber ball that she had to have placed in the nest herself. Silly chicken. I chuckled and went back inside.

I made up two healthy tuna wraps for Kent and was getting them in the fridge when the troops came downstairs. Instead of the nice breakfast I had planned, the children wanted cereal. That was fine and when they were finished I tossed the remaining cereal out to the birds as well. Gideon and Helen began torturing one another and did not stop until I removed Helen to her ‘thinking spot’ (the guest bed). Kent was late in coming down the stairs, and when he did he only made it as far as the recliner. Well, I guessed he was getting his own late start but that wouldn’t stop me from fueling him with a healthy breakfast. I whipped up scrambled eggs and cinnamon empanadas and was carrying his plate from the kitchen when he bolted from the recliner into the bathroom, where he proceeded to heave over my clean porcelain toilet. He had a migraine. One of only three he’s experienced in his lifetime. Today turned out not to be a day in which the kitchen was clean and the laundry folded and the ‘to-do’ list started before 10 AM. It was a day for shushing wild hooligans while rubbing Daddy’s neck in my jammy pants and daydreaming over kitchen remodels on Pinterest. It was a day for my six year old to read to his littlest sibling to keep him calm and happy. It was a day for the children to get lots of sunshine and outside and the kitchen to stay appalling until naptime.

 

I had been so sure. I awoke with energy, conviction, and purpose…But then again, so did poor Summer. I am about as likely to blossom into the perfect helpmeet and housewife as Summer is to hatch a chick from that silly rubber ball…Ah, but we try. J

Origins

A couple of years ago (I cannot believe it has been that long), I mused on Facebook about the theoretical reality of starring in my own cooking show. At the time I had an infant living in a moby wrap on my frontside, a husband working diligently at re-establishing his Washington business in Idaho, a VERY precocious just turned two year old, and a relatively new property that seemed to demand an inordinate amount of energy. My musings went something like this: I think I'll start my own cooking show. I'll call it "Barefoot and a Mess." I will create culinary masterpieces like macaroni and ketchup and open face peanut butter and honey sandwiches. There will be drama as I wield butcher knives and hot spatulas in one hand while nursing a baby with the other. There will be heartbreak as my husband decides to let the two year old eat her honey sandwich on the floor that I finished mopping ten minutes before...it will be riveting.

Drama continues to reign over the preparation of meals in this house. There was the episode that was interrupted by an eerie sense of calm...which was rapidly turned to panic as I discovered my daughter painting the yellow siding dark blue.

The picture was taken after the most thorough cleaning job I could manage...she was more than a little confused when I put the paintbrush back in her hand...

And then the one where I looked out the window to see my husband's ditch burning was rapidly becoming his yard and tree burning and dinner had to wait while I ran barefoot with 5 gallon buckets because he ripped the hose out of its coupler in his rush to contain the blaze.

Thus were the origins of my musings...a way to re-cast challenging situations in a humorous light...therapy via Facebook. I have recently thought that, were the theoretical reality show to actually exist, I would have to include a food criticism segment hosted by my children. That way I could immortalize such comments as, "Mama, my tummy is full of joy!" or on the other end of the spectrum, "Yeah, it really didn't have any flavor...so we just put ketchup on it." Another gem of a criticism from my ever diplomatic eldest was, "It doesn't matter how it tastes Mom, it still has protein so we should eat it."

So Barefoot and a Mess was born in these crazy, hilarious, priceless moments of life and motherhood. And now I sit and blog in my bare-feet in stead of attending to the mountain of dishes from the latest culinary masterpiece...peas with too much soy sauce.

The Inaugural Post

OK here it is! I'm writing more than my daily Facebook posts. I've been status updating for about five years with pretty consistent feedback...You should blog! They say. You should write a book! They say. So I'm going to try the blog thing...maybe in another five years a book will materialize too. The inspiration for my writing is most commonly my middle child. A girl of frenetic energy, pixie like beauty, and boundless imagination. I have referred to her as an angel, a sociopath, my princess, and a schizophrenic. She fits each of these descriptions multiple times during any normal day. In addition to the challenge presented by my delightful almost four year old, I receive inspiration from my budding genius of an almost seven year old and my bouncing baby who just turned two. I also have two beautiful acres, 20 something charismatic chickens and a fun loving husband who secretly hopes my stinging wit and compulsion to write will one day pay the bills.

I must warn those who are new to my musings that I have a great affinity for ellipses...and emotocons. :-P I have attempted to curb these eccentricities in my writing style but to no avail.