In mid October madness began… there was a steady rain that wouldn’t quit.
Then a chick went missing, with feathers left as evidence of misfortune. First we thought our dog, snowball, was to blame.
Next we heard the hawks… A few days later Everly witnessed the hawk swooping down and a dead chick was Sprawled on the lawn. 

Days later our prized rooster went missing and our favorite hen was under attack. We rushed out to save her and discovered an injured chick… our hen remained missing for a few hours then returned unscathed. We were able to save the injured chick… Also, this unfamiliar husky dog showed up. Here is Adalyn with our favorite hen:

Did Snowball (Everly’s Puppy) kill birds, did the husky kill birds or was it just the hawks? We had no idea. Snowball’s herding instincts drove her to chase and kill birds before.

Days later we processed a few of our turkeys that were well overdue and had the opportunity to shuffle poultry pens. I moved our remaining two turkeys to a goat pen, put our remaining chicks in the poultry tractor (where the turkeys were), then I undertook constructing a net covered run for our remaining 11 adult chickens.

The husky dog returned again and I found Dixie and the husky with two escaped adult chickens cornered in the bushes. After restraining the husky, me and Dixie rounded up the escaped chickens, secured the pen a bit more and took a rest. Dixie did so well following my commands and helping me get the chickens rounded up!

School bus time had come. Me and Addie went out to wait & swing for a bit – then a hay truck went speeding by the house, Dixie went off after it and ran right under the trailer it was towing. She died just as the school bus was pulling up. Both girls had to see her laying in the road but they took it amazingly well. Death is no surprise or shock on a homestead. 

A single day went by incident free- we hibernated on the couch and grieved for Dixie. We were all VERY sad and feeling lost without our homestead guardian and watch dog. Then Everly was scheduled to have her first field trip ever. Their school bus was in a crash (no kids on the bus at the time- thankfully) but we had to make alternate pickup arrangements since they were down a bus. Holy retrograde madness.

“When we say “Mercury is in retrograde,” what we mean is that the planet Mercury appears to be moving backwards in the sky. Of course, it’s not — that’s just an optical illusion. But to astrologers, this illusion works some perplexing magic in our lives.”

For the next week remaining in the retrograde we stayed home and didn’t deviate from routine if we could help it.

Things have been smooth sailing since, until today when the husky showed up again and played a chicken to death. I actually saw it with my eyes this time and went out to intervene. The chicken was dead (she was the mating partner to our prized rooster that also didn’t make it), broken neck it seems. I left the kids inside and managed to take the dead chicken away, tie the husky up, reach it’s owner and explain what happened. The husky’s owner paid us for the dead chicken and felt super bad, now I’m fixing to process this hen so we can eat her this winter.

The retrograde seriously brought lots of death to this homestead! But then we also have lots of life beginning too…

Oh and we still have two more massive turkeys that need this done: (aren’t those faces priceless?!)

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As the sun began to rise the sound “cawwwwwr” made it’s way in the bedroom window, it was jarring. I laid there bkinking the sleep from my eyes and instincually checking to see if the noise had roused the sleeping baby.

I hear Nathan quitly making his way out the door to investigate the sound, I hear the deck gate open and close. By the second “acawwwwwr” it hit me. This sound that is similar to a small animal dying is our chickens.

At first I was wondering if a chicken was hurt and dying… but I’d been telling my mother and Nathan that one of our hens was especially agressive, and had a funny build. Kind of like a rooster but nobody agreed with me. Surely we’d know it was a rooster by now, they were supposed to be all hens from the pet store…

“cawwwwwk”

It’s the sound of an adolescent rooster learning his call! A rooster, our hen is a rooster. Helga the burly mean hen is a he!

Now, if you’ve never had the pleasure of hearing a rooster learn his call, it’s really is quite terrible and funny at the same time. When they are first learning it’s nothing like the sounds you’d expect a rooster to make.

Once the realization hits me I make my way down the stairs to find Nathan coming in from outside. “That little shit is so proud of himself, fluffing his feathers and screaming from the top of the chicken coop…” Nathan says to me as he’s heading to the garage for some chicken treats to shut the rooster up.

Sure enough the chicken snacks quiet them down a bit, though he still tries to make his pathetic call every now and then. I am sure the neighbors love us today, we’re surely on EVERYONE’S shit list this fine saturday.

Obviously we can’t keep him from a noise complaint perspective. We are so close to our neighbors that it’s just not fair to them so chicken soup is on the menu.

If we had more land I’d be okay with one rooster, it sure would mean we’d have a self sustaining chicken flock… but we don’t have land and we can’t just do what we want with an HOA and all these people around us…

Helga has got to go in the stew pot so Nathan has begun watching how-to videos on the internet in preparation for his job ahead. He feels confidant and it seems we’ll learn an new aspect of homesteading/ self reliance in the coming week, a first hand lesson. We are about to butcher our first chicken for food.

Update 9/16/12:

Do we have a Helga #2?

Nobody crowed this morning or last night so that is nice for the neighbors… But, I just witnessed what appeared to be a “rooster spat” with feathers fluffed, chests puffed and them jumping at each other while kicking & pecking. It seems another of our Wyandotte’s looks much more like the rooster than the hen. See those waddles? What do you think? One rooster or two?

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If you like trying new recipes or want to share some of your favorite recipes you might consider joining keyingredient.com, they have lots of cool features!

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A rooster need to have about 10 hens to himself and multiple roosters in a small space with limited hens means fighting over mates or overly abusing the few mating hens. My mom is facing the “too many roosters” issue right now.

She lives in a community called New River here in Arizona, it is in the heart of the desert. We were heading out to the chicken coup to see the hens who were suffered from overly aggressive/ frequent mating. Their wings were plucked bare and the roosters spurs were had dug hole in the hens sides.. Anyway, my mom was taking me out to see the flock and as we approached the coup I spotted this.

It is a very young rattle snake resting under a rock! As a native Arizonan I have been conditioned to always look at the ground and to scan several feet in front of you as you tromp through the dessert. Snake bites are not a fun thing to experience and if you aren’t aware of what you are walking near or on then you will get bit.

So I spotted the snake under the rock as we were approaching the chicken coup and stopped dead in my tracks. If I hadn’t been looking I would have stepped right on top of the rock the snake was resting under. This might have resulted in a nasty bite, not a great way to spend mothers day weekend!

I reached out and stopped my mom from walking any closer, burned my hand on her lit cigarette and we called for the men to come move the snake from the chicken coup, not before taking some photos and videos though!

I entered a contest for my mom over at lifetime.com. If you have a moment would you head over and vote for her photo? I would really like her to win! Thanks. http://www.mylifetime.com/photos/mothersday/rate.php?id=202848

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The added bonus is that you can make several more chicken meals with the remains of your chicken after you try out this recipe. Here is the salt crusted/ salt cocoon recipe:

Moist Roasted Chicken Recipe – Salt Cocoon Style

Now don’t be alarmed with the amount of salt the recipe calls for, trust me it’s delicious and not overly salty. The salt just literally forms a cocoon around the chicken, locking in taste and moisture. The abundance of salt doesn’t penetrate much more than the salted skin of the chicken and the skin is yummy too! 

You will need the following:

• 4 cups kosher salt (I used rock salt, the bigger the granules the better!)
• 1 3lb whole chicken
• 1 teaspoon of dried thyme
• 1 lemon, ends trimmed and pierced with a fork
• 1/2 -1 cup of water
• Roasting pan & foil

Preheat the oven to 450 and line your roasting pan with foil. Remove giblets and rinse the whole chicken. Pat chicken dry inside and out. Sprinkle the inside of the chicken with the teaspoon of thyme and stuff the whole lemon inside.

Sprinkle a thick layer of salt on the foil, place the chicken breast side down on to the layer of salt. Now cover the entire exposed side of the chicken with the salt, cover all the chicken with salt- pack it on baby! I used a spray bottle to moisten the salt or you can sprinkle water on to the salt to seal the salt cocoon, the water helps to keep the salt in place on the chicken’s surface.

Place the roasting pan in the oven, bake uncovered for about an hour. Don’t worry if the salt becomes charred or dark. After the hour is up remove the chicken from the oven and let it sit for about 10 minutes.

This is the fun part! After the 10 minutes is up take the roasting pan and gently slam it down on the counter- this is to crack the salt cocoon/ crust. It’s the best part of the cooking process! Now you simply remove the salt crust pieces, you can wipe the chicken with a paper towel if you want. Now the chicken is ready to be consumed and boy is it yummy!

The salt locks in the moisture of the chicken, the lemon and thyme will infuse the chicken with flavor and the salt will keep the chicken from drying out. Plus throwing the roasting pan on to the table/ counter is a great moment if you are entertaining for dinner!

Try it you will like it, it’s my new favorite recipe!

[yumprint-recipe id=’8′]

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