I did it, I did it

I've only just gone a bloody well done it. 

Pluck and dress a chicken ready for eating that is. 

On Friday, Fred came round and killed 3 of the cockerels, I will keep 1 to breed from.  That was horrible, Russell and I were quite shocked with how horrible it was in fact, to see the beautiful, big birds hanging in the garage wasn't nice and we found it profoundly upsetting.  The images of them stayed with me all Friday night and into Saturday.  On Saturday night, at Russell's sister's wedding, we were telling people we may not do poultry after all and may even stop eating it. 

However today, with a terrible hangover, I took the birds round to Sam's mum Christine who showed me how to pluck them and dress them.  Plucking is fine but dressing (taking out the innards) is the most disgusting thing I have ever done, it is not pleasant at all.  The smell, the sight, the texture - so very disgustingly puke inducing. Still, I did and and I have a bird in the oven as I type.  Not  that there was much meat on them, so we'll see how they taste. I can't quite believe I did it.

I took the ponies along to be used for the Riding for the Disabled annual picnic.  The girls came too as it was a day neither of them went to pre school.  The lorry isn't mine, its Pep Brookbanks, and it is very nice indeed.  I would love one of these  ..... I think they are horrendously expensive though so maybe I will have to work my way up to a lorry and start with a second hand trailer off e bay. The ponies were well behaved.

Elsewhere on the "farm" the dog has been castrated and then ill with a virus.  A week, a course of antibiotics (tablets and injection) and several trips to the vets later he is back to his normal self and is better.  Poor thing, he has not had a good week. 

When I take him places, people seem to like him and make a fuss of him but people do keep asking me if he is a rescue dog.  "No, he isn't" I reply, and then the person who asked always seem to look a bit embarrassed. Anyway, I knew he was feeling better when he chewed holes in Quito's fly mask.  He is a very melodramatic dog, I don't think he is particularly brave or has a very high pain threshold.  He looked like he was on his way out one day, but actually I think he just had a bad doggy cold.

Oh, how could I have left this piece of news until last? You'll never Adam and Eve it but the turkeys are finally on the field.  In a cage, as you can see in the pix to protect them until they are a bit bigger. but they are free ranging! They love it outside, the feel of the wind in their feathers and the sun on their backs.  Although lately they have had to feel quite a lot of rain on their backs too of course.  This also gave us a sleepless night or two as we lay in bed worrying in case a fox gets in to eat our little turkeys.  Russell has spent hours putting 3 layers of mesh around the cage and some barbed wire.

A historical moment :-)

xx

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