Poultry

Huge storm last night, a tough introduction for our new chooks. But they seem well today. They don't yet associate me with food and when I go to see them I can observe their potterings as if I wasn't there. One of the roosts blew down in the storm last night but the stronger one remains and tonight I went out with the torch and found all five sharing the surviving roost.

This afternoon I had a poultry adventure of a different kind. I met the very lovely Mr Munn who taught Raelene and I how to skin a young chook. He killed two of Raelene's roosters and we followed his guidance and had a go at one each. You miss out on the skin this way, but it is a lot faster than plucking. I have one rooster in the fridge as I type. Tomorrow will be stirfry or chicken pie and stock making and Friday (assuming I don't go on kitchen strike) will be chicken risotto. Mr Munn, who I'm guessing is in his seventies, learnt these skills from his mother. His family raised lots of chicks and sold both the egss and the dressed birds for eating. I'm guessing they had a good reputation locally and people knew their standards of cleanliness. Now, we are not allowed to process locally on a commercial level and are subject to the not always impressive standards of the big corporate producers.

Raelene also gave me a big pile of back copies of the Lifestyle Farmer magazine. Off to pore over those now...