The Joy of Veggies

One day I was wandering up and down the aisles at the grocery store, trying to find food items I had never eaten before. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that I have to eat gluten free and a lot of prepared foods have hidden gluten ingredients in them. Growing a little depressed, I went back to the produce department and hunted.

I came out with watercress, a rutabaga and collard greens as well as a bunch of more common vegetables. Last night I made a big pot of vegetable soup using frozen liquid from tomatoes that I had processed last summer. (When making spaghetti sauce, or salsa I skim off a lot of the tomato juice as it's cooked down and freeze it for soup base)

The soup was delicious and I felt particularly virtuous when I thought of all those antioxidants and vitamins coursing through my body.

I did a little research and I found out that watercress is one of the most healthful foods out there. It has a high vitamin content and has been used historically to keep military troops healthy. It may have the ability to repair damaged DNA. I'll probably do a little more research, but I know that I'll continue to eat it.

What's funny is that yesterday while my soup was bubbling away, I turned on the TV and Dr. Oz was talking about anti'aging type of foods (colorful vegetables), and Oprah had the author Michael Pollan on talking about food, and how much of what we eat is edible food-like products--not actual food. His motto is, "eat food, mostly plants, not too much."

That night when I ladled out the beautiful soup for my husband and daughter, I felt a sense of pride that I was feeding them nutritious food. I know this because the TV told me so!!

In Search of Nesting Boxes

While perusing the ads in the farm and garden section of Craigslist, I saw an ad for nesting boxes for sale. I clicked on the ad, saw the pictures. They looked pretty good to me and I thought how buying these would save a lot of time, as there is already a fair amount of coop construction ahead of me.

I called farmer Paul and got directions that sounded a little like this, "now go aways past the four-way stop, ignore the streets that come up on you on the left, go up the hill, then down the hill and when you see the sign for a hard 90 degree turn, go straight, it will be a dirt road, look for the orange barrels. I scribbled as fast as I could, then did what any 21st century person does. Mapquested it.

Now mapquest is great. Mostly. But I warn you now, when you are entering into the country DO NOT RELY on it! It seemed so much more straight forward than farmer Paul's directions, but it took us down a dirt track, pothole infested, car and old appliance cemetery private driveway. I was seriously afraid that we were doomed to be on the 5 o'clock news. "Local Couple Vanishes Without a Trace." We u-turned in the driveway and high tailed it out to the main (I use the term loosely) road. My husband asked, "how many shotguns do you think were trained on us?" And I am sure my answer, "at least one" was accurate.

We then turned to Paul's directions and eventually found the farm. The theme from Deliverance began running through my head. And I felt a little like one of those moronic teenagers that always go into the scary, dark basement in a horror movie when there is a mad murderer on the loose, because we got out of the car and looked at the nesting boxes. Made with warped lumber and raw splintery edges, it looked nothing like the pictures. There was some rough handling of a dog, and hollering at a kid who was seriously developmentally delayed, and a trickle of a nosebleed of farmer Paul's that stained his white mustache pink and I had had enough. We hightailed it a second time before we got fed to the pigs.

I think the rest of the evening involved showering with loads of hot water and at least one glass of wine. All this and we don't even have the chickens yet!

All About Chickens

For a couple of years now I have been dabbling with the idea of keeping a few backyard chickens. Which is a curious sort of yearning for someone raised with both feet firmly entrenched in the the suburbs. Inertia or common sense has in the past been what prevented me from carrying this niggling idea into reality.

Until now. Now, of course, I am looking for ways to expand my life's experiences, knowledge and abilities and what better time to take the plunge and raise a few laying hens?

So I am researching how to do this. There are a surprising number of things to consider. I always thought it would be pretty simple. Throw them in the backyard, construct a simple coop and wait for the eggs to be laid. I pictured snipping a few chives from the garden and gathering a few eggs, and I was minutes from a scrambled egg breakfast.

Which may be the case somewhere down the road. Seems you order day old baby chicks and pick them up from the post office, then hurry them home to a prewarmed brooder, teach them how to drink and nurture them like a mother hen (now I see where that phrase came from) until they are able to scratch around on their own.

For those of you concerned about chickens having a free range lifestyle you also must consider keeping them safe from predators. Wily ones like raccoons that can undo latches, and soaring ones like hawks that can snatch them up. I am not entirely sure I can provide that level of safety, but I'm game to try. I am busy studying books, and coop designs, and websites full of information. And with a little luck I will have my first eggs in late summer. I'll keep you posted.