R.I.P. Randy the Rooster

Now that the required period of mourning is over, it is time to tell the tale of the sad end to the life of Randy the Rooster. It all started with my decision to enact some "tough love" and force my chickens to forage for some of their own food. Their period of molting had gone on for nearly three months, foiling my master plan that they earn their own keep, meaning bags of Purina Layena from Tractor Supply. Never mind that I had probably $1000 invested in the henhouse, feeders, waterers, essential chicken-keeping gadgets and assorted fencing. I needed to sell enough eggs to make that $13 every three weeks or so, plus all the eggs we wanted to eat ourselves.

The last straw was when I had to BUY eggs to make my daughter’s birthday cake in early November. Despite my fears about roving hawks and eagles, I opened the door to the chicken yard a sunny Saturday and one by one, the hens cautiously bobbed their way outside. Randy and I regarded each other cautiously. I stood my ground, quaking a bit inside, memories of my brother’s demon silky bantam still quite vivid. Strutting over to the open door from the far side of the yard, Randy suddenly sidestepped and quickly made his way over to a tantalizing green patch about 10 feet away. My butterflies calmed; a victory over childhood fears.

So it went for several days. Although November, it was still warm enough to do a few outside garden chores. As I pulled up frost-killed tomato plants and stacked tomato cages, I enjoyed the friendly company of my clucking hens and concluded this was the relationship I was supposed to have with my flock. The kids’ interest in the chickens was renewed, and they enjoyed sprinkling scratch corn on the ground and watching the hens come running. Randy kept his distance, asserting his control by standing statue-like, observant, chest out.

About a week later, my daughter’s desire to pet one of the hens got the best of her. She crept quietly to the far side of the coop, where the hens scratched happily in the pine needles beneath the trees. She had only just touched a soft, feathered back with one hand when Randy flew at her. I can only imagine that the shrillness of her scream—which I heard from inside the closed house—terrified him as much as she was terrified. Unhurt, she ran to me and described the offenses of the accused in heart-wrenching terms. I was irritated at Randy’s misbehavior spoiling my plans to have true free-range chickens. But attacking a petite preteen was even worse. Don’t mess with my baby.

Still unsure what action to take, I released the chickens only while the kids were in school. Over the summer I had experimented with a rotating chicken yard extension using rebar and light plastic fencing. There was no way I could let them roam free with so many tasty leafy greens and vegetables waiting in the garden. Unfortunately, my “temporary” fence had to be moved every five days or so. The chickens’ habit of incessant scratching lay 100 square feet of lawn bare in no time. A mid-summer drought killed off most of the grass in the area adjacent the coop and by September the chickens were back to their confined yard, contenting themselves with ample tomato peels and other scraps from my end-of-season canning.

So, I continued to let the flock out on days when I could be home to observe and supervise. It was then that Randy’s truly nasty disposition became evident. Poultry experts in my Backyard Poultry magazine have described the protective nature of roosters, their calls to warn the hens of impending danger, their habit of allowing the others to partake of the choicest treats first. I saw no such behavior. Instead, Randy would peck at the hens in order to steal a soft tomato. Although I am well-aware that poultry mating rituals are anything but gentle, Randy would appear domineering even when he was not doing his business. The girls ran from him, cackling in fear.

A neighbor teased me for my skittishness around Randy. She would bring huge of buckets of vegetable scraps over to the chickens almost daily, and I marveled at how she simply opened the door to the yard and tossed them in. I had to dump my scraps from above through a flap in the netting that covered the top; otherwise Randy would rush the door to attack me. Once, I slammed my own hand in the wire door in an attempt to protect myself. I should have recognized that it was only a matter of time before Randy extended his dominion over the entire back yard and not just the portion to which he was formerly confined.

One fine afternoon in early December, I let the chickens out to forage for the last of the broccoli stalks and whatever patches of clover they could find. I brought a cup of scratch and tossed it well away from their coop so I could retrieve their feeder for refilling. Eager to keep my truce with Randy, I did not want to encroach on his space or pose any kind of threat to his hens. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them all pecking away happily as I walked back with a full feeder in one hand and a bucket of shredded paper for bedding in the other. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my knee and turned to see Randy, feathers ruffled, ready to fly at me again with spurs forward.

I dropped the feeder and placed the bucket between me and my attacker. My instincts told me that running was futile, for I had observed Randy’s overly large drumsticks as he ran to take a worm away from a hen. I backed as fast as I could toward the house—a distance of about 40 feet—meanwhile fending off at least five additional attacks. Slamming the back door quickly behind me, I limped into my office and pulled up my pant leg to assess the damage. Randy had put about a ½ inch deep puncture on the side of my right knee, through my thick, flannel-lined jeans. Thoughts of chicken poop and salmonella led me to the bathroom, where I poured hydrogen peroxide into the wound and marveled at how much it hurt.

My adrenaline had kicked in. The school bus was due in about 5 minutes and there was no way I was going to allow a bully rooster to go after my chicks. I donned thick leather gloves, grabbed a shovel just outside and headed out the front door to the driveway. Randy was nowhere in sight. The kids arrived home safely and listened wide-eyed to my story. I must have had a crazed look, because they kept their distance and quietly went into their rooms. I stood at my office window overlooking the garden and chicken coop and tried to decide whether to kill Randy then, or later.

In the end, I decided my aim was too bad to go back out and take Randy on in shovel-to-spur combat. I called my husband, Carl, told him my story, and reasoned that we would wait until they settled in on the roost for the night. At that point I wanted him to grab Randy for me. I would do the deed, I assured him, but only after he was captive. I planned to try the old neck-under-the-broomstick method I’d read about. Just pin their necks down with one foot on either side of the broom and pull up on the feet. Easy. No blood. Then, I would finally try butchering a chicken myself. If I messed it up, nicked a bowel or something, it was only an old rooster after all.

Carl arrived home early, a man on a mission. Before I could get my boots back on, he was after Randy with a stick, and had much better aim than I. But roosters are resilient and fast, and Randy took off across the yard toward the next-door neighbors, legs pumping furiously. Suffering from a post-Thanksgiving gout flare-up, Carl was even less mobile than me with my injured knee. What it sight it must have been to see the two of us, bearing shovel and net, limping across the front yard after Randy like the crazy guy in The Shining. For a moment, we almost trapped him near the door to the neighbor’s basement, but he somehow escaped the net and ran cackling into the woods behind our houses.

I was relieved. Some critter would get him during the night and I wouldn’t have to perpetrate an ugly revenge killing. It’s one thing to neatly butcher your animals for meat, another to hunt them down in anger. The next morning, I peered outside to see if Randy had somehow managed to find his way back to the coop, but there was no sign of him. Carl left for work, but called only a few minutes later: Randy had emerged from his wooded hiding place and was strutting along the roadside. The neighborhood children were all about to head out to wait for the bus.

Hastily throwing on a coat over my pajamas, I armed myself with the shovel and walked out the end of the driveway with the kids. Sure enough, there was Randy. A passing truck had scared him over to the opposite side of the road, where he jauntily strode across an open field toward the daycare two houses over. It suddenly dawned on me that I had to warn people. All I needed was for my aggressive ‘roo to attack some small child. That was what led to the death of my brother’s silky. On the very day new neighbors from the “city” moved in next to my parents, the bantam attacked their four-year old. I think it only horrified them further when we killed and ate him.

I called the neighbor with the daycare, who fortunately has quite a menagerie of animals herself, and had once owned chickens. She said she would let the parents know that they shouldn’t allow their toddlers to try and pet the little chickie. Next, I phoned my nearest neighbor, who promptly laughed and asked if we wanted to borrow his 22 or if he should ‘plug’ Randy for us. Not necessary, I said. I went back outside to find the lady who lived across the field in her bathrobe shooing Randy away from her house.

“You better leave him alone,” I yelled from across the road. “He might attack you!”

“I’m worried the dogs might get him,” she called. They have a half dozen or more retrievers and coon dogs.

“Let them!” I hollered. Randy continued across the field and disappeared.

All day long, I peered outside my window at the coop, thinking perhaps he would try to return to his hens. About mid-day, I saw the lady from across the road walking down the driveway, white bucket in hand. “Sorry. Our hunting dog got him.”

I was jubilant. “Oh, it’s o.k. He had to go.” I peered into the bucket, and was disappointed. “You cleaned him? You know how to do that?!”

“Well, I’ve cleaned plenty of wild game. But I had a hard time getting the feathers off his wings, so I just cut the tips off. And his neck is still attached.”

I pondered whether to ask her for evisceration lessons. “That’s o.k. I’ll clean him up.” We said our goodbyes. It was the first time we had met face to face, other than to wave from the car. I brought Randy inside and got out a boning knife and a cutting board. All in all, he didn’t look too bad. Not a tooth mark on him. No pinfeathers remained. The worst thing was that his neck stretched out before him, making him appear as aggressive in death as he did in life. I had a devil of a time cutting the neck off neatly. I think rigor mortis had started to set in. Although I was a little sorry I hadn’t gotten the chance to pluck and gut him, mostly I was glad it was all over. And, after all, it’s not every day when your neighbor returns your rooster to you in a bucket, fully dressed for cooking.

Online instructions from backyardpoultry.com informed me that I needed to wait two days for the butchered chicken to “relax” before cooking. In the meantime, I planned my meal. Thinking, like any good foodie, “What would Julia [Child] do?” I decided that coq au vin would be my dish of choice, stewed in wine and broth, the perfect use for an older chicken. Randy was large and meaty, unlike the Delaware hens I’d had butchered the year before. The aroma from the simmering pot of meat was very appetizing, although the meat seemed a bit dark, perhaps from the wine. As we all cut into our portion, one thing became apparent: Randy was as tough in death as he was in life. This was perhaps the biggest disappointment of all. Each of us bravely, almost ritualistically, ate a few bites, then the rest of Randy went into the trash. Truly, a sad ending.

I am trying my best to be politically correct and not make any snap judgments about roosters, even though I have never known a ‘nice’ rooster. Randy was just a bad seed (egg?), not a reflection of all roosters, but a bird who made poor choices in his life, choices that brought him to a bad end. Make of this what you will, but prior to Randy’s departure my hens had slowed to laying 1 or 2 eggs a week. For three days after his death, I collected an egg a day, then three and then four. I have consistently gathered five to seven eggs daily ever since. Coincidence or feminist poultry statement? I, for one, feel a greater sense of liberty, like a dark cloud has lifted.

In the power vacuum formed since Randy's sudden disappearance, my dominance over the hens has been confirmed. Each time I go in to the backyard and croon a low "chick-a-chick," my girls come running. The pied piper of hens, I stroll about the backyard, flock following me frantically. To be honest, the first time they started running after me (or perhaps the cup of corn I held), I was a bit scared--Randy flashbacks, you know. Now, I strut about confidently. When it is time for them to go inside at the end of the day, I stand by their yard door and call out to them gently but insistently. Obediently, they all file into the coop.

I am the egg (wo)man. They are my hens. I am the rooster. Cock-a-doodle doo!

Time and Strawberries Wait for No One

   Nature, the weather and plants have their own schedule--and they never check with humans when making it. A quick check of last year's garden journal last month revealed that this year's strawberry crop was coming a full three weeks early thanks to a spell of unseasonably warm weather and ample spring rain. The harvest was record-breaking: 83 quarts by the time I gave up and sacrifice the rest to the birds last week.
Unfortunately, the last of the peak picking days (14 quarts one day, 20 two days later) came just after I left for a week-long trip to Tennessee with my daughter. I processed 12 pints and 8 half pints of jam, along with 25 bags of frozen berries in the days before leaving. I arrived in Tennessee with a back sore from stooping and hands stained reddish-brown from hours of washing and hulling berries. When I returned, I added some fruit leather to my pantry, on the suggestion of a fellow gardener who makes real "rollups" for his kids. All in all, I 'm pleased with what I've stored up for the winter, and I had ample quarts to share with neighbors, friends and family.
   I left my husband and son at home with the strawberries, but with school and work, they didn't have the couple of hours daily that it takes to pick the beds thoroughly. I invited a friend to come over to pick and take home all she could. I'm not sure my husband understood the innate urgency I feel when it comes to not wasting a single berry and to saving as much of the fruits of my labor as I can. The thought of my berries lying "mouldering" on the ground made me feel a bit sick.

   The intensity of the strawberry season--and in turn, blueberries, blackberries, peaches and so on--reminds me yet again of the unforgiving cycle of farming. "Farmers must never go on vacation, except in winter," I moaned on my Facebook page as I packed for my trip. Then again, by winter they might be too tired to vacation. I recall the words of Anna Willson of Trumpington in Kent County, Maryland in the late 1800s. She struggled to entertain summer guests at the time of the peach harvest, after which her husband declared, "never again will we have staying guests during peach season." By the winter, with the preparations for the Christmas season following hog butchering, Anna was exhausted and decided against taking an excursion to Baltimore or even to attend holiday parties.

   I also reflect on the situation of the local and migrant pickers, especially as my back aches and my knees groan after spending only a half hour or so stooped in picking. Although it may have been a relief to have a period of guaranteed work, the prospect of 12-plus-hour days spent bent over with forearms immersed in itchy strawberry vines must have tempered any enthusiasm. Historically, the abysmally low pay and substandard housing provided made life tremendously difficult for this under class of workers. But they, like me, were carried along on the tide of the season, working as hard and as long as necessary to get the job done. Then a break--often brief--until the next harvest wave arrived.

The Virtues of Vinegar

Several weeks ago, I bought 4 gallons of vinegar, earning me a strange look from the cashier at the grocery store. "That's a lot of vinegar," she commented simply. I couldn't quell the explanation--or rather excuse--inside of me. "There's a lot of uses for vinegar. You can make window cleaner and use it as a disinfectant and I even use it in place of fabric softener." I'd lost her. "Don't your clothes smell like vinegar?" I sighed. "No." Then I gave up. There were three people behind me in line, who I could tell silently groaned as I pulled out my reusable cloth grocery bags.

It's a good thing I didn't share my vinegar and baking soda/salt drain cleaner story. Near the end of week two of being essentially snowed in from the Great Blizzard of 2010, our toilet had started gurgling ominously. My daughter, well-known for her overuse of TP, already knew how to turn off the water at the back of the toilet just in time to stop the dreaded overflow. Now, she refused to flush at all, and the exclaims of disgust from the rest of us were a daily (sometimes twice!) occurrence. I looked out the front window where the vent to our septic tank lay uder 3 feet of snow. Even if we needed to, there was no way anyone could dig it up now. What to do?

We'd fought the battle of the clogged toilet before. Five or so years ago, we had a chronic blockage that would miraculously clear, only to come back again without any--uh--unusually large amount of flushable material going down the drain (or NOT going down the drain). My husband tried the metal snake, a truly frightening tool. I mean, what do you do with THAT after it's been used. I'd just as soon throw it away and buy a new one every time except I'm too cheap for that. Next, I surreptitiously went to the store and bought some awful, earth-killing drain cleaner which didn't help at all. Finally, we bought a new toilet. On a hunch, my husband decided to bust the old toilet open with a sledge hammer, an act which I'm sure was quite gratifying. Inside, he found a plastic ant trap, which acted like a flapper and had closed off the toilet drain when it got stuck.

We vowed never again to let things go so far, or to use ant traps on drafty bathroom windows. It was time for some drastic action. It was time...for vinegar. I discovered a simple recipe "to unclog drains" in a household hints book. Mix 1 cup salt with 1 cup baking soda. Pour it into the clogged drain and then add 1/2 cup white vinegar. Let it sit for 20 minutes. Then, pour 1 gallon of boiling water down the drain. My husband skeptically peered over my shoulder, worrying about cracked porcelain and melting pipes, as I pulled the handle. Everything went down. I was excited: "Let's do the other one too!" Thirty minutes later, all of our pipes were as clean as a whistle.

At that point, my son came in with an urgent look on his face. "Are you done in the bathroom? Ugh, what's that smell?" Flushed with success, I looked at him a little sheepishly. "Ummmm....boiled pee." He was horrified, but shooed us out anyway. Now if we can only convince our daughter that it's safe to flush.

In the Bleak Midwinter

In the bleak mid-winter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter, long ago.
19th century hymn (one of my favorites)

As January draws to a close, Maryland is finally emerging from an early winter blizzard and deep freeze that had me doubting I would make it to the end of December with my sanity intact. Is winter this difficult for everyone? While I could force myself to go outside to exercise, to rake leaves, to do anything, the cold makes me want to stand with my back to the fireplace and "toast my buns," as I call it.

This is why my chickens have been a Godsend in so many ways. At least twice a day, I am forced to check on the status of their feed and water, and to look for eggs. Just before the December 19th blizzard, I discovered the push-in "nipples" on their waterers had frozen. The poor things may have been deprived of water for as long as three days--one of the down sides of my low-maintenance invention. I decided drastic measures were in order and put the red brooder lamp up in the coop. For nearly a week, I left it on almost around the clock. It may have been a cool 15 outside, but it was a spring-like 55 within the chicken inner sanctum.

The next shock for the flock was the 30-plus inches of snow. I trudged my way out to them midway through the blizzard and opened their door so they could get some fresh air. As usual, they noisily fought their way to be first out the door, until the first hen put her little toe into that icy white stuff and came to a screeching halt. Those behind her, especially the rooster, began complaining and looking over her shoulder to investigate the hold up. The result reminded me of their first trip outdoors as chicks: hens 1 through 3 and Randy the Rooster were ingloriously pushed out into the strange, white world by hens 5 through 10. The resulting commotion would have been rather funny if they were not so obviously traumatized. I left the door open during daylight hours after that, but I don't think they emerged until the snow began melting during the Christmas Day rain.

With nothing to do while they were all "cooped up," the hens apparently decided to focus their attention on egg production. On a slow day, I'll collect 5 or 6 eggs, but most of the time, I open the hatch to find 10 or 12 and 14 on one busy day. For a short time I became concerned that leaving the red light on was forcing them into a laying frenzy--organic egg standards actually mandate that lights are not left on for more than 16 hours a day. But as wind chills dipped to single digit and subzero levels, I decided keeping them warm was more important. When temperatures rose above 25 or 30 degrees, I began leaving the light off at night, and haven't used it at all for almost two weeks now. The eggs continue to roll in. One bumpy, enormous egg weighed in at 3 1/8 ounces--for a little perspective the largest USDA size is Jumbo, which is about 2 1/2 ounces. The same day, we collected one that would barely qualify as "peewee."


After exhausting my current file of recipes, including
Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese frittata, Coffee flan, Cajun Spoonbread with Andouille, and Enchilada Strata, I decided I'd better try to get rid of a dozen or two here and there to friends and family. How fortuitous that one friend recently became a vegetarian! My mother-in-law is firmly convinced of the health benefits of home-grown eggs. And my Mom and brother have waxed nostalgic about the flock they used to have and will take as many eggs as I can spare whenever I see them. I charge a modest $2 a dozen and while I hate collecting money, I need to justify the costs of my rather expensive "hobby." So far, my hens have earned me $42.50. Of course, I still owe some of my customers about 10 dozen eggs, since they gave me cash to put on account, but that will buy about four 50 pound bags of feed. I am contemplating designs for a hand-painted sign that I can put out in the front yard on days when the refrigerator is overflowing with cartons.

So while the mid-winter blues keep trying to muscle their way in, my New Hampshires and Delawares keep me feeling like my little homestead is producing something. And hey, I still have lettuce in my hoophouse, carrots under a blanket of straw, and rosemary on the southern side of the house! In two more months, I'll be planting potatoes! The seed catalogs have arrived! Perhaps I'll make it through this bleak midwinter.

Fried Eggs, Frittatas and Flan

Almost a month ago, my flock of eleven hens began laying eggs. To date, the tally is over 70 small, "pullet" eggs, with a half dozen or so large eggs sprinkled in-- most of those double yolks. Since then, the challenge has been to find new ways to use our new-found bounty of protein. My son and I are the biggest fans of eggs in the family; my daughter swears she will eat them only in cake. Since he was about 10 though, Joe began cooking up his own eggs for breakfast, usually scrambled, fried or sunny-side-up, using a cute little pan I found at the grocery store. I am strictly a scrambled egg girl--no runny yolks or separate whites for me and don't even talk to me about deviled eggs after the childhood horror of people eating eggs that sat out in 90 degree heat at summer church picnics.

I've looked forward to lovely yellow yolks adding rich color to my baking. I've longed to make a quiche without worrying that I'd use up all my eggs before my next trip to the store. I never considered, however, what a challenge it would be to keep my stockpile of eggs down to under two dozen. Although our eggs are small--it takes about 4 of them to make the equivalent of 2 large eggs (about 1 cup cracked, useful information)--they are still piling up. The plan is to begin selling some of them to friends and neighbors to help offset the costs of my rather expensive hobby, but I figured I'd better wait until they were at least medium to large in grade (about 1.75 to 2 ounces each).

As a result, I've been looking for new ways to incorporate eggs into our daily meals. Early on, I made spoon bread using a favorite recipe from Colonial Williamsburg. This is a polenta-style cornbread made rich with the addition of four large eggs and served with generous amounts of butter. I've made several frittatas (think crustless quiche) in the last several weeks: ham and cheese, veggie, and still hoping to try the smoked salmon and cream cheese recipe I found. Oddly enough, Joe temporarily went on an egg-free diet, until I hounded him into having them for breakfast or lunch again. I've already added a book I found in Backyard Poultry to my amazon.com Christmas list: The Farmstead Egg Book.

My favorite dish so far has been flan, even though it was a bit of a failure. It has been a while since I made a caramel from scratch, and my first one turned into rock candy and the second into a pale, insipid syrup. A bit of hot water sloshed into the pie plate as I removed the custard from the hot water bath. Nevertheless, the flan was creamy, sweet and a beautiful shade of yellow. Who needs caramel? I must have eaten half of it by myself. Thinking perhaps crème brulée would be easier, I searched out some recipes and discovered they called for far more cream and yolks than I wanted to use (the whites always sit in the refrigerator and end up being tossed in the compost). On the other hand, the flan recipe using sweetened condensed milk and lowfat milk, which I decided to enrich with a bit of heavy cream, had just the right amount of richness I wanted without quite so much fat. Why not use the flan custard recipe in individual compote dishes, then broil the top à la crème brulée? After all, I have my own blow torch/flame weeder. And the best part of crème brulée is that crunchy, sugary topping that gives such great texture in combination with the smooth custard. So I have decided to try what may be a new dish: flan brulée!

Milestones in Chicken History

We are pleased to announce the arrival, at 1:45 p.m. on September 13, 2009, of our first egg. Collected by Joe Dolde, it weighed in at 1 3/8 oz, which would make it Grade TSFS--too small for sale. Each of us has since checked the nest about 5 times each, but egg number two has not arrived yet. It is pure speculation, but we believe one of the New Hampshires was the proud mama of Egg Number One, since shortly after its discovery we found her sprawled out in the yard nearly on her side, feet splayed out with seeming exhaustion.

Unfortunately, it would seem that Randy the Rooster was not so pleased with the theft of his potential future offspring. Poor Cleo opened the nesting box door to check for another treasure and he jumped out, neck ruffled intimidatingly, and flew up at her with spurs unsheathed. From the sound of her screams, I thought she had broken her hand under the heavy nesting box door. She was rightfully terrified, although I think Randy was just as frightened. We chased him in circles for about a half an hour and finally left the coop door open with the hens locked safely outside. Randy tried desperately to get back to his hens through the fence, then finally found his way into the coop and didn't protest when we closed the door quickly behind him. Now, whenever Cleo peers inside, he gives his best manly crow and flies at the door. I guess she's his arch-nemesis now.

Who knows why one hen picked this particular day to lay, but her timing was excellent. I had just arrived home exhausted from a camping trip. Joe went out to check for eggs about 1 p.m., and came back with his hands behind his back. "Guess what, Mom?" I felt a little invigorated, until he showed me his empty hand and I snapped at him in disappointment. Did one of the hens rise to the occasion to redeem her dear Joe, who feeds them tasty tomatoes and other treats? Or perhaps she got wind of my threat to cook one of them up if they didn't start laying soon. Do chickens read blogs? (*Thanks to Joe, who came up with the title for this post.)

My Rooster's Name is Randy

This September we are anxiously awaiting our first egg on the Dolde Chicken Farm. All my sources say that chickens are supposed to lay their first egg at 4 to 5 months. The laying hens will be 20 weeks old this Monday and by my calculations that is 5 months and I want to see results! A couple of weeks ago I switched them over to Purina "Layena" which has higher levels of calcium for laying hens. The hens appear to be fully mature; their combs and wattles have grown and reached a nice coloration.

In fact, the laying hens are huge, especially compared to my "broiler" hens in the moveable pen. At 14 weeks (6-7 weeks older than commercial broilers), I took a half a dozen hens to Locust Point Farm, where I buy my milk and where they raise and process their own chickens. I haven't given up on my desire/interest/determination to learn how to dress my own chickens, but in the heat of the summer without any sophisticated equipment the prospect of splattering myself in blood and boiling feathers was not attractive. The Amish family at Locust Point dressed my birds for $2.60 each and vacuum sealed them in a lovely wrapper that said "Dolde - Pastured Chicken." I almost leapt for joy.

So one Sunday (Monday is butchering day), I placed the borrowed dog cage next to the moveable pen, asked my husband to act as doorman, and tried to catch some birds. Of course I didn't want to CLIMB inside; anywhere chickens live is poopy and the pen is only 24 inches high. Eventually, though I had to lean inside and grab them with my gloved hand. This is not a job for the timid. You go for the feet and bring them out upside down while they squawk like you are murdering them. It seems rather cruel until I right them, gently fold down their feathers and hold them in both hands for a second. Within seconds they calm down and settle into a purr-like clucking. Then it was into the dog cage quickly and back to find one of her sisters.

My daughter rode with me to the farm and anxiously peered back at the excited chickens in the back of the open truck, their feathers flying. "I don't think I can eat them," she worried. "You'll be fine," I assured her. I was surprised to see a whole row of cat cages, milk crates and chicken coops when I arrive at the farm. Apparently I'm not the only one experimenting with my own free-range chickens. They asked if I wanted my birds whole (yes) and if I wanted to keep the giblets (no). They would process them that morning, chill them down and they would be ready for pickup on Thursday. When I returned, the Amish girl looked apologetic. "They looked as big as ours," she said, "but I guess they just have longer legs. They are a little small." My biggest hen topped out at 2 1/2 pounds. No matter, this was an experiment and I'll just have to keep the rest of them a little longer.

We had chicken for dinner that night and everyone ate it with no trouble. We opted for butterflying the small bird and grilling it with barbecue seasoning. It was pretty tasty, and probably the best method of cooking we've found so far. I cooked another in an infrared oven someone gave me (cooks without giving off heat), and another one in the crock pot--it was 100 degrees in my kitchen most of August so I didn't relish turning on the oven and was looking for other methods. Both of those were disappointing. All in all, I am still reserving judgment. The hens are small--one barely feeds my family of four and two of us have small appetites--and I did find the texture a little stringy, but perhaps that was the cooking methods.

I am anxious to see how heavy the final six will be and how they taste. But I swear they have gone on a hunger strike. They seem to be two-thirds the size of the laying hens and although I purposely tried to pick the smallest birds when I separated them at 8 weeks, I don't think I was that successful. They just don't seem to be growing as fast. You'd think they would be happier with fresh grass every other day. Maybe it's the low roof or the exposure to the occasional thunderstorm. Perhaps I'm overthinking this whole thing? In any case, we will see what the next few weeks bring and I'll decide whether to try Delaware broilers again or switch to a faster-growing Cornish cross. I really want to experiment with brooding my own chicks at least once.

But if those hens don't start laying, I just might grab one of them and see how she cooks up. Or it just may be the rooster, if he doesn't stop crowing at 5:30 a.m. and tormenting the hens. Yes, our rooster friend Randy has found his mojo. Over the last month, I have run excitedly out to the coop several times when I heard what sounded like productive squawking, only to find Randy cornering some poor hen in the corner. Gone are the days when they would chase him away from a tasty lettuce leaf or tomato. So far, he has not inflicted any damage and he is acting naturally after all, but I can't help but regard him with a little disgust when he struts off after terrorizing half the flock. Roosters have their place, I suppose, as we learned when my sister-in-law's dog took a polite peek at them last weekend. Randy sounded a cry of alarm so terrifying that poor Rio jumped back and would have run away if he wasn't on a leash. So we'll let Randy rule the roost--for now.