Half a Dozen Eggs

Four and a half months after buying our chickens on Craigslist, we have started getting eggs. I was shopping in Spokane when I got a text message from Nate. We rarely text, and I was only vaguely aware that my Tracfone was capable of receiving a picture in a text message, but I was very excited when I saw the picture of the egg, and the caption "one of two". So far we have found 6 eggs in about 8 days. We suspect that Ginger is the one laying the eggs. I'm looking forward to having the other 3 chickens start laying too! The eggs are small, have very dark yolks (that means they're good for you!) and seem to be very tasty. Tobias talks about the chickens and the chicken coop a lot (even in his sleep), so the educational part of the chicken raising process seems to be working as well as the nutritional.

Our eggs aren't technically "pastured" eggs, but we do try to feed the chickens plenty of fruits, veggies, and green things. I found this chart that shows what "store eggs" are missing compared to eggs from chickens that eat a variety of healthy food. Not shown in the chart is the statistic that "pastured" eggs contain 4 to 6 times as much Vitamin D as regular store eggs. Recently, I heard the phrase "you are what your food eats", meaning that eggs, dairy, and meat from animals on a healthy diet have better nutrition in them. So, adopt a chicken, find a friend with chickens, invite yourself over to our house for an omelet, buy eggs from healthy chickens, or at least make sure you're getting lots of extra Vitamin D, E, and A, Omega 3's, etc. from other foods or your vitamins!

(click on the picture to make it bigger if you can't read the words here)

Uhwunano

We decided we had to get Tobias's unique pronunciation of the word "underwear" on video before we worked on getting him to say it correctly. We though you might enjoy hearing it too, as well as a few other moments.

P.S. "Gebbi sauce" = spaghetti sauce. We need to work on that one too.

Lazy Blender Apple Butter

I'm trying to make a dent in the medium-sized pile of apples I have in my kitchen. I have a peeler-corer-slicer which is great for some things like dried apple slices, but for this batch of apple butter I decided to try something even easier. All the vitamins are in the peels, right?

First I cut up the apples. My "lazy" way of doing this is to cut off one side, avoiding the core. Then cut off 3 more slices, leaving a rectangular core. I took a few bites off each core and then fed the rest to the chickens.

Next I blended up these chunks in the Vitamix blender. I had about 10 cups of the blended mixture.

I added 1/2 c. of sugar, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves. Then I turned the crock pot on high and placed the lid on sideways so steam could escape.

My kitchen smells amazing and I've snooped a few spoonfuls that tasted great. I will update tomorrow with the finished results!

Finished product: I left the crock pot on high for about 4 hours, and then on low for about 4 hours, stirring occasionally. By this time it was about half the volume of when I started. I plan to freeze some and keep some in the fridge. Maybe next time I will try making a larger batch and canning it!

Now to keep at that pile of apples...we are about to eat German Apple Pancake for breakfast!