Of Stewing Hens and Caffeine Highs

The great burst of sorrow dissipated quickly. Isaiah went to bed Tuesday night, and woke the next morning without any sign of real gloominess. (I, however, fell asleep sniffling, sad that the beautiful coasting of the little Mallard wouldn't be seen here again.) We totaled the price of the two birds, and expect we probably spent $120 total to feed them and raise them. Not that the price is the real total of their value, but it made it seem within the realm of possibility that we would have ducks again.

Today ended the Persephone Days, the period of less than 10 hours sun when plants do not actively grow. Here in Central Virginia, we have about an eleven week period, from November 19ish until now. Phil is looking forward to the pasture greening over again. And since I still haven't received my favorite seed catalog in the mail, I'm looking at starting the growing season a bit behind. Ah, well. Maybe the catalog will be in the box next time we check.

We received our new chipper today. Rather than asking neighbor Butch to help us with his skidsteer, Phil realized that our tractor hauls half ton hay bales around; surely the tractor could unload a less than half ton chipper. And it did, without any trouble. Another little way that we've become more self-sufficient (and we are thankful every day for the tractor!).

Because we'd had .4" of rain fall in about 20 minutes this morning, the ground was too soggy to actually test the machine, but we're excited to start using it.

On a totally random note, Phil had been a two-pot a day coffee drinker for a couple of decades. He could drink a couple of cups after 11pm and fall asleep at any moment after.

Last year, he suddenly said, "I'm not in bondage to this," and he quit one day. He might have a cup for fun at church, or a friend's house, but he realized lately that if he drinks a cup in the afternoon or evening, it keeps him up until 3am. (At least, that's what we suspect, due to the 1:1 correlation between drinking:sleeplessness.) It's even got to the point that if he drinks a cup in the morning, he can't sleep in the night, fourteen hours later.

I shudder to think what his poor adrenals must have been dealing with. If his natural reaction is such sleeplessness, his body must have been massively overriding the natural systems!

Rooiboos tea has been the beverage of choice, and I expect that will continue.

***

As we have, yet, six freezers filled with meat, I have needed to figure out ways to use the more unusual things. Sliced side meat (uncured bacon), sausage, and broiler chickens are all fairly straightforward.

But what about duck? I cooked my first one this week. The recipe said 300 degrees for four hours. The skin did get beautifully, tastefully crisp, but the meat dried out. Maybe three hours next time. The boys weren't big fans (duck is dark and rich, and they are white meat eaters, if at all).

I had also cooked a stewing hen, a tough old layer. It was a disaster. The tough tendons prevented the meat easily coming off the bones, and the meat itself was chewy so as to be almost inedible.

But old timers rave about the rich flavor, so I did some checking and came up with a recipe where I put two stewing hens in a pot and covered them with water. I simmered them for about five hours. THAT worked well. The meat was falling off the bones, tender, juicy, still quite flavorful.

Then I used the broth to cook homemade noodles, which were actually much easier to make than I expected. A cup of flour (I used freshly milled spelt, but any flour should work, I expect) and two eggs. Stirred, then kneaded, with however much flour added to make a smooth, not sticky dough.

I rolled the dough as flat as could be with a round glass, sliced into strips, and dropped in the broth and boiled for a few minutes.

A rich, comfort-food use for the stewing hens. And that's a relief, because we have plenty of them!