Adding to the homestead

I've made two mortgage payments on it, I have homeowner's insurance on it. I turned on the electricity, and the kids next door are gone. It's all ours. Five acres to add to our five acres, fenced, cross-fenced, a pond. There is a ton of work to be done over there. Heather will be here in two weeks with her kid, horses, dog, and all her crap.

Walking around Pictures

I had the camera today with me while I was out and about. My garden is actually starting to produce stuffs that I can harvest and bring inside. I've got about half a gallon bag of snap peas in the fridge. The green beans gave me their first couple of handfuls of beans today.

Greens Beans

Snap peas

Banana Peppers 

Purple beans growing at the base of the corn

Bell Peppers

Corn

Squashini corner

I got some good shots of the steers. Norman is a big boy now, full time out with the big boys from last year.

Are you a cow too?

Norman

Norman

And I got Chicken pictures for Carolyn. I read back and counted days, and this week the Red Rangers are 12 weeks old. Pete at the feed store, told me about 8-10 weeks. I could have easily started butchering a week or two ago.I free ranged these, and restricted their feed just like I did the creepy meats. They were more active, but now their legs are getting to be giant tree trunks. They are molting and look bad, lol. I went out there the other morning and it looked like a chicken had exploded inside the chicken house. Some of the roosters are getting down right huge. I did process three last week, three of the bigger ones. I was joking last time we did them, that I found their nuts way up in there, and they were tiny. these three were not tiny.

So in this pic is Einstein the polish crested on the left. The little grey bird is an easter egger that is a week younger.

This pic is two Ranger roos, a White Plymouth Rock roo, and a 4 year old Jersey Giant hen. I was told it was a JG at any rate.

Ranger hen, Easter Egger on the pan, and another Ranger hen. They are easily the same size as the Jerseys, and as big as the White rock roo that is like 4 weeks older.

New friends on the farm, Squashini

Norman is officially a grass calf. I had to go around and lower about half the insulators on the fence so the little weasel couldn't get under them. We did a lot of maintenance on the fence too over the last week. Trees, shrubs, brush, some downed branches, a few places where the wind had blown the braided wire into the old barbed wire fence. Each little spot was a power drain and made the fence hit not as hard. It's rocking 8k on the little light up meter now. When we first put Norman out it didn't zap hard enough to keep him from going under it. It sure does now though. The horses had been zapped enough when it was still really hot to not want to go anywhere near it when they had plenty of tall green grass to nosh on.

The two steers from last year finally got moved out to the front pasture. It was a total anticlimatical, non-event. I really expected to take down the fence over at Andrea's and have them run out, tails in the air and act like wild yabangies. They didn't. Andrea's steer did a little bolt, but I had Norman on a leash in front of him a ways, and he just followed us into the pasture. The other calf hung back, just outside the gate, and after walking Norman back, he followed with just a little pressure of someone walking behind him.

Andrea's weimer, Loki had to go check them out, and the silly cows let him chew on their little bud horns.

Norman does not like them. He doesn't know he's a calf. He thinks he's a pet that lives next to the house. He did a little bit of hollering the first couple nights. He runs when they come near him. I've had both Ben and Apache out with them. The lighter steer tried humping Ben. Silly cows. They hump anything.

After all the squash and zucchini I pulled out of the garden last year and didn't eat, I told myself I wasn't going to plant any this year. Scott talked me into one little pot of zucchini with four little sprouts in it. No yellow squash though. Yeah right. I was kicking the stuff open last year after the plants died to frost, so the chickens could eat the insides. Scott tilled everything up so nice and pretty for me this spring. I have a corner in the back where the corn is that is now over run with yellow squash and "squashini". It is the shape of a zucchini, but a very pale green. It has to be stuff that got cross pollinated with the yellow or the crooked neck squash from last year. It's tasty though.

The second batch of meat birds are well past big enough to process. It's just finding the time to do it. I'm working 6 and 7 days a week right now with summer shave down season, and helping the 4H kids get their dogs ready to the fair. I did three roos the Sunday while everyone else left for Pocatello to get the rest of Connie's stuff. Scott and I should both be off Teusday next week. I think we're going to have a marathon chicken butchering day. Andrea, Connie, and Liam can all help. 

Processing chickens, Kato goes to Freezer Camp, Norman the bucket head

Having a mean rooster was kinda funny in the beginning. Did he really just jump at me? It was cold and most of the time I was out doing chores in my carhart overalls. Scott found it rather amusing as well. Six pounds of rooster was attacking 220 pounds, of 6'2" biker turned homesteader. He'd wait till you weren't looking and then come running up behind you and pounce.

The weather got warmer and it started getting annoying. I'd go in to feed the girls and he jump me. The first time he did it without the overalls on It HURT! I wasn't sure if it was the claws he was hitting me with first, or the wings he was beating me with, but that just wasn't going to fly around here. I chased his feathered ass around the chicken run till I pinned him in the corner. I snatched him up and held him by a wing and his legs and gave him a good shake or three. Then I carried him around upside down while I did the rest of my chores, and threw him back in the chicken run.

 I only had to stomp at him to get him to knock his crap off. Once I turned him out to free range with the girls  he'd get a wild hair up his butt and think about coming after me. I'd throw my hands up of my head, growl, and run at him. That was enough to make him back off. It was getting to be a bit of a pain to always be on the look out for Kato.

Scott called me at work one day dismayed that he killed my rooster. Kato jumped him from behind while he was feeding the horses and out of reflex Scott snap kicked him to the head. He called me back 15 minuets later to tell me Kato was up and pecking again. He was starting to go after Scott every time Scott was out in the yard and had his back turned.

Life is too short to put up with a mean rooster, but I really wanted some chicks from him and my Jersey Giant girls. Then it dawned on me. I have a hen sitting on 14 eggs. (yes she's stolen two more eggs from the other hens.) I don't need that mean old bastaige any more. That and I'm pretty positive one of the new chicks is a roo. Off with his head.

Actually I was helping the neighbor process her three creepy meats today. We didn't off with anyone's head till they were already dead. I found a very good video on youtube. They addressed the problem of the creepy meats having shoulder too wide and necks too short for the cones most people use/make for non creepy meats. They used an empty milk jug. Cut off the bottom and cut out around the pour spout. It worked perfectly. We did mount ours to a saw horse instead of one person holding it.

The question came up between Scott and I on whether to take their heads and then let them bleed out, or cut their throats. I liked the thought process in this video and we did it the same way they did. Pull down the head to stretch the neck, a quick slice against the side of the neck where it meets the head and bleed out into a tote filled with the shavings I pulled out of the brooder pen. Later it's emptied into the compost heap. They still jerked and flapped as their last nervous response took over, but it wasn't the running around flapping with your head cut off that every one imagines. A quick dip in a pot of boiling water and the feathers came out ever so easily. All in all it was a relatively easy process.  Kato met his end today and with a quick prayer of thanks, he's now sitting in my fridge to chill over night, and then into the freezer he goes.

And for Carolyn at Krazo Acres Norman the Bucket Head.

It's not stuck on his head this time, but he still flips it up over his head. I really need to get one of those one that hang on the fence. I only had it tied to the fence with one piece of twine and he could get his head through under the handle. I tied it with a second piece so he couldn't get his head stuck through. Silly calf. 

Hawt Damn, I gotta broody, Norman has an under bite, They're starting to look like chickens

I've really really really really been wanting to get my own chickens to hatch out some eggs. I was So over the moon excited last year when the Traveling Chicken went broody and we found her sitting on a while mess of eggs. Every day I took a peek under her fluffy bottom. When she got off the next in the evenings I looked at the eggs. I tried candling them but I wasn't sure what I was looking for. Day 22 and I think I checked out there 15 times a day. I let them go to 30 days just to make sure before I kicked her off the nest and cracked one open. Scrambled eggs. Runny looking mess. No baby chickies. What a let down bummer.

I've been reading everything I could find about enticing a chicken to go broody. I can find a hundred and one ways to make them Not be broody. If your laying hen is sitting on eggs, she isn't laying any more.  In only one place did I find someone mention leaving eggs in the box till there are at least 11 before the hens will set them.

I found a clutch of 6 under the tarp over Dave's hay. No idea how long they had been there. They'd been frozen at night and thawed back out. There was  no way I was bringing them in to the fridge. I had a much better idea in mind. I've been pulling the eggs once a day, but just leaving them on the counter, waiting and hoping... After a week into the fridge they went. Scott raided a few for breakfast, and still no one setting.

Every morning I count chickens. 1, 2, 3, 4... Bummer. In the evening when I let them out to roam while I feed I count them. 1, 2, 3, 4... Look randomly out my bedroom window. 1, 2, 3, 4... Sigh. One of the girls at work sent home some plastic eggs. Finally I had 11 out there. Three days ago... 1, 2, 3, 4... Wed on and off all day 1, 2, 3, 4, ... 1, 2, 3, 4... Wed evening 1, 2, 3.... Wait, three? 1, 2, 3.. Yup. Three. I didn't get excited yet, no matter how much I wanted to. She could just be taking a while. Sometimes I think they take a nap after all that clucking and talking about how they just laid an egg.

I was off yesterday, and threw open the curtains when I got up, to count. PleasePleasePlease... 1, 2, 3, 4. Damn. Double Damn. Four chickens and a rooster pacing and yelling to hurry up with the scratch already. Well Poo. So much for that idea. I was so disappointed  I never even checked for eggs yesterday. I opened the door and let them all out to free range yesterday since I was home. I watched them walk across the driveway later out to the trees, and automatically counted. Hey, there is only three. All day I watched and waited to see a fourth. Nope. I felt a little excited. Just a little. Last night when I went to feed I called them back to the coop. Just three. I peeked in under the lid of the nest box, and there she was. Still flattened like she was when I was hoping the day before.

Just to be sure, I decided to give it all today. If she was still in there when I got home this evening, I'd move the eggs I had on the counter under her and take out the plastic ones. I was down to five eggs after the breakfast raid, and the ones that were over a week old. (In Scott's defense I never mentioned to him why I was holding eggs on the counter in a bowl.) She was still in there!!!!!    Yay HappyDance! I just got back in from feeding and I swapped out the plastics for the ones on the counter, and between yesterday and today I had 5 more eggs in a box on the other side. She's got 10 eggs under her. I'll start counting tomorrow as day one.

Norman has got one heck of an under bite from this angle. 

 

The little chickies are starting to look like chickens. They're just over a week to two weeks old now. I love the eye liner on this little one. I hope it keeps it, and that it's a pullet, so I can keep it. 

Most of them have their wings feathered out and little tail feathers starting to make an appearance. When I take the lid off the tun they think they're gonna fly right out, hopping and flapping their wings. It's not going to tall enough or big enough for them really fast. 

Moo Moo calf goes for a walk, Sagitta chickens, Training Apache

Moo Moo cow might have the name Norman. That just popped into my head today and it seems to be sticking around. I don't know where it came from. My Uncle Hank had one of my chihuahua puppies a few years back named Norman. I honestly didn't think of that till after Norman came to me for the calf. We'll see if it's still sticking there after I go to sleep tonight and wake up in the morning. .

The calves Andrea have next door have gotten loose a few times, and trying to make those stubborn buggers  go back where they came from with just some flapping arms and loud yelling doesn't always work so hot. When they have their tail in the air, running from you and bucking all you can do is cuss and fume at them. Also eventually they are going to have to load in a trailer to go to the processor. Right now Norman is still small enough that I can manhandle him if necessary.

I have a dog harness hanging out in the garage. I don't know where it came from. When Andrea had her first calf this year here for the night we used it to lead him over to her place with her leading and me pushing from behind to keep him moving. I put it on Norman. He wasn't thrilled. Jerseys like to throw themselves down on the ground and decide to die instead of walk on a leash. Here's Andrea and her calf with the harness as a halter.

I had to pick him up to get him out of the pen. Then I stood there and played, "Be the tree." That means I stand there not moving and let him pull on me until he realizes it doesn't do any good. The first real pressure on his head and neck he flopped over on the ground. Not layed down, he just fell over. So I let him lay there. It took a minute or two before he decided that wasn't and fun and stood up again. We did the sand up, fall over thing a few times while just shook my head. It wasn't too long before he was up and running circles around me. He learned to walk with me without too much fight. We went out in the pasture on the long lead rope for him to run and buck a little. Tomorrow we'll try again and I'll get Scott to take some pictures.

Apache's turn was next. Yes he already knows how to lead. He knows how to be rode too. Now that he's almost completely blind he needs to learn the verbal cues to help him keep his manners while walking next to a person on the ground. We did a lot of stopping after I said, "Whoa." I held my arm up every time from his totally blind side and let him bump his nose against it. He didn't like that too very much and is learning to stop when I say whoa.

The big thing was walking just a step or two and whoa-ing coming in and out of the gate to the round pen. He knows the sides of the gate are right there and is very nervous about it. After the fifth time in and out he was standing there for more than a minuet in the gate and waiting for me to cluck to him to step forwards. We went out in the pasture and I let him eat some grass for a while as a reward.

I lost one of the little red chicks Saturday night. It was lethargic when I got home from work Saturday. I tried getting it to drink some water, and put it in a small box under the heat lamp so the others wouldn't peck it to death. It was gone Sunday morning with Scott got home. I went back to Valley after work today and picked up three more. I didn't really pay attention when I was in there the other day to what kind of chicks I was getting other than the Creep Meets.

I looked at the names today. I don't know what the little yellow smudged looking ones are, or the yellow with the black spot. The reds are Sagittas. They are a breed developed by Dunlap Hatchery here in Idaho.

"The Sagitta is a dual purpose bird that is a cross between a Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire Red and Cornish Cross. They are a heavy, docile breed that will provide large eggs as well as a nice size bird on the table."

I have five of them now. They are a slower growing bird than the Creepy Meats, and are good layers of large brown eggs from what I Can find on the net by people who have them. So I can put any roos in the freezer, and they are good egg layers. I can free range them and not worry about them like the Creep Meats. We'll see.

I had to switch from the hay I had in the bottom of the trough to shavings. I forgot to get hay when I got the chicks and had to wait till I got payed today to pick up the shavings. These things are the eatingest, poopingest creepy things ever. You have to really watch the food intake in the creep meats. They can grow too fast for their hearts and legs to keep up with. I take the food out around eight at night and put it back in in the morning. They SWARM frantically like they have been starving for weeks and they aren't barley a week old.  

None of the big girls feel like going broody yet. Everyday I count chickens hoping to see three and there be one in the box on eggs. Not yet. 

Moo Calf, Kato the Rooster

The Rooster has a name now. I've just been calling him Mr. Mean. He is a meanie. Runs up behind you and starts beating you with his wings, and scratching at you with his feet. He's gone after me, the dogs, even Scott. Why a five pound rooster thinks he has any business going after a 6'2", 200 pound man is beyond me, but he does. I got sick of it after the first two days. I chased his ass around the inside of the chicken run till I pinned him in the corner. Then I snatched him up and held him upside down by his feet and gave him a good shake. I carried him around upside down while I fed the girls, and filled the horse's water trough. Three afternoons in a row of that, and he decided maybe going after me wasn't a good idea.

Now he sneaks up on me. If i have my back to him and don't look right at him, he comes up on me, but as soon as I turn my head to him, he stops dead and starts looking around like, "What? I wasn't doing anything." He does the same to Scott, but isn't as sneaky about it. Scott has taken to calling him Kato from The Pink Panther. The sidekick guy who was always waiting trying to jump out and surprise Inspector Clueso. He waits till Scott isn't paying attention, then runs up behind him and jumps. Scott even chases him around the yard when he does it. He says it's a game between the two of them now. 

I'm ready to put him in a pot, but Scott says it's not that big a deal. I've been just Waiting for one of the girls to go broody. I'm down to 4 of the Jersey Giant girls. One was killed last Thanksgiving. One died recently of an impacted croup. I Want Babies!!!! Last year we had the Traveling Chicken go broody. I know I still have her cause she's as wild as a March hare. One other girl went broody for a little bit till I broke her of it. I know I have little bitty puffballs in the garage, but I want bitty puff balls that came from My chickens at least once.

I've been locking them in during the day and letting them out in the evenings when I feed. They have been laying eggs in other places than the nest box, and with the possibility of them been fertile, I don't trust the ones I find after playing Easter Egg Hunt. I just found six eggs the other day tucked up in the hay under the tarp covering  Dave's hay out back. So I took those six eggs and left them in one of the boxes hoping to entice a chicken to set them. I do have a line on a guy with a few Silky hens. I've heard they love to go broody.

Speaking of puffballs in the garage, I can just start to see a bit of a difference in size between the little pullets, and the Creepy Meats. Carolyn at Krazo Acres was the one who came up with that term. Their little wing feathers are starting to come in. I have better pics today than the first ones.

All the little buggers do is eat and poop. lol. They are very fun to watch though. When one thinks it finds something to eat, a handful of others come zipping over. They randomly just dart off after nothing. Some of them are flapping their wings and trying to fly already. I want to go get more. lol. 

I worked a little bit last night with Moo Moo cow. I just can't get a name to stick in my head with him, but every time I walk out to feed I call out, "Here Moo Moo Cow." The first time I tried to bottle feed I ended up with calf drool and milk all over me. I had to headlock him with my legs. Sucking reflex was there, but he wasn't trying to suck the nipple off the bottle. The next few days the same. Fast forwards to yesterday and he's headbutting with the bottle in his mouth, bashing it into my legs or stomach. I don't have to hold him still and put the nipple in his mouth. I still was getting covered in calf drool and milk. I went in last night after he was done and mixed up a little more milk replacer, very watered down and took it out in a bucket. I kept stuffing his head down in into the bucket hoping to get his lips into the milk to taste it. Twenty mins later I put the bucket on the ground and started feeding horses. Tried again stuffing his head in the bucket. Walked off and again left the bucket in his pen. When I came back to fill the horse's water, he had his head in the bucket slurping away. Success!! This morning and again this evening I took him his milk in the bucket and he went after it with no troubles. YAY! No more bottle. 

Here Chicky Chicky

We're having work done on the 4 wheel drive on the Dodge, so I had to go pick Scott up from work this morning. Five in the morning I had to be up to drive to Jerome and get him by 6:30. It was snowing still. It was coming down hard enough that I had to turn down the high beams. Once I got out to the highway it was almost done, and then nothing into Wendell and Jerome.

I had mentioned to Scott last week that I might like to get some meat chickens and a few new laying hens, and what was his opinion on it. He wanted to wait a week or so once we knew what the cost was going to be on the Dodge. I wanted to get them RIGHT NOW lol. I'm impulsive and think up all these ideas and then run them by my Scotty and he thinks them out, plans out the logistics, what it's going to need in the way of supplies, the best way to build what I need, and basically takes all my wild fragments of ideas, and makes them into reality. My whole property would look like hillbilly baling twine and broken boards nailed together if it weren't for Scott.

I knew we needed to get calf milk replacer on the way home. When we stopped at Valley Co-op Scott was asking the manager about his opinion on meat chickens. Pete is a great guy. He's the guy that we got the pigs we raised from last year.

Scott surprised me this morning when we went in the back with Pete to look at the chicks, and said, "Well what ones do you want?" I know he wanted to build a second coop for growing out meat birds and hatched chicks. We came home with 15 Creepy Meats (cornish crosses) and 6 assorted pullets. I love the name Creepy Meats, one of the blogs I read, the gal calls them that.

The calf is doing great. Got his milk replacer this morning. He's bucking and kicking now. He knows that people means a bottle. He saw his first snow last night. I did have to take his coat off. It didn't have a belly band and keeps riding up over his shoulders. He's past his first night or two, and the weather is supposed to warm up after yesterday and last night's snow. I still haven't decided on a name yet. I keep calling him Smutchz in my head, like, you have a little smutchz on your face.... lol.

The weather did what it's been doing all over the country and turned cold and snowy after beautiful days in the 60's and 70's. I thought I'd take the back way home through Shoshone last night after dropping Scott off at work. I wanted to drive in that last bit of snow fall. I love watching snow fall. We'd only been getting flurries with a small periods of large flakes through the day at work. I really began to think that decision was going to be really really bad as the snow got heavier, and visibility shrank. All of a sudden I was driving in a blizzard and the snow was starting to slush up, and then build up on the ground. We all slowed down and I just tried to stay in the tracks of the truck ahead of me. Not five minuets later we crested the hill going into Shoshone and the snow was gone. The roads were just wet with steam coming off them, there was barely any snow on the ground, but the snow plow was heading out of town to go clear what I'd just driven through. Here's some shots from the house looking at the clouds rolling in with the next batch of snow. 

Scott is teasing me that I've made him into a farmer. All he wanted to do was stay a biker, and now he's learning about wing feathers growing in at a few days old, dairy bulls are MEAN, chickens will eat and do like meat, pigs will rip a feed pan right out of your hands and then lay on their sides to lazy eat. All sorts of things he never would have been interested in, but he likes to see me smile. I love my husband for helping me make all this happen, and enjoying it along side me. 

The new calf is here. Boys got their feet trimed

Our calf for this year was born this morning. Andrea and I went over this evening after Scott went to work to pick him up. He was dry and his umbilical cord was starting to shrivel up. These are both really good things to helping the calf survive. The most important was that he'd already had his colostrum from his mom this morning, and they sent me home with another bottle of colostrum for this evenings feeding. This is the third calf this year we've gone over and gotten. Andrea has the other two at her place. Both of them are doing very well.  I've helped Andrea feed calves when they were away the last two years, but this is the first time starting out everything on my own. The last two years I either went out and dropped a bottle in the holder and they did their thing, or I just dumped milk into buckets. I did keep the first calf of this year over here over night while she built her calf pen, but she did the feeding. She had to straddle the bugger and get him in a head lock to fight him to learn the bottle. This guy I have caught right on. When I went back out to see if he wanted to finish the rest of his bottle, he wobbled right over to me, and ate with just my hand under his jaw.

I know calves are born out in the pasture, in really cold conditions all the time, and they make it just fine through the night. I still felt bad though when he was shivering, so I cut up and old stained sweatshirt, and now it's a calfshirt.

I've been trimming feet on our geldings for a while now. I have my horse trainer, who also is my farrier, come out ever so often and check to make sure I'm doing it right, and not messing everything up. This winter I was quite a weenie and didn't trim as often as I should and the boy's feet got away from me. I was an hour under Ben just working on his fronts two weeks ago, and I still didn't get them to look like I wanted. Mind now, I'm using just a rasp, no nippers, no knife. His feet are amazingly rock hard. Dirk came out and snip snip, rasp rasp and done. I was right about his heels needing to come down a bit more. His backs had frog material growing out over the groove, and I don't have a hoof knife to trim it back. Dirk said they were looking good, just needed some fine tuning. 

Apache on the other hand was a wreck. Not his feet. His eyes. I had caught him up out of the dry lot earlier in the afternoon. I had him tied up, brushed him out, looked him all over, picked out his feet. I put him in the round pen with Ben and he walked through the gate with little hesitation  He was fine. He was a little high headed walking between the two trucks, but he didn't lose his mind or anything. 

It was a whole other story when I pulled him out of the round pen. He didn't want to walk through the gate, he needed some serious coaxing. He was really high headed, shying away from me. He jumped through the gate when he just barely brushed it with his hip. He landed almost on top of me, and did manage to step square on my foot. I couldn't tie him up without him jumping back and panicking when he touched the hitching rail with his chest. He was acting very flighty with Dirk picking up his feet. It was very sad to see the difference in just a couple hours, a little more wind, and the sun just barely starting to set. 

After Saturday, I am very much re-thinking whether he is safe to keep or not. He smacked into the panels of the round pen after I put him in there Sunday. I didn't dare try and get him back through the gate Sat evening  but I did put him in there Sun morning.  If he is acting that wild, and that blind, he isn't safe out in the dry lot anymore. It's T-posts and hot wire. I isn't ideal for a sighted horse with the T-posts, but it's what I can afford. I won't be able to put him out on the pastures to eat grass if he can't see the fences. It's not safe. My budget calls for not having to hay them through the summer and into November. He'll always have to be in a pen by himself. Horses are herd animals. They don't like to be alone. I hate to think about putting him down. He's only 7. I've seen other horses have long happy lives after loosing their sight. I just don't know if I can give that to him here. 

Calves, chicken and dumplings and Chicken Lips?

The neighbors went ice fishing this last weekend, and I went over and fed the critters for them. Horses, chickens, and the calves. The one with the dark face is ours. I haven't updated much about Bacon, our calf, because he doesn't stay here on our property yet. This spring when we stop feeding hay and the grass is comes in, he will come live here. I did get some pictures while I was over there. He's a Jersey steer, and they don't grow very fast or very big.  He's just under a year old.

Scott had to have a tooth pulled last week. I get to go in tomorrow. Bleh. I was thinking of foods that were easy to make, what I had in the cabinet, and something that was easy to eat. We haven't had chicken and dumplings in a while. Scott likes it fresh off the stove. It has a tendency to turn into paste as he calls it when reheated. 

Chicken and Dumplings

One whole chicken

one stick of butter

three chicken bullion cubes

one whole small onion

three carrots

four stalks of celery

one glove garlic

one batch of Bisquick dumpling mix

one can butter milk biscuit rolls

salt and pepper to taste

Rinse chicken and place in a large stock pot. Add your butter and bullion cubes. Don't peel the carrots, garlic, or onion, just snap the carrots in half, snap the celery in half and add veggies to the pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fill pot with water to cover everything. Cover and boil everything until the chicken is falling off the bone. Empty pot into a strainer over a large bowl. Add the broth back into the stock pot. Pull all the chicken off the carcass. The carcass goes into a bag and into the freezer to make chicken stock for later. Pull the chicken apart into chunks and add back into the pot. Return to the stove and bring back to a boil. I cut the rolls into fourths and add to the chicken and broth. Pull the Bisquick dumplings into small chunks and add. Boil away for about 15 minutes or so. The Bisquick will thicken up the stock. YummiE

While browsing the grocery store the other day making sure I had everything I needed for the chicken and dumplings I happened to look over at a for sale sticker in the frozen section. It was empty but the sticker was still there...

Um... What?! I didn't know chickens even had lips let alone that I would find them in the grocery store. Hm.... So I just had to take a picture and text it to all my friends and family so they could get a laugh out of it as much as I did.