Gains, Loss, The Future

ah, the beginning of fall.  when the temperatures drift down into the balmy mid-nineties, and there is a chance of rain sometimes.  actually, all facetiousness aside, the mornings and evenings have been beautiful!  and enough rain has fallen that the back yard is full of chickweed and egg production is ramping up again. i'm excited about the change of seasons, and fall air is some of the best air.

sadly, we have lost another chicken.  this time there was no disease or predation involved...earlier this week bolo vanished without a trace! there she is to the left, the big black one, having a roll in the dust with pearl last sunday.  by tuesday, however, she was gone. just gone!  no feathers, no yard kerfuffle, everyone had been in the run all day.  all other fowl were fine and normal. but when i went out to the yard after work to give the ladies and gentleman their yard time, she simply was nowhere to be found.

i keep hoping she might come back, but i think it's been long enough that such hope is lost.  my best thought is that she's been bodily assumed into heaven, rapture-style.  at least that's my favorite theory...several others make perhaps more sense but are far more depressing.  she was a non-flyer, but had accidentally hopped out of the run once a long time ago--she was never one for adventure.  

needless to say, all remaining chickens now have flight feathers 1-8 clipped on their right wing, like i did sammo a couple months ago, to prevent further chicken raptures.

i wonder if she accidentally hopped out again, went for a mosey, got lost....and then was bodily assumed.  at any rate, wherever she is, i hope she enjoyed her life here and is enjoying her next life.  if not, i'd like it if she would come back.

in other, better news, we recently acquired two new girls to bump up egg production and add some new feathers to the flock.  introducing tony parker and scotty pippen!

tony parker

tony parker is a lovely young barred rock hen, a classic breed. true to her name, she is especially quick and agile, and does not seem to like to get picked up yet.  however, once caught, she will happily sit on the available lap for pets and chicken talk.  she should start laying big brown eggs any minute!

scotty pippen

scotty pippen is a beautiful red star chicken who, unlike her new sister thus far, is quite friendly. she seems to enjoy being picked up and cuddled, and even hangs around waiting for such attention.  her breed is also an egg-laying machine, and so we are much anticipating her egg scene debut.  in fact, she was destined to go to an _actual_ egg laying machine--a big production chicken house--which explains why her beak was cut.  but here on the TUF, her beak can grow back in all its glory and she can party in the run and yard all day.  i look forward to seeing her beak back!

all chickens have made the adjustment seamlessly, both to the new additions and the loss of dear old bolo.  the flock numbers six once again--tumblr (the rooster), sammo (easter egger), pearl and ninja (original silkies), scotty pippen and tony parker.  we pause to remember the TUFlock chickens who have gone on to the great free-range in the sky: soft grey twitter, baby lil' bitz (we barely new ye!), and big black ol' bolo.  thanks for all the eggs and fun.

milk snail enjoying a fall morning

and finally, a bit about the future: dan and i are pleased to be expecting a new HUMAN addition to the TUF to join us in early march 2013!  all is well so far, and of course we will appreciate another TUF hand around to help care for all these crazy creatures. that's why people originally starting having kids anyway, right? more help around the farm?  maybe we can actually start that garden i've been screaming about since the beginning of this whole experiment!

speaking of experiment, and as a final note, here is a picture of the fantastic carrot soup i concocted the other day.  i had also (true to TUF philosophy) used a bunch of farmer's market vegetable odds and ends, and the frozen carcasses of a roasted local duck and chicken, to make a killer-awesome no-waste stock as the base for this soup.  i basically used this recipe, with lemon juice but no zest, a zillion cloves of garlic, and only 1/4 cup of cream, and it came out pretty dang delightful.  and healthy! mostly!

anyway, there is much coming up to discuss, what with the changing seasons, new girls, new food, new future prospects and all.  thank you for reading, Dear Reader, and though i'm clearly not the best at it, i'll renew my efforts to keep y'all posted and document the process!

On Recent Foods

i strongly recommend that folks

should eat a lot of artichokes.

steamed or sauteed, stuffed or dipped,

i am fully arti-whipped.

these were from a local farm,

pricey? yes! but what's the harm

in steaming up a few to see

'bout total veggie luxury.

pull a leaf off, scrape with teeth:

discard, repeat, 'til a wreath

of cast-off leaves rings 'round your plate,

and leaves a heart you're glad you ate.

grass-fed, local, gently raised--

one tastes the plants on which s/he grazed.

within the parthenon of meat,

little lamb chops reign elite.

garlic shards and fresh green beans,

lightly butter-sauced and steamed

lend the taste of summertime

to any plate they touch of mine.

early corn! the sun's warm rays

are captured, into sugar made

and packaged into rows and rows

of tasty kernels. tall it grows,

'til harvested and grilled in foil.

corn demands such little toil--

touched with salt and kissed by butter,

it makes gastronomics flutter.

seek the holy leafy grail?

look no further than sweet kale.

green of leaf, oft veined in red

kale is cabbage, finely bred.

chopped, sauteed and garlic-blessed,

this queen of greens outshines the rest.

Garden/Snake

when i first started writing about our TUF attempt, it had a lot to do with coop construction...that was the first step toward ultimately becoming a Totally Urban Farm. another one of our original goals was to build and start a vegetable garden, and almost exactly a year ago, we built the boxes for it on the day we got our first egg. this is what it looked like back then:

then we got focused on the chickens all summer, and it was really hot, and then i was a science teacher for nine months (time consuming, that!), and so the garden boxes filled with weeds and turned into a chicken playground/hot dog wallow...UNTIL THIS WEEKEND.  design revamped, enthusiasm renewed, the TUF garden is within a few weekends' reach!

the 3 original 6'x6' boxes got a 2'x4' inset for easy harvest access. each inset got 2 18" square patio tiles, and the rest of the growing area (84 square feet!) got dug up and covered with hay to get all the weeds out of there.  shortly we will lay down some landscaping cloth, cover it with gravel, cover THAT with local topsoil enriched with our delicious compost, and we will be ready for a fall garden. for real this time!

this space on the side of our our house gets direct morning sun from about 9 am to 3 pm, then is shaded by the house for the rest of the day.  i'm hoping that will be enough sunshine to grow tasty tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers...we are garden virgins for sure, so this will be a learning process. just like everything about the TUF!

speaking of learning experiences: last early june we had a brush with our first Texas Rat Snake, which resulted in the snake making him/herself scarce for the rest of the year.  well, s/he is back.

and now it is more than a brush. it is WAR.  this snake has been stealing the lovely ladies' eggs for the past month, ever since the beginning of may.  "may's snake month," our neighbor once averred, and at the time i was skeptical. no longer.  i am certain that this snake is a significant factor in hampering the as-yet theoretical five-egg day.

my thought is to carefully capture it, constrain it to a pillow case, drive it across 183 and release in a woodsy area. it has probably devoured like a dozen eggs at this point!  i'll go out there, check on the birds, see the carefully crafted deep egg-nests they like to make, but they will be empty.  the other day i caught it in the act of eating one of sammo's eggs.  i made ready to do battle, but the snake dropped the egg (!) and beat it.  and two days ago, as we were putting up the chickens at dusk, we saw it curled in the nesting box.  tumblr was peering at it with great suspicion, and the other ladies were as far away as they could be inside the coop.  we made a heroic joint attempt to capture it, to no avail. snakes always turn out to be surprisingly strong and nimble.

thus, the battle of the rat snake continues, and i will update you, Dear Reader, as developments develop!  and summer is coming right up, with all its time and promise...cooking! grocery store adventures! gardening! more writing!  it's almost, almost here........

TUFiatus Ending I: Cookery

i realized the other day that i COMPLETELY SKIPPED JANUARY.  i just missed it!  zip, bam, january good bye.  so i guess it's accurate to say that we have been on hiatus a bit here at the TUF, working on schedules and jobs and life and growth.  there's much to catch up on from the kitchen and the yard! so here is part one of the two part "End of TUFiatus."

happy 2012, year of the water dragon, by the way. late but sincere!

the original goals of the Totally Urban Farm still stand, though cooking has become a less frequent activity since eating together is less common of late.  we tend to fend for ourselves during the week due to our different schedules, and when we do have our weekly common nights off, it often results in some dinner adventure out on the town! i may have to do a run down of these local dinner adventures in a near-future post. but, we have been making an effort to shop and cook more at home, as such excursions get a bit rich on many levels. and of course cooking together is a rare delight anymore!

the deliciousity pictured above is a butternut squash home-made turkey-helper concoction.  a pound of lean ground turkey was browned, then combined with penne pasta, chicken broth, seasonings, and the diced flesh of a medium sized butternut squash.  all this, brought to a boil, covered, and left to simmer for 30-45 minutes, rendered a delicious pasta dish.  but then it got ridiculous.


as demonstrated in a previous discussion of the butternut squash, dan has traditionally viewed the gourd as decorative rather than edible.  having discovered the butternut goodness, however, he resolves this decoration vs. real vegetable problem by doing stuff like this:

squashman, as he came to be known, hung out while everything was simmering. he then was stuffed and surrounded with his own flesh, now transformed into turkey penne tastiness.  wooden skewers helped to keep his head on during the (about 30 minute) baking process.  in retrospect, it would have been good to have given squashman a pre-bake, as he himself was still a bit overly firm when the casserole was heated through.  but i tell you what....with a green salad on the side and a sprinkle of goat cheez over all, squashman was MOST delicious.

i've been trying to cook more just for myself lately, since when left to my own devices i tend to be a snacker and grazer in the evening, which is really not the best way to go.  i have been exercising quite regularly, and have been enjoying the benefits of that.  let's hear it for wii fitness games!  EA sports active! if you have a wii and won't exercise unless it is SO convenient that you have absolutely no excuse not to, get that game.  it's fabulous. but i digress.

naturally, i am drawn to dinnery egg dishes, as we have quite a few eggs from the dear ladies in the back yard. they are delicious and quick!  this was my first attempt at a single-egg omelette; i received a tiny perfect-sized cast iron skillet for xmas in a "skillet chocolate chip cookie" kit, and i am determined to make the tiniest, most delicate silkie-egg omelettes with it.  this one ended up being mostly just scrambled egg.  but with goatcheez (my favorite) and a spinach/mozzerella/cherry tomato/balsamic vinaigrette little salad, it was a perfect and nearly instant evening repast.

another night, i tried two small over-easy eggs over quinoa and black beans, made spicy with salsa!  with a salad once again alongside, it was super delish and rather healthy. and quinoa is quickly becoming my favorite grain.

finally, sometimes you have to have pancakes for dinner, as dan and i did one night recently.  nearly instant comfort food.  i like to make them small and light...one should have to glue them to the plate with syrup and butter, lest they fly off! dan likes to arrange his artfully, with a cascade of syrup:

and that's pretty much it from the TUFkitchen recently!  stay tuned for TUFiatus Ending II: Chickenry.  as always, thank you for reading, Dear Reader.

Lately on the TUF

traditionally, i have maintained a tenacious loathing of all vegetables that share the pepper/chili family.  it is well documented by those close to me how vehemently and for how long i have opposed peppers and chilies in my food.  this is particularly notable, as there are almost no other foods in the WORLD that have given my appetite such pause.  in just the past few months, however, i have noted the end of this preference phenomenon.

case in point: we went to the downtown farmer's market yesterday for the first time in a while, much to the dogs' collective thrill!  there was a riot of colorful vegetables out in force, with some tantalizing signs of the cooler weather (!) harvest to come.  this time, i was completely dazzled by the peppers and chilies offered up by booth after booth at the market.  i could not believe the diversity of shapes, colors, and sizes--piles and piles of vibrant shiny peppers!  i wanted to swim in them, roll in them like the ball pit at the children's amusement park.  i nearly seized and devoured a bag of impossibly beautiful small specimens labeled "scotch bonnet chilies," but dan (forever the logical realist) informed me that those may be some of the spiciest chilies available, and would turn my pepper-reverie into a hellish spicemare.  he then gathered a collection of delectable, reasonably-spiced peppers and chilies to turn into his famous buffalo chili for dinner.

when we got home, chili preparation began immediately.  it is an all-day cooking event, after all!  the chili master decided to grill the million chilies and peppers we had acquired.  the ground buffalo browned with the onion and garlic as the chilis became aromatic.  THIS WAS GOING TO RULE.

dan then mixed the grilled goodness with the browned business in the big skillet.  he added some lone star beer, chili spices, and a can of tomato paste.  our eyes burned from the onion and chili chopping, but even with eyes squeezed shut we could smell the deliciousness that was in our future.  simmertime!

in the meantime, we had been incredibly productive before noon, dinner wasn't for many hours, and there was some trout in the fridge that needed immediate attention.  it was grilled quickly and turned into a leisurely weekend lunch.  dan enjoyed his neat, the light seasonings and grilled-flavor enough for him.  being kind of ridiculous, i decided to turn mine into non-traditional fish tacos.  that is: organic lettuce and local goat cheez (purchased mere hours before!), some dill pickle slices, and the flaked grilled trout, on toasted tortillas.  HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

at this point, i'm going to do something kind of odd: i'm going to bring up our compost heap.  i began to discuss it in jest in a previous post, but it's time i gave it some real attention.  the compost heap is pretty amazing, actually--it has gone from a tiny afterthought to a real, dirt producing, waste-reducing entity in our backyard.

we have implemented a tupperware container on the kitchen counter in which we accumulate compostables: vegetable tops, bottoms, guts and peels; coffee grounds; compostable dryer sheets; eggshells; various other (non-greasy, non-meat) bits and pieces.  we also have been composting the guinea pig and rat bedding, and incorporating coop/run hay as well.  after several months of stuff-adding, raking, watering, and waiting, the pile is actively producing lovely dirt.  it leans against the chicken run, and the ladies love the bug-fet it offers.  we are still considering the best way to use the finished dirt, considering our shade/sun gardening challenges; however, it has certainly reduced our landfill contribution.  more on this and gardening as developments develop!

now, back to food.  saturday evening, the chili has been simmering all day, filling our house with chiliful aromas.  dan has his over penne, sprinkled with chopped onions; i have mine over market lettuce greens, with the onions and some creamy chunks of goat cheez (i LOVE the stuff!).  as predicted, IS DELICIOUS.

the million grilled chilis lent an unusual sweetness to the dish.  i can safely say this was the best chili i had ever had IN MY LIFE.  i feel like i say that a lot when i talk about dan's chili; he is a really good cook.

in short: tastes change, seasons change, kitchen scraps change into dirt, and the food around here stays tasty.  thank you for your readership, Dear Reader...more soon!

Double Digits

my loves, it's been HOT.  so hot.  100+ degrees for months hot. fan-broiler setting on toaster oven hot.  worry about your lungs cooking inside you with each breath hot.  we here at the TUF are not ones to complain, but i've been feeling as though Seasonal Affective Disorder in REVERSE has been eating my lunch.  can we go on? can we continue TUFing it out through this chicken panting/face melting/air-conditioner frying/global warming heat wa....



wait!

i walked out this morning for dog and chicken duty, and i noticed that the air had changed.  it was subtle, but it definitely felt....lighter.  like i weighed a tiny bit less, like a barometric pressure change had ruffled my cells.  the chickens seemed particularly buoyant as well, cascading out of the coop noisily.  it felt good to be outside!

i had been cooped up myself for the past few days, fighting off a brief but blustery cold.  i was glad for the long weekend to work through it, and today i feel way better.  after living on the couch for a few days, this breezy double digit day was perfect to help me back into the swing of things.

in the middle of the day we took to the yard to enjoy the air.  not a chicken was panting!  and some bananas had flown in from the neighbor's yard!  cue impromptu chicken party!

sammo surprised us by having a double lay day...TWO beautiful green eggs were waiting for us in the nest box.  double digits=double eggin'!

to cap off this labor day holiday from the heat, we decided to grill some ribs and corn, accompanied by sauteed swiss chard.  for the first time in a very long time, we enjoyed our meal al fresco, balancing our plates on our knees and surveying the Totally Urban Farm from our stairless porch-turned-balcony.  welcome fall!  here's to lower temperatures and more TUFventures!

TUF Grill Worship

there has been much hubbub around the Totally Urban Farm as the lazy summer transitions into school time again.  a big part of the TUFsperiment is learning to consume compassionately on the budget and time schedule of a 'normal' sort of person, whatever that means, so here we go!  back to 'normal!' (i certainly use that term loosely.)

i am excited to start a new gig teaching science at a nearby middle school.  the people i've met and the vibe of the school already tell me that this is exactly what i'm supposed to be doing--i am sure that this new career beginning will support and enhance the TUFness i am trying to develop.

TUF cookery has seen the oven off for months now. (with one exception: one saturday recently had a balmy high temperature of less than 100 degrees, so that evening i went crazy and baked carrot cupcakes, as described at the end of this previous blither.) anyway, this means that the grill is seeing more and more action, and we are getting wilder with our grillsperiments.  it helps to have a partner-in-food who has a preternatural sense of grillism.

i had a fantasy of flat slices of broccoli delicately grilled alongside sweet al-dente carrots. dan made a fantastic attempt, but broccoli anatomy makes flat slices a bit difficult.  however, he did manage to make a delightfully colorful grill surface cover!  it got even better when he slapped on the tasty (wild, line-caught=eco friendly) trout.


the broccoli and carrots went on first for about 25 minutes (covered), and then got shoved over to make room for the trout, which took about 5 minutes a side--skin side up first, of course!  the vegetables could have stayed on a tiny bit longer, but were absolutely delicious as-was.  in fact, the flavor and texture of grilled broccoli represents everything i like about broccoli tempura, but without the guilt-inducing fried-ness and occasionally undercooked intra-broccoli batter!  and cooked carrots are dear in any form, if you ask me.  the trout itself was spectacular.  and those are amy's kitchen organic shells n' cheez.

i've discussed grilled pork before, which, with good (free-range! local!) pork and a light seasoning touch, is one of the best things a carnivore can put in his or her mouth.  i've also discussed grilled purple cabbage and fingerling potatoes.  this time we tried quarters of green cabbage, sprinkled with salt and tarragon, gently doused with apple cider vinegar and olive oil and wrapped up in a foil package.  we also grilled the potatoes in a foil-covered round pan this time, studded with whole garlic cloves and graced with olive oil.

the grill-master also soaked the potatoes for about 30 minutes before grilling, which resulted in a deliciously tender potato texture.  the cabbage went on first, for about 40 minutes, then the potatoes, then the pork.  total prep/cook time? 1.5 hours, including preheating the grill.  total deliciousness? TOTAL.

finally, i am proud to say that the TUFlock has been ramping up egg production of late, even in this relentless heat.  after a slightly extended period of settling in, sammo has begun laying beautiful light green easter eggs, as is typical of her araucana breed.  bolo started laying a week after their arrival on the Totally Urban Farm, and amused us by laying disproportionately diminutive eggs to her rather substantial size.  they are darker brown than the silkie eggs, so we begin to have a lovely variety of shell colors!

twitter and tumblr, the littles, are starting to look like true chickens.  they have quite a bit more to grow, and should be laying by december.  and pearl and ninja remain faithfully adorable and eggtastic.

that's the latest from the TUF...fall gardening is still on our radar, eggs are about to be plentiful enough to give away, and many more adventures await.  thank you for reading, Gentle Reader, and stay tuned!