Mother hen

One of the greatest pleasures I get out of life at the moment, is to sit in the garden in the late afternoon, surrounded by my animals. It gives me huge satisfaction to see the dogs, cats, and chickens interacting peacefully, and when there are chicks it's even better.

A few months ago I managed to get an incubator at an auction. Yes, in small towns in the country we still have the real old-fashioned auctions, where you can buy anything from old cake tins, to second hand tractors. Well, I got an incubator. For eggs, you understand?

First I had to check that the temperature was correct - I still don't know if it's right - three different thermometers, three different temperatures! Then I had to get the humidity right - if you put the humog... humid... hygrometer! in water it should read 100% right? Still don't know if the humidity is right!

To cut a very long story short, when my black hen started sitting on a clutch of eggs, I decided to try with a clutch of my own in the incubator. Eggs need to be turned three times a day, which is what the hen would be doing on the nest, so when I had crisis after crisis which made it impossible to be at home to turn eggs, I kind of gave up on them, but left them in the incubator.

So when the black hen finally hatched a couple of yellow fluffy chicks, I decided it was time to throw the eggs out. I grabbed 3, and was about to go outside with them when I suddenly noticed a tiny piece of shell on the fabric in the incubator. Turned the egg over, and discovered it had a tiny hole in it, and WOW... it started cheeping at me!

I quickly placed it back in the incubator, along with the others, and watched hopefully for a few hours to see what would happen.

Nothing happened.

The next day I finally took the egg out again, the hole was a bit bigger, but no cheeping, and I decided to take a chance on helping it out. One of the problems is, I've read somewhere, that if the humidity isn't right in the last week of incubation, then when the chick tries to emerge from the shell, the head swells and it dies. (Short version) As the humidity had definitely not been right, I thought it was worth taking the chance. So... I chipped at shell, put it down, watched impatiently for 35 seconds, opened up and chipped some more, put it back, watched for 62 seconds, slapped my wrist and told myself to be patient, made a cup of coffee, drank the coffee, opened up, and chipped some more. Finally the whole of the chick was exposed, but still in the shell. No blood. (For anyone reading this blog looking for information about hatching eggs, PLEASE don't do what I did. I sound very blasè abut what I did, but it was after months of gathering information - rather email me to find out more.)

At this stage I HAD to leave the chick alone. It did cheep occasionally, and was breathing, so I knew it was alive, I just didn't know if it was going to survive. I kept returning to the incubator, panicking every time it had moved, and after another 48 hours, finally saw a chick that looked more like a chick, with its eyes open, and yellow fluff! The black hen was still trying to hatch eggs on the nest, so I took the new chick along and put it under her, anxiously watching to see if it was going to accepted or rejected. I didn't reckon on the chick being scared of this unfamiliar creature - it immediately tried to get away. It couldn't go far though, and after another 10 minutes or so, it finally decided that this large black creature offered warmth and was worth the risk!

My black hen now scratches around the garden with 5 yellow chicks. I can't tell which one was my surrogate baby, and she has turned into a fierce mother, even CHASING the dog away from her. And I now have another clutch of eggs in the incubator!

Best foot forward.

I joined a walking group.

This is momentous news, I tell you.

I spent half the day searching for my running shorts, and the other half thinking of excuses not to go. Luckily my search for the shorts was more successful than the search for excuses, so at the due time I trundled off to the meeting point.

There were four of us altogether, two very thin ones, one not so thin one, and me. After greeting each other, and discussing the weather for about 30 nanoseconds, we headed off up the road towards one of the roads that leads out of town to the farms. Three thinner ladies in front, and me. A couple of blocks later I thought it prudent to bring to their attention the fact that my legs were somewhat shorter than theirs, but I don't think anyone heard me. Maybe they were too far away!

After several minutes of speedwalking (for me) and a couple of gulps of water from my water bottle, I managed to overhear them discussing what we'd do when we got to the starting point.
The starting point? Hadn't we just left the starting point? No, no, I was told... that was the MEETING point. The STARTING point was at the edge of the town.

By the time we got to the starting point I was already thinking up excuses for the next day's walk, and then I had no time to think as I watched three women disappear into... well... we were facing the wrong direction for sunset. They simply disappeared. And I bravely carried on walking in the same direction, and caught up with them as they were resting. I was told that the way to lose weight (I thought I was there for the walk!!!) was to alternate walking with clenched buttocks and unclenched buttocks between the telegraph poles. (Not sure if they're still called telegraph poles, but this is Africa, after all) And then they were off again.

So I clenched my teeth, and continued at my steady pace behind them, and actually thoroughly enjoyed it. That was yesterday. Today I told them I didn't have time, as I had to write my blog.
I don't think they understand.

How to make coconut fudge

First, find a nice recipe for coconut ice, and then botch it!
Seriously.
I can't make fudge.
Now, it seems, I can't make coconut ice either. But I managed to make a delicately coloured slightly caramelised coconut confection that would pass all tests for good fudge except for the presence of coconut!

Now, I didn't want to have a blog that turned into a recipe collection (of sorts), but I also know how frustrating it is to find a page full of talk about an item and then nothing to tell you how to achieve it, so here's the recipe.
4 cups sugar
2 cups coconut
1 cup milk
vanilla essence
and a pinch of salt.

The original recipe I read said throw the whole lot into a pan, dissolve the sugar, bring to a boil and simmer for about 7 minutes, and voila! you have coconut ice. I was not (and am still not) convinced that that length cooking would be long enough, so I looked at other recipes which said boil until you get to the softball stage, so that's what I did. Except it started colouring slightly.

Next time I'll leave out the vanilla, and maybe add the teeniest drop of mint, which might give it that ice flavour that I somehow imagine coconut ice should have.
I should add that I don't even LIKE coconut ice, and no, I'm not pregnant!

So now for the more interesting news:
Yesterday, or was it the day before....
I went to feed the chickens, and when I dipped the bucket into the food drum I saw something wriggling around. So I fished it out with the food bucket, and saw the absolutely most gorgeous gecko in the whole world. At first I had no idea what this was, as it was larger than our normal lizards, and a lot slower, but was too small to be a chameleon, and somehow not quite the right shape.

It had lost its tail at some stage in the past. Luckily the chickens weren't around, so I just put the bucket on the ground and had to sort of pour it out as it didn't want to budge, and then went to feed the animals.

As soon as I came into the house I looked it up, and it was a spotted gecko. And I searched for a picture on the Internet to direct you to, but there wasn't ONE that did it justice, so I've been kicking myself ever since, for not having taken a photograph!

Next time I'll know better.

Knotted chicken

Yes, you read that right.... knotted chicken.
And no, it wasn't alive at the time!

A good few months ago I FINALLY got up the courage to slaughter the cockerels, but I'm afraid they were way too old to be the tasty treat they should have been. There were 2 reasons for this: I didn't want to kill them, and I didn't want to eat them. But what's the point in breeding the darn things if all I ever do is feed them?

So, after months of delay I finally got someone else to do the dirty deed, and I cooked them up and put the meat in the freezer, waiting for the day I'd pluck (no pun intended!!) up the courage to eat them. Or the need, and today was the day. I defrosted the chicken, added some vegetables, cooked it all up, and tried some, but it was SOOOOO tough and stringy I needed to try something else. The taste was fine. So I thought of chicken soup, but I'd need to make the meat pieces smaller for that.

And then I had it. The idea, that is. I have one of those gadgets that makes peanut butter. You know the ones - they make smoothies and things, and super smooth mashed potato (which, by the way, you shouldn't try!). So I took it off the wall, dusted it down, and put it into the chicken stew.

And after a while it didn't sound too good. I took a look, and discovered I'd almost seized (ceased?) the thing, as the chicken strings were wrapped around the blades like... well... like when you've tried to vacuum up a ball of wool with one of those push vacuum cleaners. You know the ones?

But I digress. I unravelled the blades, tried again, unravelled the blades, and gave up. I then put the stewp (stoup?) on to reheat, tried to stir it, but first had to unravel the chicken.
Seriously.
The chicken strings had all bunched up into floating balls of meat in a vegetable soup.

Eventually I had something that was vaguely reminiscent of chicken soup, but I'm afraid it wasn't very nice to eat. I guess the dogs will have a treat the next few days. That is, if they can unravel chicken.

So what now...

This is like writing a diary (journal, maybe, to 'mericans), except that anyone can read it! A bit daunting!

I'm a single middle-aged (that covers anything between 35 and 70 - depending on your age) woman, who decided to get out of the rat race and try to get back to basics. So three years ago I gave up the homeloan and the bright lights and the crime and burglar-proofing, and moved to a tiny town in the country, kind of in the middle. Of South Africa, that is.

And what keeps me here? I can see the stars! Actually, there are a lot of things keeping me here, but they change daily. The freedom to walk around at night, live without burglar-proofing, keep chickens in my back yard, and breath clean air. But life is not easy, living in a small rural community, and this is what this blog is about. I think.

I've learned to love unpasteurised, unbottled milk, extra yellow free-range eggs, extra-tough free-range chickens, and fresh home-made bread. In fact, I learned to breed chickens to supply me with some of the above, and I learned to make bread. We don't have instant access to electricians, plumbers, dentists, or veterinary surgeons. So I've learned to do without.
And I'm going to share with you my adventures.