Chicken Wrangler in Training

"I wanna take her in da house Ma"



It's chicken time again.  Chris and I have been married almost four years, and for one reason or another, we've raised baby chicks three of those years.  Watching their antics as they grow is much more fulfilling than sitting in front of the TV.  Even better, we now watch their antics coupled with our two year old's antics.  Slide anyone? ... Priceless.

This year we are growing our largest flow, a group of five.  Two years ago one of the ladies in our flock of four ended up with a deep voice ("cockadoodledoo") so he got sent to the farm.  As our family grows, we need more eggs, so we'll see how these five do for us, so far, no crowing.

Homeless for a month last year between selling our old house and buying our new one, we lived with my parents.  My Mom fell in love with our chickens, so we left them and the coop with her.  Chris intended to make us a chicken tractor that we could move around the yard, but it's a little too heavy for that. This spring it has served two purposes - holding chickens and entertaining kiddos.

We love our chickens and look forward to getting fresh eggs again soon.  And just let me say it again for all those skeptics, raising chickens is way easier than I ever expected! 

From "Awwww, Nuts" to "Ahh, Nuts!"



If you've read my other blog (which I totally abandoned upon the arrival of kids), you know I had an "Awww, nuts" experience that I blogged about (here).  Well, I'm happy to say my experience on the local foods blog is instead called, "Ahhh, nuts!"  A couple weeks ago my friend sent me the following Craigslist posting.  After reading it, you'll see why I was happy - a local source of nuts!  I only got 5#, wanting to test the quality of the product before buying more, but after tasting them wish I would have just trusted the advertising and gone with more.  They are worth the drive (er, well, they are worth the drive my friend did to pick 'em up for us)!

Pecans Fresh 2012 Organic

Date: 2013-02-24, 11:48AM
Fresh 2012 Organic Pecans. Partially removed, easiest picking of cracked pecans you'll ever do. Every pecans is hand cracked by me so I inspect every pecan. This is not commercially cracked, it's better.

A ton easier than removing native pecans!

5lbs cracked $18

10lbs cracked $34

20lbs cracked $62

40lbs cracked $115

Uncracked in shell $15 per 5lbs

Removed/Shelled $8 lb

Ward 316- 777- 1349

• Location: Mulvane
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

And a new local producers category is created on this website's Wichita Area Local Producers page...NUTS.  Now, I'm still looking for a local source of edible oats - email me if you have one!

This tastes like Grandma's house.



As many of you know, we welcomed an addition to our family late January.  Madeline Elizabeth has made our family of three into a family of four, and we are excited to get to know her better as she grows (and teach her about local food!).



Helping us ease into our new life, many friends generously provided us with tasty meals.  One night Chris said, "It's like going to restaurants, without having to leave our house." Indeed, but it's also like going to Grandma's house.  Why?  One night we received a delivery from a new friend who said, "It's home grown corn."  "Neat," I thought, but didn't realize how special it was until I tasted a spoonful of that corn.  J*U*S*T  L*I*K*E  Grandma's!  The flavor was wonderful and completely unlike any corn from the grocery store.  Chris tasted it, and immediately recalled the first time he had home grown corn as a college student in Oregon.  This is local eating.  Tastes that are so memorable and special that you know when you've had them before, and you remember them.

Local Butter Basics

Homemade Butter & Local Honey - A Tasty Combination!

Chris and I love to host local foods meals.  Each attendee brings something that was produced locally to share.  At our most recent meal some new friends brought homemade butter, which I thought was so fun!  Here's how they made it - apparently it's not an exact science so Chris will be great at making it (he doesn't measure anything) and I might have trouble (I measure all my ingredients!)

Here's the butter making process that was shared with me:

My friends put a small amount of room temperature Hildebrand Farms cream in a mason jar (filling no more than 1/3 of the jar which allows the cream to have room to concuss.)  If you're unfamiliar with this local brand, see this post I wrote previously.  They then started shaking the jar and from their experience (they've done this multiple times), it takes anywhere from 4-15 minutes of pretty constant shaking. Apparently, you know you're close to butter when you hear a sloshing sound, and the sides of the jar are no longer coated with cream. Once you actually see the lump of butter, shake for another couple of minutes to separate more of the buttermilk (but not too long, otherwise the butter gets waxy.)

Next, use a small strainer to drain off the buttermilk (and save it to make pancakes!) then rinse the butter with cold water. Put the butter in a small dish, add some salt (my friend would estimate 1/3 teaspoon for 1/3 of a large mason jar) and mash it around with a spatula.

Finally, the easiest step of all...enjoy! 

In my opinion, this post is a Pinterest "pinnable" post.  Someday I plan to show my little one how butter is made through this fun science experiment using food.