Chickens and cherries and milk - OH MY!

The past several days have been a flurry of fun and exciting food options.  We finally decided to tackle the adventure of backyard chickens.  In these times it's really quite common.  The decision was made to get fully grown, already laying hens so that we could enjoy the benefits of eggs right away.

   

 

These ladies are extremely calm, tame, and just love to be around people.  Which is unusual to us since our CA chickens were very skidish and you couldn't get close to them.

You can sit down on the ground and they'll just come right up to you and jump on your lap.  Autumn and Will have already named them.  Let's see if I can remember them all - Checkers, Ruby, Crow, Fish, Carmel, and I think the last black one is Raven.

This is where we found William yesterday morning.  Quietly communing with the hens.  When asked what he was doing he said, 'chicken love'.

Obviously they needed a place to live, not just roaming our yard.

So Tim and Autumn set to work on making them a fenced in yard and

sheltered coop. This coop was put together in a couple of hours with

completely free and collected wood. Not a bad deal for the cost of some

screws.

Yesterday we headed up to Emmett for cherry picking at Rocky Point

Orchard.

I can't even describe the excitement I had when I saw the 

hundreds of cherry trees just overloaded and dripping with

bright red cherries.  It was awesome and I felt like I had 

died and gone to heaven.  I just wanted park myself there

and live in the cherry trees.

There were millions of them just clustered up like grapes.

Don't you know that the couple who picks together stays 

together???

Until one of them gets distracted by an abnormally shaped 

fruit.

Then all bets are off and harmoniously picking fresh fruit is 

forgotten about while said person attempts to dispose of the 

poor misshapen fruit.

ANYHOW - Will and Autumn were loving the cherry picking

experience.  Autumn had tried to stay home, but we made 

her come along and she was happy she did.  The little cherry

clusters were perfect picking for Will because so many of 

them were right at his height.

I think we've found another annual event.  Apple picking in

the fall and cherry picking in the early summer.

We ended up with about 25 lbs of cherries.  One of the best

parts?  A little more than a dollar a pound!  The stores sell 

them for a minimum of 2.50 - 5.00 per lb.  I also got a 

cherry pitter so that I can freeze a bunch of them for later on.

I have been searching for a little while for a local raw milk source.

Not an easy task.  It takes quite a bit to get a license for to

sell raw cow milk.  I finally found it.  Saint John's Organic Farm.

To say that I was excited was an understatement.  Since we were

already planning on going to Emmett for cherries, we called

and asked if we could come by their farm to see what they had.

I'm so glad we did.  Take a look at their website.  It's a family

run farm.  They raise all of their cattle from birth to processing

on a purely grass fed diet.  She said that their cows have not had

grain for the past nine years.  She graciously offered us a sample

(of 2.5 gallons!) of their raw milk, some soup bones and a sirloin

steak.  They have a 'buyers club' that we could get involved in

and I think we will try and work that out.

So, last night I made ice cream with our milk and cream 

skimmed off the top, egg yolks from our backyard hens,

cherries we picked, pecans and pure maple syrup.  It tasted 

like REAL ice cream.  Imagine that.

The fun didn't stop.  This morning I took Autumn and Will

to the Kuna farmer's market AND the huge Capitol city market

in downtown Boise.  Check out my bounty.

Comments

[jords]

im so jealous your guys summer is so packed with fun hahah
im just stuck at home

[Tim]

Let me tell you people, that ice cream was GOOD! and no sugar added! That property with the cherry orchard was unreal.