The chickens have had a rough week. It rained pretty much solidly for three days, and then last night gale force winds came blowing in. It was the kind of night when it is good to stay in and have some Japanese vegetable soup!
I mixed a couple of recipes, and improvised, for this delicious soup. Made dashi (broth) with the kelp and bonito flakes. Roasted chicken and carrots and leeks, the first step for ramen. Cut up a bunch of other ingredients: mushrooms, Japanese yam, more carrots, green onions, and threw them in a pot with the dashi, soy sauce, more ginger, miso (why not), and sake (why not indeed!) I added the shredded chicken breast and roasted vegetables and in the last few minutes, some chopped kale. So good. Steve drank the broth from the bowl when the veggies and chicken were gone, always the BEST test of a soup.
And I made a side dish I’ve been thinking about for a few days, as I’ve stared down the eggplant I bought at the market on Sunday. Eggplant massaged with salt, left to sit 15 minutes, then rinsed and the water squeezed out. It doesn’t sound like something you do to eggplant. But it worked! The eggplant slices basically turned into mushrooms! Then it’s served with slivers of ginger and shiso, which I didn’t have, but I did have parsley. It would be great on crackers, but was also good as a side dish.
Oh, yeah, the chickens. I really wanted to move them yesterday, looking at the forecast. But that didn’t work (I chased them for ten minutes, the door blew open and two got out, and that was the end of it.)
Today, though, it was easy as pie. There was a blizzard going outside and snow blowing sideways. Their water was completely frozen solid, as was their food. In fact, the coop door was frozen shut until I broke the ice. They took a peek outside, then cuddled up– or huddled up– on their perch. All we had to do was open the front door and grab them (Steve did that– he is not as gentle with the chickens as I am, or as freaked out by their squawking) and throw them in the cage. We drove them to the barn, where he grabbed them from the cage and tossed them in the chicken area.
Where they started pecking the other chickens immediately. Two of the other chickens were outside sitting in a big pine tree, and in a matter of minutes, outnumbered and outsized, the other two went out to the tree. My chickens had full ownership of the large coop.
Steve’s going to get wood and fencing now. We’ll be either dividing the current coop in two, or cordoning off another area of the old pig barn for my chickens to use. Next year I’d like to get three more chickens, bringing the number to eight. I’m thinking if they start in the barn with the five, they might do OK. I’ll get the same breed to encourage cohabitation. We’ll see how it goes.