I've just been house sitting for some friends who were away interstate, and looking after their 6 chickens, 3 bunnies and assorted fish. They told me before they left that "Every time we go away, at least one animal dies".
So my pessimistic aim was not to kill any on purpose, but hopefully to have less than 2 shuffle off inadvertently. (I had bad childhood memories of the high mortality of my goldfish).
An upside was fresh eggs every day (covered with caca de pollo of course, as per REAL fresh eggs). They may even have been organic.
Anyway on night 5 while feeding the always rather stroppy chickens I was quite disturbed to find that the head count was 2 down. I was imagining how upset their 4 year old would be (she considers them "her chickens"), and wondering if I could get 2 spares chickens snuck in from somewhere (like Israel) and if they would notice.
I spent half an hour researching on the internet how long pinioning of wings lasts for (in case they had flown the coop literally). I even read the legislation around it.
Happily the next morning they had miraculously reappeared. The fact that I had fed them in the dark and the two black chooks were the ones missing made it slightly less miraculous (I did use a torch, but obviously those canny creatures know the nooks and crannies in that hen house much better than me).
The fact that I have yet to use any of them until today is quite beside the point (I left the majority in the fridge there, but bought half a dozen home). Procrasta-baking was needed.
Berry Coconut Muffins
2 ½ cups flour
2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder
90g butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg
½ cup desiccated coconut
1 ¼ cups buttermilk (or to a consistency you are happy with)
150 g fresh or frozen raspberries (or other berry)
Preheat oven to 180. Prepare muffin pans. (Use paper patty pans).
Mix all ingredients together, buttermilk second last and raspberries last (so colour does not bleed).
Spoon mixture into pans, sprinkle with extra coconut.
Bake for approx 20 minutes.
Eat.
Last time I made them the combination of slightly too many berries (yes, you can have too many raspberries) and also because I let the mixture sit in the patty cakes for a while until the oven was free (hey I have flatmates) made the berries settle down the bottom of the muffin. While this made no difference to taste it was pretty disconcerting when I first picked one up because it was so soft and squishy and I thought it might not be cooked properly.
I took them to Bible study, apologising for the "berry cavities", which apparently made an innocent muffin sound like a medical problem (according to the non medical people there).
And medical jargon makes its way into regular conversation AGAIN.....
So I managed to buck the trend and not kill ANY of my friends animals. Hooray for no dead pets!
7 comentarios:
They ALWAYS come back.
And: "Every time we go away, at least one animal dies".
Them saying that is one of the funniest things I have ever heard. SEriously, I might have to steal it for a short story.
I watched over my friends plants one time when she want on vacation. One of the plants died. She actually cried. I felt so bad. I've never gotten that attached to plant to cry over ones death.
[Happily the next morning they had miraculously disappeared.]
You mean to say - Reappeared.
Nice post!
Have you read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver? I love the part where her daughter has the egg-selling business and sells alldifferent coloured eggs... It makes me wanna go out and by a batch of chickens myself. But I don't think a coop would fit in my courtyard.
What about all the chicken babies you ate
K, unfertilised eggs are not chicken babies.
hmm touche. too bad you can't donate these eggs for $10,000 to a really rich couple
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