1-18-10

AARON'S NEW GLASSES
CHICKEN COOP













MALLORY OUR NEW CABINMATE

We made some more pocohicara, but we haven't tasted it yet. It takes a long time to brew and we were so worn out by the time it finished we didn't have any energy left to try it. Tomorrow at breakfast will be a wonderful time to try it.

Mallory, our new friend, got roped into making a coon skin hat. The dogs apparently found a racoon carcass and Lara was eager to teach someone how to skin the hide and make it into a hat. That Lara, she sure loves wildcrafting. So they skinned it and Mallory was kind of into it but kind of grossed out by it altogether. This morning we saw her outside cleaning the hide with water and a salt mixture to dry it out. She laid it carefully on an angled rock so it could dry evenly, but when we all returned from working this morning, it was gone. Presumably some animal got excited and stole it. We think Mallory is slightly happy because now she doesn't have to go through with coonskin hat-making anymore, but probably slightly sad because after all, skinning the hide was probably the worst part. If the hide turns up, we'll see what happens.

Today Jen worked with Mallory on putting wire up around the new chicken coop Paul built. Which reminds us of a cheesy joke we heard...

Q: "Why does a chicken coop only have two doors?"

A: "Because if it had four doors, it would be a chicken sedan."

But enough jokes, back to business. First they dug out all the manure that was in the area in order to lay a proper foundation of dirt. The dirt may have also contained considerable amounts of goat shit so the digging may have been all for naught. The next step was to lay down a thick layer of sand, which was gathered using a wheel barrel from way down yonder that hill over there. Fencing was next measured then cut and attached to the floor, and four sides using a hammer stapler. It was further secured with larger fence staples and additional hammers. The assignment took all day but damn that's a handsome looking coop. The chickens were happy to have a new larger home, but then again, the chickens seem super happy when we give them our moldy, rotten vegetable scraps. So you know, maybe their standards aren't too high.

Aaron worked with Bill clearing and stacking logs we cut down last week bringing them to the saw mill using a tractor and chain. We got the knack of it down after a while and made a very, very large pile. Lots and lots of milling to come this week with that pile.

For dinner we tried to make crepes; they came out a little thicker than we wanted, but they had good flavor. Our recipe claimed we could make 24-26 crepes. We figured for three that was excessive. So we cut the recipe in thirds, hoping to have 7-9. We got 3. And yes, we are sure that 1/3 of 3 eggs is 1 egg. So what went wrong? Gotta be the altitude. High altitude seems to be screwing up our cooking. Or maybe we're just not French. There were two fillings: apples and honey, and a kale/yam/chickpea mixture. To accompany the crepes were fried potatoes. We're trying hard to keep making different foods with the ingredients we have, which remain the same. We think we are succeeding.