Bones

You know those absolutely delicious rotisserie chickens you can get at Costco or the supermarket? They make great quick meal starters. You can eat the chicken as is, or do really yummy things with it like chicken lettuce wraps or chicken tetrazzini.

Once you've eaten the chicken, don't throw those bones away! Use them to make some of the best broth or soup you've ever had! Same goes for a chicken that you've roasted at home.  Those bones have a lot of good stuff left in them.

Here's what's left of the chicken after G.W. and I tore into it like a couple of starving hyenas. It's sitting in the bottom of my stock pot.

 

I didn't use the pan juices from the roasted chicken to make gravy, so I saved them for making this soup. If you refrigerate the pan juices overnight, the fat rises to the top and hardens...

 

...which makes it easy to skim off and throw away.

 

 

True to form, I got so wrapped up in the project that I forgot to take photos of the chicken bones happily cooking.

 

So, here's the process...

 

Put what's left of the rotisserie or roasted chicken into a big pot. Add about 3 quarts of water and the pan juices that you've freed of all the nasty fat that floated to the top.  I also threw in an onion that I cut in half, a few carrots and stalks of celery that I cut into chunks.

 

 

Bring it up to a boil, then simmer it for two or three hours. Then turn the heat off and let it all cool for about an hour.

 

Once it's cooled a little, either use a slotted spoon to scoop out all the vegetables and chicken bones or else pour it through a strainer and into another pot or big bowl.  Throw away the solids.

 

What you've just created is the most flavorful chicken broth ever!  Launch your creative genius and use that broth in your favorite recipe!

 

I used it to make chicken and dumplings. I cut up some of the leftover chicken and put it in the broth along with homemade dumpling noodles. Cooking the dumplings in the broth thickened it up into almost a gravy. Yum!

 

 



 

If you're looking for a recipe with precise measurements and cooking time, I'm sorry that this one isn't it. I tend to cook on the fly. If you would like more detailed information/instructions, please ask and I will do my best to help you out!

 

 



 





Food Storage Friday - How Ready are You?

First, I'm asking for your forgiveness and understanding for my delay in posting this. Thank you!

September is National Preparedness Month. It's a government sponsored awareness campaign to help us understand what we should be doing to get ready in case there is a disaster on a personal, local or national level.

Here's the link to the FEMA website in case you're interested.

FEMA Ready.gov

Even better than the government website is one run by two women who are experts in the field of emergency preparedness. "Food Storage Made Easy" is the brilliant brain child of Jodi and Julie. They began the site as a way to document their journey into food storage. It's one of my favorite resources.

Food Storage Made Easy

This month, Jodi and Julie are running what they call the Seven Day Challenge where they use mock disaster scenarios to help us evaluate how ready we really are. On surprise days in September, they email a "particular emergency situation with tasks and limitations associated with it."  Our test is to survive the scenario under the conditions and limitations specified in that day's challenge.

It's a very good way to see how ready you really are and where there are any holes in the plans and preparations you may have already made.

Seven Day Challenge

Even though it's already well into September, I haven't seen that that the challenge has begun yet, so there is time for you to join in!  All you need to do is provide Jodi and Julie with your email address and you're good to go.

I'm all signed up. I can tell you all right now that I'm probably going to fail each and every challenge because I do not have any water stored up. None. Nor do I have a way to get water in the event of a power failure. Our home has a well that's run by an electric pump. If the power goes out, we have no water.  Even as I'm typing this, I'm getting a little uneasy at the thought.  I could buy some water and store some in barrels, but I've got three horses...they need a lot of water. Hmmmm.....(can you smell the smoke and hear the gears and wheels in my brain as they grind away?)

The Boys are Home at Last!

Our three horses, Kipp, Jesse and Carson arrived yesterday from New Mexico!

Jesse is the paint horse, Kipp is the appaloosa (the white one) and Carson is the palomino (in the background at the stock tank).

They've been kept on a dry lot, so I'm gradually introducing them to the pasture here.

Each of them got about an hour total turnout today. I only put one out at a time figuring it would make it easier to convince the turned out one to come back to the barn if he was out there alone.

Kipp went first. Carson and Jesse did not think it was fair that he got to go out in all that grass.

Jesse was next...

 ...then Carson.

All three did exactly as I'd hoped and stayed close to the barn and their buddies. I had no trouble bringing them back in.

Slowly introducing horses to pasture allows their digestive systems time to adjust to the new food. It helps prevent serious health problems like colic or founder.

Today, they each got about an hour of turnout. Tomorrow, they'll get two hours. Each day they'll get an hour more until they're out all day. I'll only bring them up to the barn at night.

Here's Jesse checking to see if his dinner is in his stall yet. Nope...not yet.

Kipp and Jesse

I'm so happy to have our horses here. We always boarded our horses, so this is a big deal for us to have a place to keep them at home! I've dreamed about this for a few years and now it's really happened!

'Heavy' Metal - or how to create a big vet bill

I love my barn. It's nicer than some of the apartments I've lived in. That being said, it needs some work.

The previous owners had horses and I'm guessing one of the horses cribbed or was a wood-chewer. "Cribbing" is a compulsive behavior some horses develop. They hold onto a solid object with their teeth, then arch their neck, sometimes also taking in gulps of air. This action releases endorphins which trigger the pleasure centers in the brain, so cribbing becomes an addictive habit.

Wood chewing is just that....a horse gnaws on wooden fences, stalls or posts. 

It's thought that boredom and a diet lacking in enough roughage is the cause of both conditions. Wild horses do not exhibit either of these habits, so it is most definitely related to how we are keeping our horses. There are a number of very serious health issues that can result from cribbing and wood chewing, so putting a stop to these habits is a must! Health concerns aside, these habits are extremely destructive to any wood in a barn!

Any-who, the solution the previous owners seem to have settled upon was covering most exposed wood surfaces with strips of aluminum.  I don't know what these metal strips were originally designed for, but I doubt it was for this.  It's very soft, cheap aluminum in L-shaped strips. They used the strips to cover the edges of virtually every wood surface.

You can see it in this photo across the top of the stall wall. (just below the wire fencing)

Despite the fact that they put a nail in about every two inches and at least four on the end of each strip, you can see that the metal has ripped or pulled up, created jagged edges. Near the automatic waterer, the metal rusted which also created dangerous jagged edges.

 

 

To me, this is a disaster in the making...nothing more than a vet bill waiting to happen.

Armed with a screwdriver and a hammer, I went to work prying up each and every nail to remove the metal strips.  I worked at it for hours! I was paranoid about losing a nail on the barn floor, since I am positive one of the horses would find that nail by stepping on it!  I did end up losing track of one nail, though. I'm going to sweep the floor when I'm done and hopefully it will turn up then.

Exhaustion set in before I was able to remove all of the metal. But I did get rid of the most dangerous parts.

 

There were a LOT of nails!

 

 

I'll finish pulling the rest of the metal off today. 



While I was working on that little project, G.W. was upgrading my feed room. I asked him to put in a work table so that I have a place to mix our horses' various supplements and feed.  He designed it with a storage shelf underneath one side and a space on the other side for the bin of Nutrena Safechoice.  He even notched the top to fit around all of the studs! 

 

 

 

 

Our three horses arrive tomorrow! Yay!  There's still work to be done in the barn and on the fencing, but we're ready for the horses!