Chickens and chicken

This afternoon when I got home from work I was greeted by three of our hens who had decided to escape and explore the front lawn. This is not a usual occurance--especially three at once!--and they seemed to know when I got out of the car that this was not where they should be. They took off for the portable fence we have set up under the grape arbor where I let them graze when I'm home (since it's not secure from preditors.) I figured since they were out anyway I might as well get the other two, so all the hens had a happy afternoon of eating blades of grass and dustbathing.

When Ben put them in this evening he found a brown egg in the coop. We think it might be from one of our two Delaware hens that are due to start laying in November or so. Our Buff Orpington also lays brown eggs, but she's quit while she's molting, and this one was quite small. Egg production has tapered off in the last few weeks to about one per day, so maybe it'll start picking up again.

For supper this evening I cooked some of the chicken a friend has donated to our local eating effort, from broilers that they had butchered earlier in the year. I'm not always a huge fan of chicken, but this meat is delicious. I made some stovetop stuffing with some of our sourdough bread, got some corn out of the freezer and made gravy to go with leftover mashed potatoes. It was a meal that needed almost no adaptation to be completely local. I think I would have used black pepper normally, but that's the only change I would have made.

My stuffing recipe:
2 green onions
2 stalks celery
1 T. butter

Chop onions and celery and saute in butter. Meanwhile, mix in bowl
4 slices bread, crumbled
2 eggs
1/4 to 1/2 cup chicken broth
salt to taste

Add to pan with onions and celery. Lower heat, cover, and cook 10-15 minutes or until eggs are cooked through.