My Chickies!!

So I graduated from Oregon State University with a degree in General Agriculture, with a minor in Animal science. Not once did I take a poultry class....I kind of regret that now since we are currently raising about 52 baby chicks( only 22 are ours, the rest go to 2 of our friends, eventually) At college most of my my whole world revolved around cattle, anthing that had to do with cattle at OSU, I was there, I was the nutrition officer in the Steer a Year club, treasurer and Vice president in the dairy club, and I worked at the meat lab breaking down and packaging beef carcasses. My classes were on cattle nutrition, and their housing, waste management, their lactation, how their brains worked, and so on. I have never really liked these little feathered things that squak all the time, but they are so stinkin cute when they are only a couple days old, I couldn't help but fall in love!

It's a good thing that Leon's neighbor at the shop is a poultry expert! He used to raise all sorts of  birds, like chickens, and pheasants, and quail. One day Leon was looking up online about the different breeds, and to test Harvey, his neighbor, Leon would ask him about a breed, and Harvey could tell you everything about that bird like how good it layed, or its temperment, and the color of their eggs! He is a chicken genius, and he's like 75 years old or somewhere near there. Good thing too, that he stops by for coffee at least once, mostly twice a day, so we can ask him if we are doing things right :) and for the most part I think we are because they are all still alive!

Apparently brown eggs are better than white eggs, I don't know why, but that is just what people say, so we got mostly brown egg layers, but I think we got 5 white egg layers. Another reason we got mostly brown egg layers is because I doubt Bill and I will be able to consume all the eggs from 22 Chickens, so we will be selling some, and I think the country folk like the brown ones better. Maybe we can get some earthy Eugene people to buy our "farms fresh, free range, brown chicken eggs" that seems to be the popular thing..... I really could care less if they are free range, or farm fresh, I just hate being 1 or 2 eggs short when I'm making cake or cookies, so when they get big I can just go to my fridge and know I will have PLENTY of eggs to choose from :)

And so begins Yong McBirky has a farm E-I-E-I-O...

For everyone concerned with this crammed little box, they now live in a bigger box, so please don't call P.E.T.A. 

Green Tomato Pie

So I do not like tomatoes, but I love ketchup, and pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, and salsa, but I do NOT like tomatoes. However my husband Lone or Bill (depends on who you are, I call him both :) ) was reading Country Side magazine, and they had an article about Green Tomato Pie, he was intrigued.....but I dont like tomatoes!! Well I decided it would be kinda fun to just say that I have made and tasted a green tomato pie :) A month or so passed, and Fall was arriving, and so was the frost, and I hadn't picked any green tomatoes yet, so I thought I had missed my opportunity, until Leon told me he doesn't think the frost got the tomatoes bad at all because they were not mushy, so we picked some a few days ago, and I Googled a recipe, here is the recipe I used http://southernfood.about.com/od/tomatoes/r/bl40625f.htm
So  Leon peeled and I slice the tomatoes, mixed up the spices and sugar, and started cooking them, then Leon took over while I made the pie crust. While it was cooking I just wanted to gobble it up, it smelled so yummmmmmmmmy!!! We made 2 pies.

We took the pies to Leon's sister's house for lunch after church, and we only told her what kind of pie it was, and the adults figured it out while it was being served, but the children didn't know! My niece who is 8 figured it out, but the younger children didn't know, and they liked it! Success!!!!

We took the other pie to our friends house after our evening church service, and my friend and I drove to her house, while our husbands practiced singing for the Christmas service. On our way back I asked my friends 3 year old son if he wanted to eat some tomato pie, and he said, "but I don like matoes", and his mom said, "well you can just have pie then" with a smile. The pie was liked by everyone, some said it was hard to wrap their head around the idea, but they liked it, and I will admit it was hard to wrap my tomato hating head around, but I loved it too!!!! So I'm not sure if I can really say I hate tomatoes anymore.....I don't like the red raw ones, I'll leave it at that :)

I encourage all of you, if anyone is reading this, to try to make green tomato pie, even if you dont like tomatoes.