T-R-O-U-B-L-E

Does anyone know the song by Travis Tritt… “I smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E” ??

Well that what is happening at my house…

 

 

 

Looks harmless enough right?  Lets take a SLIGHTLY closer look…

 

This my friends is not a welcome visitor.  This is the skunk (please please let there only be one!!) who has been tormenting my yard and my dog for weeks. We set the trap on Sunday.  Sunday night we caught a black cat.  He was VERY scared and as soon as Jon let him out he high tailed it out of here.  I don’t expect to see him again.  Monday night was a dud.  We didn’t catch a darn thing.  And then on Tuesday night we caught this guy.  We first looked at him in the dark and being nocturnal he was going crazy trying to dig his way out.  By the time it was light enough to take a picture, he had settled in for a nice little nap.

 

As I’m sure you have figured out, this is a live trap.  No skunks were hurt in the process of catching, in fact he was rewarded with a yummy snack of ham, sardines, lettuce and cat food.  Not a bad meal for a scavenger.  My cousin came over and placed a blanket over the cage then put the cage in the back of his pick up and dropped him off miles away.  He was still sleeping when he got here and was very calm about the whole ordeal.  He was released and sent on his merry way, he didn’t spray at all!

As you can see we never have a dull day around here!  

Chickens- Week 17

Every weekend I go grocery shopping and quite honestly it is one of my favorite things to do.   I rarely visit an actual grocery store but instead I stop at 3 farm roadside stands, the dry goods store and the meat market.  At each stop I am supporting local foods and local business owners and that makes me feel great about my purchases.

Once I come home with all my goodies I clean out the fridge.  This was my fridge on Saturday.  The tray on the floor contains all the goods that were past their prime which became snacks for the chickens.  Unfortunately there was a lot of waste this week due to some unfortunate off-season fruit purchases. ( PS- don’t buy peaches at the end of September in upstate NY, they really aren’t worth it!)

 Luckily I’m not too disappointed about throwing away food because I can feed it to the chickens.  Now that I by 90% whole foods, most of the waste can be fed to the chickens and they throughly enjoy it!!

 

Sometimes they get a little territorial and feel the need to knock the other chickens out of their way like this:  

 For an extra special treat we fed them the last of a pumpkin cake that I made.  As you can see they forgot all about the veggies when the cake came out! 

Still no eggs, but the boxes are all set up and ready for some action!!

How to roast a chicken in the crock pot

Yesterday was a crazy and stressful day following a long weekend of running around and minimal time at home.  I had/ have so much to do and unfortunately a post didn’t make it up on the blog yesterday.  Luckily I had planned ahead for dinner and I had a great meal on the table in 15 minutes!

A roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and broccoli in 15 minutes?  That is what  I call a good meal!

To make the process super easy I prepped dinner quickly before I left for work.   

 Into the crock pot went 6 potatoes cut into large chunks.  I salt and peppered them lightly once in the crock.

 

Next up I grabbed about a tablespoon of butter and rubbed it all over a small/medium sized whole chicken.

 

Buttered Chicken:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Next up I drizzled in 3/4 of a cup of chicken broth made using Better than Bouillon.  I could sing praises about this stuff all day.  They make other flavors, but I can only vouch for the chicken flavor and it is amazing (just my personal opinion)! 

 

Next up I drizzled the chicken with this locally made Garlic Butter.

 

After the drizzle of Garlic Butter I added some garlic powder, onion powder, sea salt and pepper.

 

 

 

 

 

Set the crock on low and cook for ~8 hours. 

I walked in the door after a stressful day and smelt the comforting smell of a roasted chicken with minimal effort and I knew it was worth the morning preparation, which honestly only took 10-15 minutes  :)

I popped the chicken onto an oven safe pan and into a 400* oven to quickly crisp up the skin (~15 min) and skimmed out the potatoes from the crock pot.  After a quick mash and a bit of milk, the mashed potatoes were ready to go.  I steamed the veggies and pulled the chicken out of the oven and within 15 minutes it looked like Thanksgiving in our home.  Nothing beats a quick home cooked meal!