What I cooked today:
Nothing: The kids were on their own for dinner.. I think they had sandwiches or hot dogs. Too much going on, I really didn't want to deal with food... I hope that doesn't make me too bad... I'll make something good tomorrow! (and to be perfectly honest, I just couldn't make chicken for dinner tonight... see below...)
Update:
Wow... what a day.
So, it was bound to happen sooner or later. As you know, we've had our chicks for about 7 weeks now. We lost one chick to a cat a few weeks ago. And today, we lost another one.
This time, however, it was a little different.
We went out to check on the chicks and one of the Cornish (yes, the big ones that are due to be slaughtered in a few weeks anyway) was sleeping in her box. She didn't get up and eat the scratch grains when I went in to check on them. I thought that was a little weird, but I tried not to think too much of it. We stayed out there for a while, chatting and throwing grains at the chicks. Most of them came out to join us, but this one chick just stayed in her box, looking like she was asleep. I went over and petted her (which usually causes them to get up and run away), and she lifted her head and looked at me, but didn't move.
Not normal.
About this time, Patrick came home and looked at her as well. He decided that there was something wrong. He went over and picked her up. She fluttered a little, and tried to jump out of his hands, but mostly just fell and landed on the ground. Again, not good.
There was something wrong with her. She didn't seem to be eating or drinking, so Patrick made the executive decision. He carried her over behind the shed, and (with me and a friend and Kathryn watching), proceeded to wring it's neck.
He held it in his arms, calmly petting it. It was totally relaxed (or half-dead anyway from whatever was wrong). Then he carefully put his hand around it's neck and quickly spun it around about 6-7 times (just like wringing out a wet towel). It was over quickly and it didn't make any noise. Again, that might be because it was so sick, but it was not too awful. Of course, I did scream a little and hide my eyes. I was expecting to be more prepared, but I'm kind of glad that it happened quickly without any time to think about it.
Once he'd wrung it's neck, he put it on the ground. Yes, it did twitch for another minute or two. I can imagine the image of a chicken with it's head cut off, but we really, really didn't want to deal with blood spurting. Katie actually handled it really well, considering. I asked her if she wanted to leave, but she asked to watch. I wasn't sure if she was ready for this, but apparently, she did just fine. We really should have told the other kids, so they could watch, but it happened so fast, we didn't really think about it.
After it was dead, Patrick wanted to check to make sure there wasn't worms or anything. If there were any obvious problems (assuming that he would recognize and be able to identify those problems), we wanted to know about it.
So, I grabbed a steak knife (we totally need to get a hunting knife or a bowie knife, but a steak knife was all I could find at short notice) and he proceeded to autopsy the bird. He made his lateral cut from the gizzard all the way down the front. There was no food in the gizzard or the intestines. And, it was totally dehydrated. There was NO blood. (okay, there was a very little blood in certain spots, but mostly, nothing). He checked out the liver and spleen, and the liver seemed really enlarged. Not sure what a normal liver looks like, so I'm not sure how he could tell it was enlarged, but I wasn't going to argue with the coroner. He felt around the intestines to make sure no obvious worms or anything.
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We decided that since we didn't know what she was dying from, we didn't want to risk eating the meat. So, he took the bird and tossed it across the road into the field next to our house. I figure the carnivores in the neighborhood will have it gone by tomorrow morning.
On a much lighter note, the kids had a music concert tonight! They each got to perform a few times and they seemed to have a great time. Katie is such a ham! She loves being the center of attention! Connor was a little more reserved, and needs to remember to smile. Allen got to help with the A/V stuff, which made him more nervous that actually playing his instrument. I love that they are getting the experience with performing in front of a crowd so early. By the time they are in high school, they'll be so used to it, they won't be nervous!
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