Autumn arrived in the Sky Islands today! I know the Autumnal Equinox was yesterday, but we had our first Fall day today. I saw somewhere that we had 2.6 inches of rain! That was a good rain for us.  We had/have a flash flood warning for today, until 8pm, but it looks like most of the rain is over for tonight. This photo was taken during dusk this evening looking to the South East, what I usually term “down Mexico way”. You can see the remnants of our storm, but it is starting to clear up for the evening.

Today ended up being chicken delivery day. It wasn’t really planned that way, but the majority of our chickens at freezer camp found their way to loving homes. It’s fun to deliver the chickens; people are always so surprised that they look like chickens you might find in the market. I usually say, “Well, yes. We do spend a lot of time cleaning them and trying to package them nicely.” The vacuum sealer really helps with the presentation.

The other fun thing is listening to customers’ plans for their chicken. They almost always share at least one new recipe they want to try. I thought I’d share what we’ve heard lately and give you a couple of links to check out. The first one comes from Sue. She wanted to find a rotisserie chicken recipe for the crock pot. So we ended up trying one that we found that doesn’t require you to place it in the oven to brown, because we like the fewest steps possible for weeknight dinners. You can find the recipe here. If you decide to try it out – do know that your chicken will absolutely fall apart. If you want to remove it in one piece, you’ll need to truss it up. I’ve looked at several other recipes on this site and they seem quite easy and scrumptious! Full disclosure – our chicken was rather a bit big, so it didn’t get as brown all over as her photo shows, but the legs and wings were quite brown and crunchy. I think it probably just needed to go about 20 more minutes, but we were ready to eat and we’re not as picky about the skin being prefect.

Our friend, Nicole, who graciously hosted several chickens at her freezer camp before they went on to loving homes, wants to try a recipe by Jamie Oliver called, “Chicken in Milk”. Now, when she first texted, me that she found this recipe to try, my exact response was “Hmmmm. That doesn’t conjure up the best picture in my mind’s eye.” It still doesn’t, but I looked up his website and it might be worth a try. Here ya go! She’s experimenting on Monday, so we’ll get her full report on it next week. By the looks of Jamie’s photo here, I might be wrapping those leg ends with tinfoil while it bakes. Just sayin’.

Finally, Dixie Lee, who purchased a couple of the smaller birds, told me she found an Armenian Chicken Stew recipe that she wanted to try. I found one here that looks interesting; Harissa, it’s called. At first I remembered her having said “Albanian,” but I couldn’t find anything for an Albanian Chicken Stew. I did, however, find a Chicken stew recipe while searching for Albanian Stew, that I’m going to try making with the remainder of our chicken dinner tonight. In this one, from the SpendWithPennies website, the addition of sweet potato with a finish of heavy cream (we’ll use lactose free milk instead) sounds really interesting. The photo is of the Spend With Pennies stew because the Harissa – while it sounds delish – did not have the best photo. I hope you check them all out! Find a really good pasture raised chicken to use; it makes a world of difference. We have 5 left to sell. Weight begins at over 5.5 lbs and goes up to almost 7! Let us know 🙂

We hope your Autumn weather kicks in soon and that some of these recipes will make your family evening dinners cozy. Let me know if you try any of them and what your experience is. I’m truly interested.
Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

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Today’s Weather: Well – we already touched on that a bit, but the stats follow…. The high today was 64°, but it was 57° when I came home around 2pm. Currently, at 7:47, it is 58° with 96% humidity. winds out of the South Southeast at 4mph, 30% chance of rain, barometric pressure reads 29.68 inHg. Sunrise was at 6:09 and sunset at 6:12… almost exactly 12 hours of daylight.

Egg Report: Sunday – 27 chicken, 2 duck.  Monday – 25 chicken, 2 duck.  Tuesday – 19 chicken, 2 duck. Today too a drastic hit. Sue thinks that they do not like thunder bolts and lightning (very, very frightening)! It was hitting very close to us a various times throughout the day. Could even smell it on occasion.

Fun Photos: Since we have officially said good bye to our summer, I thought I’d just share a couple photos of the last of our bright summer flowers. I’ll be sad when they are all gone.