Silkie Chicken and Busy Kitchen

My kitchen is busy. It's a bit challenging, since it's hot outside so oven use is limited. But, I can do all the prep work!

Like.... this basil:
Yes, that's a TRASH BAG-SIZED PRODUCE BAG of basil.
There are easily 25+ bundles of basil like this one.
It's all getting plucked. The stems get fed to the chickens, and the rest get chopped up by me. Yes, I was watching So You Think You Can Dance. There was nothing else on, and it's a pretty entertaining show to watch when you're doing a boring task like pluckin basil.

In other kitchen projects TO BE DONE ASAP:

• Make raspberry jam.
• Pressure cook the last 8-10lbs of beef from our freezer, and then freeze the cooked, shredded beef (for easier use)
• Make pesto (see above) with the basil and try some with my garlic scapes.
• Test my uber-cool and exciting pie pocket mold.
• Finish shelling my peas and then freeze them.
• Pick, blanch and freeze my spinach.

I also need to make bread, but I have a feeling that might have to wait a bit, you know, given the list of other to-dos. :)

In other news, I've been on the look out for a silkie chicken. My husband reads this blog, and right now his eyebrows are probably up in his hairline. Yes dear. AND, I found someone selling some silkie chicks. They are feathered, so no laundry room chickens! And, I can move the portable coop up to near the other coop so they would be easy to care for. I get to go look this afternoon. They're really inexpensive for silkies, so here's hoping!

If we move, I would have to think about what chickens I could take with me. Assuming we have a limit on how many, we'd probably sell the big coop, and I'd just take the pen with us (and make a smaller coop because there are fewer chickens). All of my chickens lay, so I think I'd probably want the brahma, salmons, and the silkies. They are, by FAR, the most entertaining, personable, and, well, ADORABLE.

The limit in typical city limits was 2-3 hens, but they're revising the limitations currently. That's assuming we end up in a smaller lot... I really think that we'll be on a quarter acre or more, so the limitations are much more in our favor (and possibly not applicable).

So yes, dear husband, I've thought about the consequences to my actions. :)

But seriously, aren't the silkies freakishly cute? I have some extra chicken wire. I think I'd fence in some areas with nasty weeds and throw some bird netting over the top. Let them weed my yard for me!