Farm Weekends

I finally had a weekend without visitors, all to myself pretty much, sort of. Friday started it all off with a quick stop at the local pub for some fried clams, and too much wine. Apparently country folk and Amish do not cherish the magnificence of a plateful of lightly fried calamari in the same way that I do.  Pity. And you can't find it anywhere near my town, so I'm forced to depress my tastes and accept the simple fried clams, with cocktail sauce.  How bland. But hell, who am I kidding, I absolutely love fried clams.

Saturday I actually slept in... all the way until 7:30 am!  Then I made a loaf of sourdough bread and went work cleaning the house and trying to get caught up on laundry.  I really hate doing laundry.  And I hated scrubbing the entire kitchen floor by hand also. But some things must be done, right?

Sourdough Bread. (P.S. My house isn't crooked - just my photography ...)

Later that day I made a huge pan of baked penne with mushrooms and hot Italian sausage, of which I took no photos because it was that good and it went that fast. Next time...

I greeted Sunday morning sitting at the kitchen table drinking my coffee, and noticing five young roosters sparring in the backyard.  I headed out with the gun, and shot one immediately.  I wanted two of them, but after the first one all the rest were privy to my plan.

I also learned something.  I found that I was able to pluck most of the body feathers quite easily from this young roo, before submerging it into scalding water. It made the job much faster and less messy.  I decided to quarter this bird instead of roasting him whole.  Please don't judge my "quartering a chicken" skills - still learning!

Quartered (sort of)

I said good bye to Sunday with a nice walk through the fields with the goats.  I tried to end the evening by staying awake for an episode of "The Walking Dead," but of course that never happened...