Chickens Came to Live With Us

We Have Some Chickens!

Well, here we are going into fall and we have our first flock of chickens. I had heard that a gentleman in town was looking to sell a couple of his chickens and so I talked to him about it. JT has been busy building  a coop around the long shed for them to play and he formatted the end of the shed for them as well. It looks pretty good in there! They should be happy chickens once they figure it out.
When the ladies first arrived, they were pretty skittish (I'm sure we were too) and not too sure of what to do when we let them go. It must have been pretty scary for them travelling out of their coop and coming to our small farm.  It's been two days and they seem to have calmed down a bit. This is my very first experience with chickens and I didn't want to pass up the opportunity, we were allowed to keep chickens where we were before but we wanted to wait until we were settled somewhere more permanent.

Watching the chicken coop come together was an interesting experience, figuring out how the snow is going to affect the space, predators and accessibility for us to get to the chickens. The Coop is made out of trees that were cut out of that line in the middle of the yard. JT cut them and quartered them to make the posts. We had found some chicken wire somewhere and ordered some from the internet stores to make sure the ladies would be well protected. The end of the long shed has also been converted to the chicken coop area as well. I'm quite happy with how natural it looks in our yard, like it was meant to be.


It's still quite interesting that we have chickens now, and we have to let Lazarus have a look and sniff out our new backyard pets. He is such an interesting dog, meeting an new animal/critter can go either way with happiness or not at all. He did really well when we brought that little kitten home a couple of years ago so hopefully he'll get used to the chooks as well. He really doesn't have a choice because they are not going anywhere.  It's interesting to watch the animals meet. Have a look at the video in a new tab here (Dog Meets Chickens) I'll tell you right now that we still have our dog AND our chickens, so far.

The ladies really don't care about the dog, if he's loud and anxious at the door of the run the chickens will squawk, flap and go to the other side of the run. The dog has to work a lot harder to bug them at each wall. He's going crazy sniffing at feathers that have fallen out of the coop and smelling us after we have handled the chickens. He really does have a lot of love in him.


The ladies have gotten more comfortable with us coming and going in the coop and they are giving us eggs, we have seven already. I watched a chicken laying an egg the first night that they were here and it was the neatest thing to see. It's amazing how the females of the species just know how to go about the business of giving birth/laying eggs and etc. I find it fascinating that these ladies can do this daily and still carry on until the next time. Finding that first egg was like magic and I'm sure that it will feel that way for some time to come.


It's a real privilege for these chickens to be with us here on the small farm. We thank the ladies daily for giving us eggs and entertainment. The opportunity to learn about keeping chickens and what they like and their habits as animals. I think that these chickens are a perfect fit and i 'm looking forward to getting to know them better.
Chox =)

Fried Green Tomatoes  with Chox TheMuse 

One of my favorite early harvest treats is a perfectly fried green tomato. Like most people, I have first heard about this from the 1991 Movie "Fried Green Tomatoes" I loved the movie so much that I HAD to try this amazing dish that Evelyn Couch brought to Ninny Threadgood for her birthday. They looked like perfect disks of fried goodness and watching Ninny's reaction as she ate one really made me want to try it more.  I owned this movie on VHS but I think it's available on dvd now!

Click my link to check out the movie: Fried Green Tomatoes dvd/blueray 

This dish has taken me a few years to perfect and when I try a new recipe or alter the way I fry these, they don't turn out how I like them so I stick to this one on a regular basis. I get excited for these in the summer when I start to smell the tomatoes growing, they have such an original scent and it makes my mouth water. Here is my recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes and I'll share the link for my video below that if you want to see exactly how I do it. 
 The best way to make this go smoothly is to do your prep work. Get everything ready to go before you turn the pan on. 

Chox's Fried Green Tomatoes

You'll need:  4 - 5  medium - large green tomatoes,  3 bowls with their ingredients, oil for frying, and a wire rack to  drain them on. 

1st bowl:   1/2 cup flour,  1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper

2nd bowl:  2 eggs that have been mixed well with a fork, fork beaten

3rd bowl:  1/4 cup flour,  1/2 cup cornmeal, 1/4 tsp each salt and pepper, any additional spice                        you want to add for flavour. I added a bit of cayenne when I made this today.
 Use the back of a spoon to press the flour and cornmeal together for a better consistency. 

Thinly cut the top and bottom off of your tomato, you don't want to have that tough middle stem part or the skin on the outside of that slice. Having the skin cover the whole slice will make it impossible for the coating to stick to it. 

Now slice your tomatoes to 1/4 inch thick. Try to keep the size consistent and not too thin. If they are too thin, they will get all floppy once fried. We want these to be thick enough to hold up after they are golden brown. 

Get the 3 bowls of ingredients together. Set aside a clean fork for each bowl to keep our areas cleaner as we work through them. 

Pour a bit of oil in the frying pan, enough to coat the bottom of the pan but not too deep and warm the pan up to a medium heat. Now we are ready to start cooking! 

Take your tomato slice and dip both sides (dredge) it in the bowl of flour with your fork, tap off the excess flour and move the tomato to the 2nd bowl with the eggs. 
Using the egg fork, flip the tomato slice gently and cover with egg, lift it up and let the excess egg drip back into the bowl, and move the tomato to the cornmeal bowl. Use the cornmeal fork to flip the tomato over and coat on both sides, lift it up and tap off excess coating and put the tomato in the frying pan. 
I follow a clockwise pattern when I am putting the tomatoes in the pan so I know what one I put in there first. Fry them for a few minutes until they are golden brown and gently flip over. Usually around 4-8 minutes per side, but keep an eye on them and check on them when you see the edges getting brown. Be careful when flipping them over because hot oil might splatter. 
When they are browned on both sides, remove from the pan and set on the wire rack. Make sure that something is under it to catch the oil that drips off. Put the tomatoes with the hot side down on the wire rack and that will help more oil drip off.
 Add a little more oil to the pan as needed and continue with this pattern until you run out of tomatoes or anything in the bowls. 
 This recipe can be adjusted as needed, it depends on how many you are making. I recommend that these are served right away as I don't find them as pleasant when they are cold or re-heated. I hope that you enjoyed this and please check out my video to see exactly how I do this. 

My Video link: Chox's Fried Green Tomato Demo Step by Step 

Until the next adventure,
Chox TheMuse