Chickens!

After my shift today I changed into my normal clothes with the plan of going to our local feed, grain and garden supply to get wood shavings for the critters' bedding and dog food while I was at it. We're in the midst of more inches of rain, so we'll need shavings to keep up with the horse's demand. After I changed, one of my co-workers commented something along the lines of my looking 'farmy' or 'farm-ish'. Not sure on the exact wording, but you get the point. I thought to myself "Damn right!"
And why not?

I arrived at the grain supply to a more bustling scene than usual. Someone was just having their car loaded with some type of bagged grain, another was inside looking over the newly arrived seed supply for the gardens, and another woman was in there looking for some sort of 'medication' for her chickens, some of which were having difficulty walking... What? I didn't ask, but there seems to be a solution out there for something that was allegedly ailing her birds. New to me, apparently.

While the employee was making her way through the store and watching the clock quickly approaching the 5 o'clock closing time she commented out loud about 'everyone' raising chickens now, and sounding very pleased about it. Though I doubt 'everyone' is an accurate account, I am pleased to know that she has noticed an obvious uptick in the number of people raising birds, presumably for home consumption. Isn't it wonderful that more and more people might just be getting a handle on the home-grown, backyard farming thing? It also seemed to me that they had a LOT more seed stock ready for the backyard gardens than in past years. Perhaps the Victory Gardens are making a comeback!

It could just be the inspiration of reading Michael Pollan's books recently that has me jazzed up to try to kick the habit of the Western way of eating, but the books have caused me to take a closer look at just what I am about to jam into my face. I have a long way to go, but I also must pat myself on the back for some of the changes I had made already. It's nice to find recommendations in a book that you have already undertaken.

So, today Mrs had our organic corn chips out on the counter and we started dipping away into the hummus that she also put out. Then something that I read shot into my mind: "It's still a corn chip."

I could do better. I whipped out a carrot and stalk of celery (both organic, but sadly not local, but it's okay) and dipped those into the hummus instead of the chips. Delicious! But what about the hummus? Okay, one of the rules was try to eat things with 5 ingredients or less. Well, this had seven, BUT I recognized and could envision all of them in their raw form which is also one of the rules.
And, I didn't stuff myself. And I took my time masticating. And I stopped when I was feeling like that was plenty, but was not overly full.

Baby steps. Can I pull this off? Am I too brainwashed by almost 40 years of the corporate processed food product American way of eating? How strong am I? Time will tell.

There are some things still in the house here that I cannot get rid of. Too wasteful, but I can NOT replace them when they are gone.

Here's to the mighty chicken and your own Victory Garden.