Communing with Nana’s Chooks
I have a confession:
I don’t like chooks*.
(*If you are scratching your head, and you’re not from Down Under, see the panel to the right regarding some interpretations of Aussie lingo. If you can’t be bothered, then I’ll tell you: a chook= a chicken/hen/egg producer. And make some time go read the rest… you’ll need it sooner or later!)…
It’s true, you read correctly. I live in the country and I don’t like chooks. It’s not that I don’t think they are very useful animals. I love eggs. I love fresh eggs. And I s’pose chooks are kinda cute in their own feathered, heavyset kinda way. But I just don’t want to keep any. I don’t want to have to see them every day. I should explain…
…
I have filthy chook-related memories from childhood here at Granite Glen … of dipping struggling chooks for stick-fast fleas (we have a river nearby) and inhaling the horrid poison, of dodging bindii and burrs to nervously collect eggs from the hen house from under not-always-friendly egg-warmers, of witnessing the axe falling and then having to pluck warm carcasses for our dinner table. I never could get all the little feathers out, and hated getting a mouthful with a spiky shaft still embedded. Euwww! So therefore I am a big fan of the ready-cooked, feather-free, roasted chickens at the supermarket. And I am also a fan of other people keeping chooks. So I can access fresh eggs. I’m shallow like that…
…
The kids and SSB are constantly trying to persuade to change my mind, but on this I won’t budge. Cause Nana (bless her soul) keeps chooks. And she shares. So we visit and care for Nana’s chooks when she is away, and she gives some of her lovely deep-yellow-yolked eggs to us. Voila!
…
TLW and Dash adore collecting the eggs and attempting to commune with Nana’s feathered friends… shall we see how they went with the latter activity on our most recent visit?
…
It’s true, you read correctly. I live in the country and I don’t like chooks. It’s not that I don’t think they are very useful animals. I love eggs. I love fresh eggs. And I s’pose chooks are kinda cute in their own feathered, heavyset kinda way. But I just don’t want to keep any. I don’t want to have to see them every day. I should explain…
…
I have filthy chook-related memories from childhood here at Granite Glen … of dipping struggling chooks for stick-fast fleas (we have a river nearby) and inhaling the horrid poison, of dodging bindii and burrs to nervously collect eggs from the hen house from under not-always-friendly egg-warmers, of witnessing the axe falling and then having to pluck warm carcasses for our dinner table. I never could get all the little feathers out, and hated getting a mouthful with a spiky shaft still embedded. Euwww! So therefore I am a big fan of the ready-cooked, feather-free, roasted chickens at the supermarket. And I am also a fan of other people keeping chooks. So I can access fresh eggs. I’m shallow like that…
…
The kids and SSB are constantly trying to persuade to change my mind, but on this I won’t budge. Cause Nana (bless her soul) keeps chooks. And she shares. So we visit and care for Nana’s chooks when she is away, and she gives some of her lovely deep-yellow-yolked eggs to us. Voila!
…
TLW and Dash adore collecting the eggs and attempting to commune with Nana’s feathered friends… shall we see how they went with the latter activity on our most recent visit?
…
Hello chook! We are Dash and TLW and we want to be your friends! Don’t run away!
We come bearing grass… and CD’s… do chooks like shiny things Nana??
You must be patient… wait for them to come to you, TLW!
… don’t chase them!
Charming view, I’m sure!
(Anyone want to know where eggs come from? Ignorance, in this case, may be bliss!)
That is a far better view! C’mon chook… Dash is being very patient waiting (with his CD!)… chook, chook, chook!!!
Nearly! Patience… ohhhhh!!!
Chooks. Ignorant flipping things.
What a shame horses can’t lay eggs.
Lucky Nana loves her chooks.
And we heart Nana!
11 Comments
jeanie
You forget also that pestilent fear of other egg gatherers in the chook pen too…
dykewife
wow! similar experiences though i never lived on a farm.
whenever we’d visit friends who farmed i (being the only little child other than my brother who had the good sense to scarper with the men) was sent out to get the eggs. i hate chickens, not because i got pecked, but the smell. i can’t stand the smell of a bird coop of any kind…chicken, pigeon, turkey…it never failed that i’d get out of the coop, have just enough time to latch it closed and then i’d turn around and vomit. that didn’t seem to make any difference to the ones who sent me out there.
i was also the one who had to run after the chicken corpses after they were beheaded. i had to gather them up and take them to the kitchen where mom and auntie were plucking and drawing them. again, the smell was…ewww.
i’ll take my chickens pre-dead, pre-plucked and not having to smell a coop. the same with eggs. i love farm fresh eggs and will buy them if i have a chance to, but i don’t want to be around the coop to get them.
Debby
Chooks poop. A lot. I don’t like that. They draw rats. Tim doesn’t like that. I’d like a couple chickens to minimize poop but provide fresh eggs (they would live long lives with their heads attached). Tim won’t have them around the house. I’d also like one goat. And a calf. But Tim says no. So we eat game meats. God raises ’em, Tim kills ’em. We cut the meat and wrap it.
Bush Babe (of Granite Glen)
Yay… I don’t feel like such an outcast now. I guess I’m just not a poultry kinda gal (or paltry!!). DW, you are a woman after my own heart. Lucky chooks taste so good – when someone else prepares them! I do make a mean red chicken curry… but only when I can get the filets from the deli!!
Deb – are you telling me you ONLY eat game meat?? Really??
Jeanie – that’s right. Snakes. I didn’t want to harp on about the whole Joe Blake thing. Freaks people out.
🙂
BB
Debby
No, not entirely. When we run out of venison, we do begin to buy meat. But a major portion of our diet is venison, turkey, squirrel, etc. About this time of the year, we begin to buy meat at the grocery as we run out of the other(last week, I bought a package of chicken and pollock). Hunting season will begin next month. We can restock the larder. A friend stopped by to tell us that he’d brought home a rattlesnake he’d run over while driving out to a site in the woods. They ate that. Yeah. Me? Haven’t quite gotten that gamey, although it did strike me that with the size of your snakes over there, really, you could bring one as a dish to pass at family reunions, and have plenty for all.
:*D
Bush Babe (of Granite Glen)
Far out man… and I thought we were close to nature!!! You must share some recipes for game meat. I would have no clue…
🙂
BB
Jayne
I love my chooks, they’re Isabrowns like your Mum’s chooks, BB.
Clever little buggers understand what I’m saying, especially when it’s “Get out of the herb garden you fleabags!” And they scurry out right away lol.
Debby
Here’s the thing…I don’t do anything special with it at all. I cook venison just like I cook beef. I don’t do it any differently at all. I have ground venison that I use in place of ground chuck. Roasts that get cooked like beef roasts, steaks like regular beef steaks, etc. etc. etc. Squirrel is mostly a soup meat, and it is a pain to bone. Turkey always gets cooked like a regular turkey except that wild turkey is much, much drier. So you stuff it w/ wild rice or whatever and be generous w/ the butter, rub it down with butter, and then you lay several strips of the best smoked bacon that you can get (we get ours from a country butcher, and the only time that we’ll pay that exorbitant price is when we have a wild turkey), and you baste, baste, baste. The meat comes out with a wonderful smoked flavour. My game recipes are any recipe that YOU probably have on hand. You just substitute game meat.
I'm Julie
Do you call them chooks because of the sound they make? Over here, they say “cluck cluck” or “bwak bwak” depending on where they’re from. 😉 Chook chook makes way more sense.
I agree, I loathe the smell, but we once vacationed on a farm in Germany and when served a freshly laid egg, I nearly didn’t eat it. It was so dark orange and gorgeous I thought it must be chemically altered somehow. Then I tasted it and nearly fainted. That farm wife must’ve thought this Yank was the biggest weirdo she ever met.
Who freaks out over a soft boiled egg?
Suburban American girls, that’s who!
Rhea
That would be hilarious if horses laid eggs instead of chickens. hehe Great idea!
Bronwyn,
I still think chooks are cute, even though Black King & Eagle Eyes (roosters of course) chased me as a 10 year old!