Fred processed 13 chickens on Sunday and I decided to can them. Of course, before I can can the meat, I have to cook it and then debone the chicken, and I prefer to cook the meat by boiling them, and 13 chickens is a lot to boil, so I spent all day yesterday boiling two chickens at a time in the kitchen. It took about two hours for each set of chickens (one in my huge pot, one in the dutch oven) to be done, so I’d take them out of the boiling water, put them in a bowl, and set the bowl in the fridge to cool so I could eventually debone them. Today, I’ll doing the actual canning.
Am I completely fascinating you, or what?
So mid-afternoon, I was standing in the kitchen, about to fish a chicken out of one of the pots, and Hydrox came lumbering in. The kittens like to come into the kitchen when I’m in there to howl at me because MY GOD THEY ARE ALWAYS STARVING WHY MUST I STARVE THEM TO DEATH? I circumvent the howling most mornings by giving them a bowl of chicken broth, and it generally takes them all day to finish off half a pint of chicken broth. They come in, start to howl, get sidetracked by the bowl of broth, and by the time they think to howl again, I’m out of the kitchen and there’s no one to howl at.
(This is my own homemade and canned chicken broth – it is literally water that a chicken has been boiled in, no salt added, no veggies added, just chickeny-tasting water. Except for Miz Poo, every cat in the house enjoys a slurp or two as the day goes on.)
Anyway, Hydrox came in to see if howling at me would net him any kind of food, and as he walked toward me, already howling, I fished the chicken out of the pot with two big serving spoons, and then I lost my grip on the chicken, and that chicken landed on the floor.
Hydrox stopped and stared, and I swear to you, I have never before seen a kitten’s face light up like that. It was as though every dream he’d ever had was suddenly coming true, and his stubby little legs were a BLUR as he tried his hardest to get to that chicken before I could grab it.
Luckily, I was faster than he was, but he was still kind of lucky because a few small pieces of chicken fell off as I lifted the carcass off the floor, and I let him have them.
And if you don’t think he spent the rest of the day following me around hoping that another chicken would magically fall from the sky, you know nothin’ about nothin’.
The Cookies have recovered from their traumatic night at the vet’s and are alternately running around like their tails are on fire, and collapsing in heaps of sleepy cuteness.
I bought this toy, which you hang from a door, at Petsmart last weekend. It’s hanging on the closet door in the Cookie room (during the day, all the cats wander in and out of that room), and every once in a while I hear the sound of leaping kittens as they rediscover the toy hanging there.
Pouty Miss Pink.
This “being cute” business is exhausting work.
Violet and Gus.
Veruca and the hugest ears in the house.
Gus finds it important for all household members to be clean. Except those stinky little kittens; he figures they can take care of themselves.
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Banana phone
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring
Banana phone
I’ve got this feeling, so appealing,
for us to get together and sing. Sing!
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Previously
2008: I guess he’s sensitive about his belly fat.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.