Chicken and Dumplings

I made a wonderfully delicious dinner Monday night. What made it fantastic was the fact that the chicken was from my own back yard.
At the end of the school year I was gifted 10 chicks from a local kindergarten class. They had hatched them in incubators during the school year and watched as they turned from cute little fluff balls to ugly pullets. Well I was hoping that we would have a 50/50 chance of males to females. I really wanted a few more laying chickens. We have 2 little silky bantams that lay about an egg a day but not enough to feed my family. I just want enough to completely fill my families needs and then be able to give a dozen away to my parents when they come into town. So i am guessing 5 chickens would be great.

Saturday morning I woke up to a rooster call outside my window. Four of the chickens decided that it was their day to crow. My husband and I caught all of them and quickly got them into the freezer. We had already had 3 crowing earlier in the week and had a small roasted bird for each of us for dinner.

I am really disappointed that I don't have more hens. We now have the 2 bantams, one red chicken that really looks like a hen and two more black and white that I am expecting to crow any morning.

The chicken and dumplings turned out delicious the little roosters don't have a lot of meat on them and the flavor is really light. If you like a lot of chicken flavor you need to wait until they are older but our neighbors would be a little upset with us if we had a rooster for very long.

I have 2 in the freezer still and haven't decided what to do with them yet. I need to get the cookbook.

Homeschooling!!!

I am very happy to announce that Sarah is going to be home schooled this year. I was getting her signed up for public school and realized that I kept procrastinating day after day on the paper work. It didn't take me long to realize that I was not at all interested in Sarah attending public school.
She has been in a private school for the last two years. That school Redwood christian school was good school for her except they didn't teach science to college standards. The teachers were wonderful and the expectations of children's behavior was high. Unfortunately we are having to pay for my husbands and my student loans now and just can't afford private school any more.
I am so glad that Jason agreed that we should be able to pull off homeschooling this year. I have almost total freedom when it come to my job and believe that I can find some great classes for Sarah to participate in for socialization.
I have already started her getting ready for school by working on The Rosetta stone for Spanish and starting to learn the piano.
I was surprised to realize how relaxed i had gotten with her education once I was no longer directly responsible for it.
I am glad to be back and glad to be focusing on what is important again. my child and her development into the best young woman that she can be.

Last day with Melanie : (

For the last 3 years my family has been accepting exchange students from all over the world into our little home. We have had visitors from Japan, Korea, China, France and Austria. Everyone has taught us something new and interesting about the world. We love showing them the beauty and diversity of San Francisco.
Today we are taking Melanie to the airport to meet her parents in LA. Melanie is from France and has stayed with us for the last 2 weeks. We have had wonderful adventures with her. Starting with the Golden Gate Bridge a must see even when it's covered with fog. China town was next on our list. We all ate chicken feet fried in a sweet and sour sauce, they were very good except having to eat around the little bones. Fried mini crabs were on the list next fried with the shell and all. I personally didn't like them. I don't like sesame seed and they were fried in a sesame seed batter. Melanie loved the crabs much more than the chicken feet. There are so many sights to see in China town, from the live dragon dancers to the chickens in cages ready to be taken home for fresh supper.
We went on many other adventures in our city and we look forward to bringing others with us to see many many more.
I hope that Melanie and all of our students have had a wonderful experience with us that opened their eyes to the diversity that is San Francisco.
We will miss Melanie very much. She has been a sweet and friendly addition to our family.