Soup's On

Morning sunlight reveals this hen is guilty as charged.

This morning when I went out to the yard, I found that the Leghorn chickens had killed one of their own. This did not really surprise me because one of the hens has sported a bloody throat on and off (mostly off) for a few weeks now; however, it did irritate me. These white egg layers have been consistently producing jumbo size eggs, even through the winter months, so we're sorry to lose a good laying hen.

This hen was caught red-feathered, as it were.

On the bright side, the night had been quite cool so I had no qualms about picking up the hen to pluck her for our stew pot. Given the sub-freezing temperature, several of her feathers resisted plucking and I'm afraid that it will be easiest and quickest to simply skin her before cooking. Now that I understand that animal fats are good for us to eat, especially the tasty ones--chicken skin, bacon, butter from unpasteurized cream--I resent losing this tasty treat, but it won't go to waste. Someone will get to eat it.

Mmm mmm, chicken is on today's Sunday dinner menu.