Keeping Chickens Warm

Even though we live in the South, there is occasionally a stretch of winter days where the weather is unseasonably cold. When it falls to the 20s and below, I turn on the heat lamp in the chicken coop. If you have added backyard chickens to your home site and you live in the South, you may not have given much thought about how to keep chickens warm. After all, it's rarely cold enough to worry about the lower temps. In the spirit of sharing information, I've rounded up some good articles on maintaining chickens in the colder days of winter. I hope you learn something new from them.

Caring for Chickens in Winter

Keeping Chickens Healthy in Cold Weather

Winter Care for Chickens

Happy Roosting during this cold snap!

Love,
TCB

Related Articles:
A Real Organic Egg
Double-Yolk Egg
Strangers in my Backyard

Cookie Time

When you want a cookie, you are willing to do whatever it takes to score the reward.

Hug it out.

Perform tricks for treats.

Happy Hump Day!

Love,
TCB

Baked Spaghetti Casserole

I just quickly peeked at the page views on The Country Belle blog, and I see you all like to learn about new recipes as much as I like cooking them. My recipes veer 180 degrees from each other. They either fall into the delectable Southern put-some-meat-on-my-bones dishes or healthy remove-the-fat-from-my-rumpus recipes. The following recipe falls into the first category, but when you taste it, you'll want to slap your mama. (Not really. DO NOT tell your mama The Country Belle said to slap her.)

This recipe came from my mother-in-law, which she posted in a church cookbook. Do you own a Southern church ladies' cookbook? I think maybe I own 30 by now. If you don't have one, go get yourself one immediately. They contain some of the finest Southern cooking around.

I've just put together a progressive photo montage of the recipe. See how better it looks with each photo?

Baked Spaghetti Casserole

Ingredients:
2 onions, chopped
1 med green bell pepper, chopped
2 1/2 lbs. of ground beef
2 cans tomato soup
1 jar stuffed olives
1 lb. extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
1 lb. thin spaghetti, cooked
2 cans cream of mushroom soup

Brown the onions and pepper in olive oil in a medium-hot, large non-stick skillet. Add ground beef, salt, and pepper and cook until meat is browned. Drain. Add tomato soup, 2 soup cans of water, and olive juice to the skillet. (If you enjoy olives, you can slice them and add to the sauce at this point. My family is totally adverse to olives, but adding the juice is a necessity for great flavor). Simmer until the mixture thickens, about 30-35 minutes. In the meantime, cook the spaghetti according to package directions and drain. Put it in the bottom of two greased 13x9 inch casserole dishes (or one larger casserole dish). Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Next, turn off the heat under the skillet and add the Worcestershire sauce and cheese. Stir until it melts. Divide the meat sauce evenly between the two casserole dishes, layering it over the spaghetti. Top each casserole with a can of cream of mushroom soup. (Hint: Stir the soup in the can until it is easily spreadable over the meat sauce). Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

If you want to save a casserole for the future, you can freeze or refrigerate it before you add the mushroom soup. Bring it to room temperature and add the mushroom soup right before baking.

Baked spaghetti casserole is great for the holidays when you have a big crowd coming to your house to eat.

Merry Christmas!
TCB

Double-Yolk Egg

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about how large my hens' organic eggs are compared to those I've purchased in the store labeled "large." But sometimes the size changes.

Recently, we added three new hens to the flock. They were only 4 months old when we brought them back to our coop from the breeder, so we knew it would be a few weeks before they could lay eggs. Most hens start laying about 6 months old, and we prefer to purchase them when they are close to that age instead of when they are still in the fragile chick stage of life. This week was the first time any of them laid an egg, and as you can see, it sometimes takes a while for their systems to kick into production mode.

See how little one of the new chicken's eggs is on the left? The one on the right is a little larger, but not nearly as big as the older hens' eggs. That will change in time, I feel sure, as it did with the original hens' production.

Most mornings, I eat eggs for breakfast. I thought I'd crack open both of these this morning since one was so tiny. But no need. See what I found in the larger egg?

Twins!

First time I have ever seen this. Have you?

Happy Day!
TCB

No Childish Antics: Leave Christ in the Story

A few years ago, I wrote a devotional for my church's Advent devotion book. Since I had a four-year-old son at the time (and he had a closely competitive four-year-old cousin), I had the perfect, true story to use as background for my writing. A relative reminded me of the story during a recent gathering, so I thought I'd share the Christmas story with you:

Leave Christ in the Story

It has become a Christmas Eve tradition to read the story of Jesus’ birth at our annual family gathering. Since we had two energetic four-year-old boys at last year’s celebration, I decided to tweak our tradition a bit and read the Christmas story from a preschool book. This was a special book to the boys; it was a lift-the-flap book. As many of you know who have children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews of your own, lift-a-flap stories and the surprises that await little fingers under the flap are extra special. 

We made our way through several pages of the book, each boy taking a turn lifting a flap to reveal the angel Gabriel and animals in the stable. When we got to the flap that lifted to reveal the baby Jesus in the manger, a small tussle broke out between the two boys vying to see who could lift this flap. In the struggle, they both grasped the baby Jesus cutout and ripped him right from Mary’s arms! How ironic. Inadvertently, these boys had removed baby Jesus entirely from the “Christmas Story.” 

Oops

How many times have we done the same thing during this most festive time of year? In our mad rush to buy gifts for others and juggle our schedules to attend every Christmas party, we often rip God’s real gift to us right out of our celebrations. Let us remember Jesus’ words in John 10:28 – “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” And that is the most wonderful gift of all. We must be ever careful to leave God’s precious gift to us in all of our holiday celebrations.

With love,

TCB

Happy's Shaming Day

Have you heard about the new book (and website) Dog Shaming?

Since we have sooooooo many shameful days around The Country Belle's house (comes with animal territory), I thought I'd share just one mugshot today.

I keep telling her it's gross and she should stop.

I forbid her to kiss me anymore.

Happy day!

Love,
TCB

Southern Cornbread Dressing

Just in time for Thanksgiving, I have pulled together Mama's recipe for cornbread dressing. Since I am not making it for this year's family feast, I do not have photographs. But what you need to know is that this is not some hoity-toity stuffing with apples and walnuts and such and such. It is simply Southern cornbread dressing with lots of sage, and it is divine.

Mama's Southern Cornbread Dressing

Ingredients:
2 pones* of cornbread** (made a day earlier), crumbled
Stick of butter
1 onion, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped (optional)
one can of cream of chicken soup
chicken broth or chicken stock
pepper (to taste)
2-3 Tbsp. dried sage

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a skillet and saute the onions and celery until soft and translucent.

Put the crumbled cornbread in a large mixing bowl and add the cooked onion mixture, sage, pepper, cream of chicken soup, and enough chicken stock to give it the consistency of the uncooked cornbread you prepared a day earlier (sort of like a lumpy cake mix). You don't want it too runny, but it shouldn't be super thick either.

Pour the dressing into a 9x13 pan and bake it for 40-45 minutes or until it begins to brown and is no longer "jiggly" in the middle (use a knife to check).

This is excellent with your choice of gravy and cranberry sauce or relish.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

TCB

* If you're not Southern and the word "pone" is freaking you out, fear not. It simply means a "loaf" of cornbread.

**If you don't have your own cornbread recipe, see this post for mine.