Mayo and Holidays

Goat milk at this time of year is particularly good.  The girls have plenty of green feed, in addition to the alfalfa and grain they get all year round, and the milk is so creamy it's almost yellow.  It makes heavenly chevre or feta.  The girls have also upped their production.  Milking only once a day, I'm still bringing up two gallons every morning.  Before I acquired enough gallon glass jars, I used to put the milk into multiple empty plastic mayonnaise jars.  One of Steve's funniest one-liners was a time he opened the refrigerator as he made a sandwich, stood there for a minute looking at the wall of white, and said, "Will the real mayonnaise please step forward."  It still cracks me up.

I think Rocket is about to "go on holiday."  (That was a euphemism in the movie "Chicken Run" for dying.)  A long time ago, my son Pete called from southern California and asked if I could take in another chicken.  My grandson Jake's class (first grade?) had hatched chicks, it was the end of the school year, and they had these little creatures that now needed homes.  (Poor planning on the teacher's part.)  Jake volunteered to take one, but Pete lived in an apartment.  I agreed to adopt this orphan and Pete and Jake drove the five hundred miles...Pete stopping periodically to let the tiny chick out to exercise.  He remembered we had done this with the dogs when we moved to Sacramento, and I didn't have the heart to tell him the chick would have been just fine in the box the whole time.  Jake introduced me to Rachel, and we got her settled into the flock.  I later had to explain to Jake that I'd had to rename Rachel as Rocky.  "Dad, Grandma says that Rachel is a boy!"  I hatched a clutch of eggs sometime after Rocky had begun to enjoy his rooster privileges, and one of his progeny was as white as he...evidently some Leghorn in the heritage.  Since it takes a professional to determine the sex of a chick, and I'm not, I named this chick a unisex Rocket...could have gone either way.  Rocket turned out to be a hen, and she's been a good producer of brown eggs.  Jake will be sixteen this year, so Rocket has had a good long life.  She's the only white chicken in a flock of brown, red, and black and white hens, and I'll miss her when she goes...on holiday.