big birds, little birds

It's hard to believe that practically the entire morning went to the birds, but it's the truth! 

No, not the littlest guys. These kept on chirping and diving for berries and asserting their territory in the high branches of the crab apple. Lovely to watch (especially from behind very clean kitchen windows!).

But we did spend a good chunk of time trying to deal with the hiccuping Bresse chicken. We picked up her sister, just to compare.

Then we went after the girl that's in trouble. That was tough. She'd run from one end of the coop to the next and we could not reach her. 

Finally, cornered, she gave up the flight.

Ed held her, we both studied her throat with a flashlight. Nothing obvious.

We felt her front. I was sure I felt the impacted crop. A big bulge in her lower throat. Ed was less convinced. Seems like that's just the neck...

Nevertheless, we rubbed and mushed and massaged and honestly, I'm not sure we helped her at all, but we are without other ideas. Take your chicken to a vet -- you'll say. This is not an easy task. Most vets don't treat single chickens and ones that do aren't exactly standing by, waiting for you to pop in the day before Thanksgiving with a hiccuping bird.

For now, we let her go. She's processing food and so she can't be fully backed up. And hey, the lice situation seems under control on the birds we randomly checked. (Where do they get lice? From other birds. These are avian lice, not interested in your scalp or mine. Thank goodness.)

Breakfast: back to oatmeal. Feeling a tad guilty for abandoning it for more tasty stuff the last few weeks.

And now is the time to get started on the big bird. He is still a little icy under the wings and thighs, but good enough! And very pretty.

In these local farm raised birds, you need to tidy up bits of feathers and anything else that may be less than tasty. Once that's done, it's time for me to spatchcock the guy. This, I think, is the toughest part of the Thanksgiving prep: you take out your good knife (and we dont't really have, nor want a good knife, because we've grown fond of working with our bad ones -- Ed sharpens them regularly and they serve our needs well) and you work through the bones to carve out the back bone (which will be used to make stock tomorrow, only because I don't have time today). Once that's out, you flip the bird and flatten it with your fist. In the end, it looks sort of like this:

(Thank you, Mark Bittman of the NYTimes, for teaching me this method of roasting a bird. It's the one surefire way of getting the breast and the dark meat to come out done at the same time.)

I salt it well to dry brine it overnight in the fridge. I still have the roasting mayo to prepare. That's J. Kenji Lopez-Alt's secret to preparing a Thanksgiving bird. Kenji is an American chef, cookbook author, and food writer (and winner of prestigious awards for incorporating science into his cooking methods) and I trust him to know more about preparing a Thanksgiving meal than I will ever know, even though in my life, I have probably prepared upwards of forty complete Thanksgiving dinners.

For now though, I take a break. Yes, with cookies and coffee..

...but, too, Ed and I drive out to take a hike in a place he's wanted to explore for a long while now, even as I never seem to have the time for it. It's the Hauge Historic District Park (near the town of Perry, Wisconsin). The park surrounds The Hauge Log Church (which is a historic site), but perhaps more importantly, it is on the second highest ridge in our county, giving you remarkable views over the Driftless Area. You possibly know that a good portion of western Wisconsin (and bits of southern Minnesota, eastern Iowa and northern Illinois) was not covered by the last glacier. Blame our highlands to the north and the Great Lakes for stopping the ice flow! Thus this pocket of the Upper Midwest does not have the "drift" that a receding glacier leaves behind. There's lots more to be said about what is in fact here instead, but this goes beyond the scope of a post titled "big birds, little birds." 

The drive here is lovely, and the view? Well, it is said to offer the best sunset in all of Dane County. We're a bit too early for that and we cant really linger for it because of our chicken worries (dusk brings out the predators), nevertheless, everything about this area is deeply peaceful. It's where you really want to be on the day before a Thanksgiving holiday, when the world is cracking up around you and you're feeling like the human race is a bit out of control in so many pockets of this beautiful planet.

(the Hauge Log Church, standing at the center of the park, was built in 1852 by Norwegian immigrants)

(we looked inside...)

(the cemetery stones reflect the presence of Norwegians here in the 19th century)

(the park views? awesome...)

(looking back at the church...)

(to the west -- the nearly setting sun...)

(selfie!)

We return by way of our favorite Thai eatery. Take out food at last! 

You could say I am already behind the cooking schedule for tomorrow's meal. But, the bird is nearly ready for the oven, the other stuff is in my head, ready to be prepped. Tomorrow. Plenty of time in one day to do a big meal. Right?? 

Meanwhile, if you are celebrating the day of Thanksgiving, I hope with all my heart that you have a beautiful one.

With lots of love...