ZEN MACHINE GARDEN CHICKENS AND LOCKDOWN

The grass is greener but it hasn't grown too much...yet anyway.  Last week we had about 3 inches of rain and the ground was still pretty wet.  Luckily there wasn't much standing water as the ground and trees soaked it all up.  Next weekend the grass should be ready to mow.  But...

...we had to schedule the Zen Machine to be picked up.  Since there was no rain in the forecast Sunday and Monday, I took it out of the shed and left it here for them to pick up.  In fact, as this posts, it should be on its way to the shop.

You may have seen last weekend, one of the pulleys came off and the drive belt went sideways and started burning.  We watched some videos on replacing that belt and it was a bit more complicated than I could handle right now.  Ordering parts, waiting for them to come in, hoping I could get it right the first time, then if I needed to go in, they are closed to walk ins due to the pandemic...all the while needing it ready for mowing as soon as possible.

Just too much uncertainty.  We have an emergency expense fund just for things like this.  Let's hope it's at least reasonable.

Yes, this is a picture from last weekend but as a reminder, this is what we were getting on the tomatoes.  Birds.  When I was out there Saturday some of the green tomatoes had small pecks on them (guess they don't like green tomatoes) so I decided to take care of that.  I forgot to get a picture but what I did was use the freeze cloth covers to create a tent over the tomato bed.  I put some extra support trellises and used clips to secure it.  

We'll see how THAT works.  

I watered the plants on the porch and since there was nothing else to do, came back into town.  I masked and gloved up and went into a store and picked up some whole chickens and some salad greens.  Our philosophy on roasting chickens is that if we're going to heat up the oven to roast one, why not do two and save the meat for later?  

So that's what we did.  Sometimes we change up seasoning or maybe stuff some herbs inside but this time we went old school.  Butter, salt and pepper.  That's it.  They came out perfect!

We ate one over the course of Saturday evening and Sunday then I took all the meat off the other one and vacuum sealed it for the freezer.

Future meal, ready to go!

We've both been craving a salad and so with the chicken we had a nice mixed greens salad, some boiled eggs (is that weird with chicken? LOL) and 2nd Man made a wonderful vinaigarette with honey, dijon, oil, and some minced herbs.  OMG it was SO good.  We forgot being in quarantine meant not a lot of fresh salad greens.  It's amazing the things you miss.

Send good thoughts that the Zen Machine is not outrageously expensive, ugh.  We're starting our first week back in lockdown, it should be interesting.  We're ready, stocked and prepared once again so we'll just obey the rules and hope for the best.