Chickens

In theory (we thought) there are two easy ways to be sure of getting some protein into our home-grown diet:

1. Fish
2. Chickens

Originally the shack had been a fish farm, so fish seemed to be the obvious choice to start with, but unfortunately ground subsidence has cracked the ponds and they no longer hold water - so fish production is on hold until the little issue of leaky ponds gets resolved.

On to Plan B: Chickens.  We tried the market (day old chicks for a lira apiece - no staying power! None of them had any will to live).

Then we tried the neighbours: full of promises but no delivery - the promised chickens failed to materialise

Then I tried the butcher's wife, generally a reliable source for nearly everything, but she too, got distracted and hasn't got round to it yet.

Finally I asked the feed man, who told me about a customer (I'm going to call her the chicken lady) who wanted to sell her chickens, and today I visited her house, and we are now the proud owners of 6 chickens.  The chicken lady and I are the same age, and we got along famously.  Her son and Moroccan (French-speaking) expectant daughter-in-law live at home with her, but she recently lost her husband, and wants to go and visit (possibly permanently) with her daughter who lives on the South Coast, but she can't leave the chickens, and the neighbours and daughter-in-law are not sufficiently diligent in taking care of them when she's away, so she's been looking for good homes for them.  So we had coffee together and I was vetted and scrutinised, and eventually I must have passed the test, because only then was I invited to go and see the chickens! We were introduced, and I wrote down their names.

They were gently collected up, the chosen ones gathered up and popped into a sack, I paid, we said goodbye and the chickens and I came home.

CT