Well, I haven't posted here in some time. I was sick, but I did not die. Maybe next time.
Thanks to the rains, we finally have some winter weeds and grass. Chickens love this forage. They especially love the wild mustard weed and the wild hollyhocks. The winter grass is mostly wild oats and fox tail, what the Mexicans call zacate de agua.
You want to stop giving them the foxtail when it makes a seed head. That hangs up in the throat sometimes.
My chickens have picked my backyard down to nothing. So, we have taken to pulling weeds in the alleys for them. The other day we were in an alley pulling weeds, and some prim and proper White lady looks over the fence like she has just caught her first weed thieves.
We were pulling the wild hollyhock, which the Mexicans call malva. The chickens love it, and the more they eat of it, the less they eat of the expensive store bought chicken feed.
The lady said to me "Times are tough now days." I answered "Yes times are really tough now." Then she asked how we cook that. I told her we just boil it like spinach.
When we were kids, our folks used to cook it that way and make us eat it as a laxative. It was pretty awful, but the alternative was an enema, so we ate it.
I have a feeling that lady is in for a moving experience.
Rufus
