Catering and our little girl, Sarah

This is the back balcony of Styker Sonoma, a beautiful winery in Alexander Valley. We were fortunate to be the caterer for an event there on Monday night. The wind was crazy so the winery moved the event inside. Well...the buffet and guests were inside, the "kitchen" was outside in the howling wind. The glamorous life of a caterer!

I couldn't believe my luck when my old catering partner, Charlotte Stewart (also the very famous Miss Beadle from Little House on the Prairie) agreed to come and help us to serve!

Unbeknownst to me, Farmer Chef Jeff was out in the "kitchen" taking pictures of our food. One is of the set-up for the "Corn Pups", our famous house-made sausage made into mini corn dogs. We did a full on Barbecue menu with the corn pups, the smoked catfish pate, Texas smoked brisket, smoked chicken, award winning collard greens, mashed sweet potatoes, and for dessert, Southern Lemon Yellow Cake, an old family favorite recipe. (I didn't realize that the light in the kitchen cast such a blue light! Isn't this wild?)





Now about Sarah:

See Sarah
See Sarah Sneeze
See Sarah Sneeze and Sneeze and Sneeze

Our poor little girl, our Bantam Old English Game Bird, is sick. She started sneezing yesterday and I immediately grabbed her and moved her to the sick room, the garage. I have learned that you need to move a sick chicken IMMEDIATELY in order to not get the others sick. We set up a heat lamp for her last night and that seemed to comfort her.

I checked on her again this morning and she was actually worse. Now she sounded as though the problem had dropped into her chest. I had to take Ginger in for her check up (to see if her cancer has returned...NO!!! VERY GOOD NEWS!!!) and told our vet about Sarah. This is the vet that talked me into getting chickens, but for some reason I didn't think he "saw" chickens. It turned out that he does so I came write home and put Sarah in a...paper bag. I wanted to use something I could throw away because if she was coughing and spreading bodily fluids, I didn't want to accidentally take that back to the flock. I went so far as changing my clothes after handling her.

Once at the vet he determined that she has an upper respiratory infection AND sinus infection. I need to give her half a pill twice a day for 10 days. We are going back to Modesto for another benefit on Friday and will need to teach our house sitter how to do it! I pray that she will get better soon. She is a sweet and special girl with an incredible personality. Really...

I will give an update on her as soon as I have news.