Cooking in the West

This is the time of year when I occasionally volunteer to do other's chores while they slip away for a day or two for a pre-haying vacation that usually lasts one day and involves a rodeo. Recently, we were tasked with taking care of our daughter's family's two dogs, two cats, 24 fish, 15 chickens, 4 ducks, and a gecko. We averaged one missing duck and one missing chicken per day, so we were really glad when they returned home to relieve us of a miserably failed duty as we had run out of ducks and were quickly running out of chickens. We even stood guard on the deck overlooking the chicken yar...