Everything sublime is as difficult as it is rare. Baruch Spinoza

Friday, October 31, 2008

Old Dog

Bill is ancient for a large dog. He will be 15 in February, if he makes it. I doubt he will, but then I thought he was a goner in July, so what do I know when it comes to a force of nature such as Bill. He has lumps all over his body, his hips are shot and he has congestive heart failure, so he can't walk very far without gasping for breath. But he has good days where he still can come to the barn, but mostly he hangs out in or around the house. He loves the nesting bed I bought Howard and that's where he sleeps now. He is still willful and he can at times work up some of the Wild Bill super energy, but that is brief. He is larger than life personality.

Bill isn't too interested in food and he has always been difficult about eating, but he hasn't had any interest for awhile. I discovered that he LOVES the gelled stock of a chicken made in a slow cooker, so now we have slow cooked chicken once a week for Bill's sake. : )

So, this leads me to; What's for Dinner?
I have a whole chicken in the slow cooker. I rub a mixture of coarse salt, dried thyme, oregano and ground black pepper under the skin of the breast. I also place several whole garlic cloves and coarsely chopped onion under the skin. I rub the remainder of the herb mixture over the chicken and stuff the cavity with the leaf end of celery, a couple of garlic cloves and some onion. Put water into the slow cooker, I go about 1/4 up the chicken. Today I put celery cut into large pieces, thickly chopped carrots and onion over the chicken. I leave it cook for about 8 hours on low. We will have the chicken with rice tossed with some butter and lemon pepper and a salad of romaine hearts and one of my last german striped tomatoes drizzled with a purchased poppy seed dressing.

All of this just so Bill can have his stock over his food! Every week I'll come up with a different variation of the 'Bill Chicken'. The sacrifices we make for our pets.

2 comments:

Ashley Dumas said...

Sounds delicious and I know Bill will appreciate the extra effort : ) I had a cat (Stinkbug) who was 16 years old and near the end he would only eat half of one (freshly opened, never the remaining half from the fridge) can of Frisky's shredded beef cat food, warmed in the microwave and served on top of the dryer?! I even tried more expensive foods, people foods, etc... He had his mind set on the Frisky's shredded beef : ) He was the one of the best cats ever. However his impressive longevity was outlasted by Fluffy who lived to 18 and was in pretty good health (relatively speaking) when he was sadly hit by a car in our driveway : ( They both had good lives though and yes the lengths we go or our pets are quite large sometimes but always worth it : ) I hope Bill lives to taste many yummy slow cooker chicken treats.

bye

Ash

Sandra said...

It was delicious and with only two people to feed there is always leftovers. ; )
When cats decide to be fussy it is a problem, but insisting on eating on the dryer is an interesting foible!
Bill gets very excited about his chicken stock, he almost gets as excited as Mark does over food. Did I say that!