RIP Great Expectations flock

I bought a 10x6x6 dog run from Home Depot recently (Craigslist just wasn't working out, and the chicks were ready to go outside all day long) and had that set up. It's been hot, so the chicks were outside. They really enjoyed it! Scratching, and shyly exploring. It took a few minutes for the last one, Willow, to get out of the box and join her sisters. I left the house and when my roommates got back, they let the dogs out.

Well, the dogs managed to open the door to the run and killed my flock of 5. Willow, Hazel, River (my favorite!), Ganymede (my other favorite), and Loki (suspected rooster) are all dead. It was devastating to come home to. Apparently nobody thought that the dogs, who regularly bring home all manner of dead animals from snakes to birds, needed any supervision whatsoever. I mean, I can't expect anybody else to care about my own personal project, but I guess I expected them to care about five living creatures enough to at least put the dogs in the backyard and close the door again. (The only reason the dogs went out front was because the fenced back yard is closed off from inside the house -- one of the cats keeps escaping, and could be eaten by coyotes -- at night.) Maybe I expected too much?

Anyway, I'm going to a chicken swap meet in late September, and will spend up to then perfecting run, coop, and recipes. I was going to take Loki if s/he turned out to be a rooster (my roommate is afraid of roosters, so I can't keep them. Otherwise I'd like to breed them, but oh well) to swap, but without a chicken, I have to come up with something else to trade. I'm making food instead.

Here's what I have planned:

-Swedish pancakes with a Chantilly-style traditional sweet cream and seasonal berries. Chantilly cream is a whipped cream folded in with sugar and vanilla, originally from France. Swedish Chantilly uses almond extract instead of vanilla. Swedish pancakes are very similar to crepes. The berries will probably be raspberry or blueberry. I'm planning to get the berries from the local farmer's market.

-Savory crepes with a Gruyère-mushroom-spinach filling and a mornay sauce. Gruyère is a very mild cheese that goes well with vegetables and savory dishes. I figured that a lot of people would be bringing deserts, so something with vegetables couldn't go wrong. Mornay is a béchamel sauce (a white sauce) that includes both Gruyère and Parmesan cheeses. I'm hoping to get all of the filling ingredients from a local farmer's market.

-Cucumbers with basil-chive-cream cheese topping. Light and refreshing, slices of cucumber will serve as plates for dollops of cream cheese flavored with lemon juice and fresh herbs. A slice of chive on each one will class it up a bit.

Upon hearing about the death of my flock, one member of the forum stepped up and said that he would just give me a pair of pullets, straight up free. I was shocked, and touched, so I decided right then to bake something in exchange. I was talking to him about his food allergies and apparently he has Celiac disease, so he can't have any gluten. My Gram's Swedish pancake recipe uses wheat flour, so I'll be modifying it to use rice flour instead.

Once I have recipes down for each of these things, I'll post them -- except my family's super-secret-original Swedish pancake recipe, passed down for hundreds of years from Sweden, of course! Swedish pancakes are very similar to crepes, so you can use just about any old crepe recipe you like for the base pancakes, then fold or roll your favorite toppings into them.