9.6.21 Passing the cluck

 Remember all those chickens we purchased for fair but didn't make it into the fair because they were light weights? The kids have been feeding them for a few more weeks and they had gotten big. As it was getting to be a real pain to remember to feed them with the kids gone to school each day it was time to harvest them. We had been told it's easy, not a big deal at all. So as one of my labor day- resting- stay home weekend jobs I suggested we harvest chickens. After all it's not so bad?! It has been about 10 years since we harvest chickens here. 

We had some sassy girls who like to threaten to kill, and enjoy speaking of the death of other members of our family. This sounded like a great project for them and their attitudes. Well they were not on board and tried to get out of it. I had to go get pears as I know they are in short supply and did not want to miss out this year. Greg was at home and being the guy who usually takes care of animal disposal I figured come what may they job would get done.

I got a text after several hours stating "the little kids were traumatized but the killing had commenced." Then I got another text asking "how to bag the big birds?" I was thrilled to think the job was going to be done by the time I got home. After all there were only about 14 birds to butcher. However when I said to wrap the birds in plastic, the truth came out that the process had only just begun. 

It was too late to go somewhere else I was almost home. I came home to find 

Yes, those are the youngest kids at home in charge of the final preparation. Yes, the buck or cluck got passed as far down the line as possible, I had Merle with me. They were managing fairly well all things considered. I stepped in, and plucked more feathers from each bird, cleaned off grass and dirt and then wrapped the birds tightly in many rolls of plastic. 

The plucker. Oh the mighty machine. Yes John is feeling a bit under the weather and this was not exactly helping or hurting. All in a days living on our farm.  

Years ago when I was having trouble nursing Bruce I looked and looked for remedies one website suggested the goodness and strength giving of chicken feet broth. Oh I stewed over paying $15.00 for a pair of chicken feet... Greg said no way. Thankfully I did not get chicken feet but today I could have had all I wanted. 

Livy is pretty fearless she was in charge of moving the birds from one process to the next, 

Ultra ironic is the fact the grown lady is taking a food safety class this term in her college classes.  However,  this is what we got and I did make her clean the chickens more than they were doing. 

And final steps in a mere half hour from pen to freezer. Ahh natural chicken. Maybe. These two worked really well thank goodness for a mega huge roll of plastic wrap. So we will freeze them, then wash them some more then pressure them then cook them in recipes. I'm pretty sure the freeze then double cook will rid us of mishaps that may have occurred. And if there's some dirt well what else is new. Oh life on the farm. 

And the fun side note. Today is Harold's first p-day so he called while I was wrapping a chicken. Bruce had another one in hand waiting to be wrapped and was threatening to drop it on the ground. We showed Harold the chaos via video chat. He was laughing and we were too, mostly. He said people have a hard time believing that he comes from such a large family but this may take that prize to a whole new level. You just never know what this many hands will take on in any given day. Life is good we are blessed and we know a new skill as of today and our freezer has a lot of fresh meat. 

This week I told Bruce he was going to be dead meat if he did something naughty. he thought that was a funny phrase, well today he was having fun realizing the chickens were in fact dead meat. Full circle I guess. We are blessed.