food has a story.......

Farming is hard work. It's taxing on you physically and mentally. Jason and I have been raising our own meat sense year 2 of living here. We began with cows and added meat chickens, turkeys, duck and pig. The first few times our birds were ready, we would drive them to the butcher and pick up the finished package the next morning, all nice and tidy. We decided it was time to butcher the birds ourselves.

We raise birds twice a year making sure we don't have them when it's really HOT or when it's COLD. I sell to whom ever orders in advance and I add more for our family. I lost 14 birds in July to a skunk, while we were camping. Mind you we go camping once a year 'cause it's SO hard to leave the farm and we always take our dog Lucy (black lab) We set a trap and killed the skunk however I'm now 14 birds behind and I had to re-order. So with that said we only had 11 chickens to butcher and 3 turkeys.

We put the stock pot on the burner and heat the water to 150 then hung bailing twin from the barn to hang the birds from. I can't really explain the vibe in the air......Jason and I started getting kind stressed and short with each other. We had read everything there was to read on butchering and we watched every You-tube video we could find. The truth was, we both were unsure of what we were about to do.

You can see it all over Jason's face!

Jason wanted to say a prayer before we started and that seemed to give us some peace. It went really smooth. Some of the kids watched and then helped pluck. We took that time to explain how we love our animals and take care of them and in return they take care of us by building our body's strong and healthy, good clean food, the circle of life. It's amazing how many people are disconnected from their food. They think that there is always going to be food at the store. You already know how I feel about that.

We butchered 5 chickens and 1 turkey that night and saved the rest for the next night. Now we have a system, we know what to expect. It's still not an easy thing to do. It still sort of bothers me, the first bird, and cutting it's throat. I think if it didn't, maybe, there might be something wrong with you, I'm not sure. We love our animals and taking another living creatures life is not easy. I totally understand why some folks choose to be a vegetarian. i was foe a while and then my hair started falling out due to a lack of protein. So I pull up my "farm girl" panties and do what needs to be done-blessings