Killing time

**WARNING: This post contains graphic photos of dead animals. If you don’t eat meat, I respect that decision, and you won’t hurt my feelings if you skip reading this post. However, my family and I have made the choice eat meat because protein is not only healthy but it tastes good, and I ask you to respect our choices as well. Comments left with the intention of starting a fight or being an asshole will be deleted.

Well I did it, I killed two roosters. It was gross but I did it. If I had to kill another small animal to feed my family I know now I could. I might barf but I could feed my son.
 A friend of mine, T, called me saying she had two roosters she wanted to get rid of and asked if I would like them to eat. I could not pass up on free meat. The only catch I had to slaughter and clean them. I thought "Ok how are you going to figure this out." I called another friend, R, she keeps chickens for eggs and meat and she agreed to teach me how to slaughter them and I offered her some bars of my home made soap for payment for her time. I have never been around chickens before, growing up in the suburbs I always purchased chicken from the grocery store, nice and neat and ready to cook and eat. I found two cat carriers, leather gloves and headed over to T's house with my son. I thought it was important for my son to be 100% aware of what mom was going to do. I told him,"Mom is going to pick up two chickens, she will kill them and we will eat them later." I got to T's house and I had no idea how to even hold a chicken let alone catch one. I'm sure we looked like two weirdos on a comedy show trying to capture these chickens. After about 10 minutes they were in the crates in the back of my jeep.

I arrived at R's house with a dread in me, sort of like a nervousness, like what the fuck did I agree to do. But I could not back out, I mean what was I going to do with two live roosters with no infrastructure to house them. I could not just come home and tell my husband, " SURPRISE!!! Honey we are going to raise chickens starting today!" R got the hatchet out and these lobbers. She told me I had to do the killing myself. I grabbed the hatchet, it was in need of a good sharpening but I made it work. She told me that if I hold the rooster by the feet upside down they don't flail around as much. Then she directed me to the chopping block. I laid the chicken down and hacked its head off. It flapped around without its head. I kept holding on to it as it bled out. I felt like I was a witch from the Salem, MA days about to do some sort of cool spell. I got the second rooster and repeated it.

Next step was R went inside and got her boiling pot of water and poured it into a bucket. She dipped each chicken into the boiling water but was careful not to leave it too long. Then dipped it into the  cold water bucket.

Plucking came next. She did not have a fancy plucking machine. It had to be done by hand. She had an old swing set that had several strings with slip knots tied in them that we placed around the chicken feet. When she slaughters chickens she does several at a time from the looks of it. R placed a wheelbarrow under the chickens to catch the feathers. I kept my leather gloves on and started pulling feathers out as she showed me. I actually thought this part was easy, just a little tedious.

Now the chickens are ready to go inside and have the innards removed. This was the gross part. There was an oil glad by the tail feather that needed to be removed. There is a little pouch  at the neck that needs to be removed and then the guts and organs. R looked at me and said,"You need to use your finger nail to scrape out the lungs." I got all hot and nauseous. I had to turn away and gag. R had to finish up both chickens.

Next step was to wash and bag them. They got cooked down into chicken stock.

A different friend R called me and said her husband got a deer during hunting season and did not have room in their freezer for all of it. She asked if we would be interested in some meat. Again, I could not pass up on free meat so I accepted and when I arrived at her house she had two hind legs of the deer wrapped and waiting for me. I was surprised and how large deer legs are.

My husband and I each broke down our own leg of the deer. We cut some steaks and a roast. The rest we brought it for burger meat and summer sausage

I cut and saved a lot of the fat to make soap with it. I made one sample batch so far and it turned out nice.

We also had several days of extreme cold weather. A couple mornings it was -20 degrees F with -35 windchill. When I was splitting wood I ended up with ice on my bangs and eyelashes.

The sun rises during the cold snap was really cool with hot pinks and purples behind the birch trees.

My son had another birthday and I made him a dinosaur cake. It was my first time making and using a ganache. I'm really happy with the way it turned out as the frosting.

First time on ice skates.