New Experiences

This morning as I was cutting my son Jason's hair, we talked about the young rooster.  He had begun to breed the other hens, they also had Rodney our main rooster outside waiting for them wherever they went, 2 roosters is too many. Rodney was simply trying to protect his girls, and would get into squables with the younger one.  So we decided  today was the day.  I've always been brought the bird, cleaned and defeathered by my 16 year old son.  Well I decided to do it today, not the death part, but the scalding and plucking.  My son thought it was time I learned, and he took a few pic's along the way. 

If you only knew how this 6 month old rooster lived his happy life.  He got to be raised by Henrietta, the best chicken mom, he snuggled under her with his brother, and learned the ways of a chicken, he got to eat outside, and be fed as much as he wanted everyday, good scraps, plenty of water and fresh air.  He got to go grubbing, and eat grass, take dust baths everyday, and learned about chasing ladies, and courting.  It was a short beautiful life, and ended kindly.  We farmers live an honest life, we know where our food comes from, and  look them in the eye, and love their spirit, and the life they bring to our farm. 

We set up a table with a propane stove and large pot to boil the water for scalding.  Since there was snow on the ground.  I decided it would be most comfortable to just pluck right on the snow.  I dipped for about 30 seconds, and the feathers came out real easily, it did take time to get them all thoroughly out.  Then we cleaned out the innards, and I cleaned the chicken under cold water for a good while to get it real clean and chilled. We decided to slow boil and make soup, so the meat would be good and tender, so far I've added onions, carrots, celery and garlic. 

On a brighter note, I also baked up one of my Cinderella pumkins, picked from the garden in October, and made a pumpkin pie, this one has 6 eggs in it, and is sweetened with our own applegarth bees honey.  I love having food from our land, knowing that all the energy and love we put into the garden and animals, multiplies back to us with nutrition and health.   This is the good life to me.