Do you ever wonder what a day is made of. Other than air and time, light and matter. All so different, every day the same but completely different to each of us. How you and I came to be in it, together like this. I think about what a day consists of as I milk the cow, and make the cheese and split and stack the wood and feed the chickens and collect their eggs. And check the traps and feed and tame the peacocks. And train the dogs and move the sheep. Weed the garden and lie in the growing grass just inhaling. I am filled with the polar changes that are yet the same. Awful and awesome. One is Full of awe and the other only Some awe. Awe-full means something dreadful and deeply grim. Awe-some means something wonderful and worth mentioning in inspired and excited manner. yes they are the same really. Two sides of the same coin. The horror with the joy. Does all this awe float about in the air and the light. Imagine if animals did not need sleep. How would our world be if there was no dark. And why do hamburgers have no ham in them?
I know there are answers to these questions but they are not really questions. You or I can goggle them l and get learned answers, like wee have all been madly googling Bastard Minks. But these are some of the questions that run through my mind as I go about my day. Does a bird tip his head upward so his body follows his wings and he soars Up. If he looks down and forgets the soar does he fall? Why is it that Tima my little pig has learnt to open the kitchen door faster than the dogs Who still have trouble pulling a door open, oh they can push inside, but neither of them have taken the time to wiggle their noses into the gap the screen door leaves and fiddle it until their whole nose can get through then their little fat bodyand open the door to get back out. There are no flies on this little piggy. Do the dogs care?
The chickens have been divided now. Layers and older non layers. The non layers will spend a few weeks fattening up and then they will be prepared for the freezer. I know this sounds harsh to some of you but without the big chook house for them to loiter about in and 70 more chickens and ducklings arriving in early May, I cannot carry them now. I cannot stuff them in with the Layers creating overcrowding. The Bastard Minks have forced my hand.
Owl is going to have to dress more summery soon , but it is still not balmy. So she is waiting.
An interesting community of women has quickly put their hands up around my need to cull the old chickens out of the flock. This is the old way. It almost feels like they have been waiting. I need to hunker down, consolidate, strengthen. Develop a more sustainable plan. This summer was going to be tough enough without the Bastard Mink taking an entire floor out of commission. So this interesting trickle of local vibrant gutsy women have raised their capable hard working hands saying I will do this part or this one. We will set up an assembly line. We will all pitch in and teach miss c how to do it. We have been putting chicken on the family tables for generations.
They will hopefully take a share of the dressed chickens home with them for chicken dumplings or stock. I don’t think that the day we do this will be traumatic, or awful. Not awesome either. Just gentle moving of the birds from field to table. The way it should be. The farming way. Food on the table.
Not for a few weeks though.
So, good morning. I do hope all is well with you. And I really, really do hope you find loveliness today. What will your loveliness be I wonder. Some of mine is watching these two calves gambol across the field. I will stalk them today, with my camera.
Your friend on the farmy
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
83 responses to “Full Awe and Some Awe”
killing of some of the chooks does sound hard to people like me but this is your business and without doing what you do your farmy would have no future. So it might sound callous but it is vitally necessary.
I love eating chicken, but when we had a few of our own there was no way that I could have killed them which is why I gave them all to my friend Tam once the bialka (like a polecat) had discovered them here in our garden. I did not like seeing the dead bodies and feathers everywhere.
I would love to be a veggie but I like my meat…..somehow chicken laid in a plastic container in the supermarket bears no resemblance to my chickens….and I know that if I was to see them in the abbatoir I would possibly be very ill….
So to keep the farmy bobbing along it is necessary to do what you have to do and it is good that there are ladies willing to help.
love to you all
You are very honest. This is good. And I think you are aware that the chicken so cleverly placed under plastic in a supermarket fridge was a chicken with feathers once and is actually parts of a dead body. It is good to remember that. I am slowly coming to realise that I cannot eat meat that I have not raised. oops. I just looked out the window and the wind is so high it is sloshing the water out of the pool, I had best go out and make sure the hens shelters are all still in place. Take care.. c
I have been on the chicken line. The best learning I think I can pass on is the huge pot of boiling hot water to plunge the chicken into before you attempt to pluck. It makes the whole deal a lot easier and less fluffy. Use a huge stock pot over a propane burner, or a very large cast iron pot over a wood fire. You need about 145F – use your cheese thermometer. Dunk the chooks by their feet, jiggle them about, lift out, repeat a couple of times till a large wing feather comes out easily. Sorry if you know this already, but so many people try to pluck a bird without scalding and have a dreadful time and never want to try it again.
Thank you Kate, I never knew that tip!
Yes that is how they do it here too, I am instructed to get the big cast iron witches pot down from the barn at the big farm and light a fire under it early that morning. It feels like the right way to do it. c
Who is making the witches hats for all the girls to wear? 😉 Wish I could join you!
We would gladly have you! Maybe one day you can take a trip over and stay in the Coop for a week or so. There are a few people doing this this summer. One at a time of course. Staying for a week and working on the farm. It will be grand.. c
Welcome! Anything to make the job easier, right?
Miss C I am totally in AWE of how you so pragmatically go about raising and caring for all the animals, all the while achieving your self suffiency/sustainability goals, Anybody reading the daily posts just has to realise this is the right way to do it! Part of my everyday loveliness is my visit to the Farmy 🙂 Naughty Owl still languishing inside, she should be on a post guarding the young vege gardens. Enjoy your day. Laura
Oh meant to explain owl. She and her brother are going to be able to take off their scarves soon, what a good idea to put one by each of the chicken tractors.. i will do that today! c
I think you are courageous to be able to be pragmatic about your animals. I remember my grandparents killing their chickens for the table. I am not made for that life but grateful to those of you who are. X
I think that if we are to eat meat, it is important to remember that the meat came from a living animal. So you can give the meal its due. Even remembering your grandparents moving their own chickens from the field to the table will have kept you grounded in that knowledge. I grew up on a beach so i am still learning all these things..c
Better that you and local families get the benefit of the chooks than the bastard mink… or whatever hungry critter comes along next. I imagine it’s not easy to tread that fine line between deliberate, practical farming and compassion. But you do it well. My Pa killed our chooks for the pot when I was a little kid. 40 plus years later I can still recall the smell of freshly scalded chook. I’ve been away for an Easter-ANZAC Day break but have spent a lovely rainy Sydney Sunday catching up on Farmy posts.
I said to the fattening chooks, anyone who lays an egg gets a free pass, but no eggs. The Layers pen inhabitants are laying like crazy though!.. c
I’d stay away from that window, no matter what the owl was wearing.
Morning greg, i will pop over shortly and see what is on the menu for sunday dinner!.. c
This sounds like fun – like a quilting bee. I remember doing this with 6 surplus cockerels out of a total flock of 12, and it took me all day, so bon courage you ladies. I’ve pinched that cheeky owl pic for a poem. Hope you don’t mind.
Love,
ViVx
No, I do not mind. Yes I imagine it will take a whole day but hopefully it will not be too bad with a team. For all the time I spend out here working alone I actually enjoy being part of a team sometimes.. c
I love the word awe–in the past it was akin to wonder–something that just takes your breath away, whether very troubling or very splendid. Unprecedented and amazing, and always a divine expression.
Yes. It is one of those words that we need to pick up and examine every now and then lest it’r significance and versatility is lost..
I am in awe of all you do on a daily basis! Enjoy watching the two calves gambol across the field.
Good morning darling girl, I am thinking of you in your lovely pieces of sunshine today.. I still have not caught those 3 naughty barn hens!!
I hope that is not my fault, and you manage to catch them soon.
Awesome and awful are items that you carry around in your pocket. It’s only when you choose to pull them out and put them to use that they have meaning. It is going to be a beautiful day here and I’ll be peeling logs. Goodmorning.
Peeling logs. What is peeling logs? You do an awful lot of wood chopping for your ovens.. c
Is Peter building a building…peeling logs is hard work…but a log house/building is beautiful!
A house built by his own hands!
✿♥ღLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Peter is a baker, he has a wood fired oven, he makes all sourdough breads..maybe he will come back and solve the puzzle for us.. c
I hope so…it is a mystery!
✿♥ღLinda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Sorry for the delay. Peeling is taking the bark off; I use a draw knife. The logs are for my major project this year; replacing a couple of beams in the basement for the main floor ( it’s a 105 year old house). That is in preparation to take a support wall out on the main floor (another beam) and cut a big hole in the floor. That all so I can build a masonry heater for the house.
Something like this, a combined heater and cook stove, although not quite this configuration and a different facing: http://www.pyromasse.ca/portfolio/berthierville_e.html
Time is pressing; I’ve got maybe a month to prep before the crazy bake season really starts 🙂
Oh right, about firewood. I don’t need anything special for the bake oven; branches, alders, slab wood; hardwood, soft, doesn’t matter. I’m looking for a hot, fast fire. There are a couple of small mills near by and I get their softwood slabs for free; no one will use them in their stoves. The branches from any trees I cut down go to the bake oven, and alders are great for coppicing. Never ending firewood.
Thank you Peter. Now I am up to date. Checked out your new fireplaces too and they look wonderful, I am especially interested in getting a proper wood burning stove into my kitchen so I shall go back and cruise this site again.. If Alders can grow where you are i am sure they will grow here, i have been looking out for a good tree to coppice. I do it with the mulberrries for making charcoal.
Oh yes, alder will/does grow there. Any wet area, so along your ditches. It’s a hardwood and grows quite fast.
good oh..
Mulberry makes nice paper as well.
Our family will be processing our broilers in a few weeks. I used to help my grandmother and aunt but never paid attention to details. My dad will supervise and set up the operation. I can’t believe how many people want to learn how to do this. I don’t want it to be an entertaining show but I feel if we are to be truly connected to our food, it is something we have to do. Not awe-some but not awe-ful. Sounds like you have some great people that will help you–it should be an awe-wakening experience.
I agree completely. I feel deeply uncomfortable about eating meat that I have not raised now. I just don’t trust the big business methods. You and i are so very lucky to be able to raise our own. And don’t you think when you raise and process your own meat you actually eat less of it and there is no waste.. this is itself must surely be a good thing.. Good luck with your chicken day.. c
Just like my garden produce. I work very hard to grow it and don’t want to waste anything!
one of my earliest memorys is of elderly neighbor lady running down our driveway,being chased by headless chicken, quite amusing
what a memory to have!! c
Deep thoughts Celi!
One day we will raise and butcher our chickens. We only know how to do butcher chickens from watching YouTube videos, but one day hope to be surrounded by likeminded folks with the know-how to help us gain the experience needed to do it ourselves. Being part of such a wonderful community is a reality only a few seem to reside.
I will let you know when we do these ones, in case you are able to take a day off and zoom over. I have quite simply never done it so it will be a massive learning experience for me too.. c
My husband and I would both love it!!!! Will just have to wait and see if we can work it out.
I will let you know.. will be in a few weeks yet but while it is still not too hot I hope! c
strange the things we think about.
before i retired i had everyone at work convinced the toilet paper people ran the world.
because we have to have toilet paper,we need a vehicle to go buy toilet paper,we must have a bathroom to keep it in, a job to purchase it,we are required to eat, so we will need tiolet paper. furniture to sit on between uses of toilet paper, we have to have children to keep sales of toilet paper ongoing, everyone kept trying to come up with ways to stump me on my toilet paper theory.
yes, i am sane, sorta
Aha, the toilet paper theory, so it was You who started that.. makes perfect sense to me!.. c
Killing the chicken is easier than you think, especially if they are treated gently and don’t feel threatened – it’s almost over before they notice. Plucking warm chicken is relatively easy because the wax holding the feathers in is warm. Once the bird is cold, plucking becomes a lot harder because the wax has set and that’s where dipping in boiling water becomes essential.
I’m a big fan of chicken feet dim sum and the combs are also good, though I’ve never had enough to bother cooking them at home.
I bet Daisy only thinks about eating grass and milking 😉
Ah yes, i remember that you help your friend do his on occasion and get to take a few home. I have never eaten chickens feet, though I remember when Bam showed us her local supermarket with trays of chicken feet in the shop fridges. Very interesting.. c
I think the kindest thing with chicken is to despatch them at home (out of sight of the others), very calmly and gently. Crating them up and taking them to a slaughter house is unnecessary distress for an animal that’s so small and easy to handle.
The exciting thing about chicken feet is the flavour of the sauce. I like them so much I normally order them twice when I go out for Dim Sum 😉