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”
I love the photo of the tulips and the reflective owl. I had to learn to kill possums, and later killed a rooster when I was living at the bach and off the land. Farming is not for sentimentalists.
Always gracefully done, Miss C. Gently pushing ahead. As needed. So kind that you’ll have such marvelous teacher-helpers.
Yes, I remember the assembly line of dressing chickens. Aweful and awesome and all part of the balance.
Bye the way, if you have problems with pin feathers either dunk them in or brush on some melted paraffin (the wax kind!) when it solidifies you can pull all the little feathers off that you couldn’t get before. Blow torches can also be good for getting rid of the last tiny feathers. Also, my mother and I used to cook up all the pieces that humans weren’t going to eat (lungs, combs, unidentified bits that came off and weren’t clean enough for people, add a little oatmeal and give it to the very happy dogs and cat.
Look at those yellow tulips! Lucky owl.
We raised chickens for eating and I felt ok about it when the time came to despatch them. Our local butcher used to send his son round, he was an expert and quick. The deed was done in a quiet part of the olive grove and I would go in and get one at a time (they were calm with me), he killed them quickly (and skinned them as they tend not to pluck where we are) and then up to the kitchen where Big Man and I cleaned them, butchered some and left others whole. Then into the freezer with chickens who had led a good life, been given a respectful end and good wholesome food for us. Good luck with the whole thing.
My dad raised chickens when I was quite small, so I don’t remember seeing much of the process.