The Deed is Done - Part Two

The roast chicken was WONDERFUL!! I thought I might not be in the right frame of mind to eat chicken for a while but I was and it was so good. It did not bother me one bit to know that just 48 hours before, that chicken had been prancing around in my pasture. I knew his purpose from the beginning and, oh, what a gift he provided for me. I think overall it was a win/win situation. I picture him in chicken heaven right now eating all he wants and with no concern of getting too fat for his little legs.

Let me pick up where I left off yesterday.

Station Seven -

Bagging and Refrigeration. After the chickens were rinsed (did I mention all of the rinsing that went on in each of the other stages? Well, a LOT of rinsing was going on. We run a clean operation.) and drained of excess water, two people handled the bagging. Since these chickens were so big, it took one person to hold the bag and the other to slide the bird in. The bags were twist tied then immediately put either into a cooler of ice or on a rack in the refrigerator. Even though our chickens were thoroughly cooled at the time of bagging, we still wanted to make sure they had adequate circulation all around them as they remained cold for the next 24 hours.

That was it. All of the official stations.

Next step for the birds was to be held in ice or in refrigeration for a full 24 hours before putting them in the freezer. If you don't wait, then the birds may be tough and we certainly didn't want tough birds after all of that work. Freezer space was at a premium around here but between Kristin taking some home to her freezer and alot of freezer management going on, we were able to secure a frozen home for all 69 birds.

23 of these birds are Hadley's and he decided to turn his into a community service project. He has a keen interest in business and investing, so he decided to donate all of his profits to a microfinance lending organization called Kiva Microfunds. You can find our more about Kiva at www.kiva.org. He has not sent out his letter yet, but I think he will find homes for his frozen friends fairly easily because we have a great group of friends that have followed our Chicken Project adventure and they have been enthusiastically supportive throughout the whole thing. It was a good experience for him to experience firsthand the hard work that many of these very small third world business owners go through when they are borrowing what seem like very small amounts of money to start a business - like raising chickens, for example.

I mentioned that it had rained about midday during our chicken processing. Wow, it poured! We haven't had any rain in about 2 months and we have cracks in the ground 2 inches wide. So we desperately needed the rain. I am learning that farmers who need rain do NOT complain at its timing when the sky finally does open up and let it flow. I was in that camp this weekend. Though we got over 3 1/2 inches the day of processing, I was elated to see it rain. Since we had a great group of people that were helping us process, they didn't complain either. It is truly amazing what a difference in attitude can make in a less than optimal situation.

I need to run now. We are leaving tomorrow for a while. Kent's parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary with a Carribean cruise for the whole family. We will be gone a week. Quite a change from feeding chickens and moving chicken tractors.

The Chicken Project is officially over, but I'll continue to blog. We've had exciting news this past week that promises to be the topic of my next series - The Cattle Project. Stay tuned.

Until then, eat clean, be kind, and happiness will come on its own.

Mary Ann

The Deed is Done - Part One

Where to start?

It has been a frenzy of activity around here for several days. On Thursday night, I felt a mixture of Christmas Day anticipation and the dread one feels the day before a major surgery. Pit in stomach, lump in throat, sadness, gratitude, excitement.

We had set aside both Friday and Saturday to process the chickens. Kent's parents came down from Oklahoma and Kent's sister Kristin and her three sons Jared, Joel and Jesse along with their lovely friend Marcia bravely and kindly offered to help. We rented a Featherman plucker to speed the job along. It took 2 hours to find the farm of the gentleman we were renting the plucker from. He lives about 15 minutes away. Farm roads don't always make sense, especially when you cross county lines. That is another story that we won't go into.

The plan was to start processing by 7:00 am on Friday so we would have a few hours of cooler weather before the sun started beating down. While we didn't exactly start at 7:00, we weren't terribly far off from that. Okay, maybe it was an hour later. It takes a while to set things up and while I thought we'd have most everything set up the night before, that 2 hour trek to find Mr. Featherman put a kink in my plans. Even though we started later, we were fortunate because it was overcast most of the day. Except when the sky opened up and dumped buckets of rain on us. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We all had stations, more or less, but we had a fluidity of work that allowed us to move from place to place as someone needed more help or perhaps a break from a messy job.

Station One -

The first task was to get the chickens from the chicken tractor out in the field to the "kill site" (which was the side of our tractor barn). Two or three of the boys would take the chicken brooder cage (aka rabbit cage) to one of the chicken tractors and load it it up with a half dozen chickens. That lasted about two trips. Then they decided it was easier just to load two or three chickens in deep buckets and transport them to the chicken brooder cage which became the holding area. We had taken food out of the tractors the night before so the chicken's craws wouldn't be full of food when we processed them. We did end up giving the chickens in the larger tractor some food that morning, though, assuming we would not get to them all. We were wrong.

Station Two -

The Messy Area. This was my least favorite spot. I didn't visit it often. This was where the chickens experienced the "one bad day" that my friend Ruddy talked about. We had borrowed metal killing cones to use and had also bought two traffic cones to cut down for the same purpose. These killing cones are nailed to a board or a tree (in our case, a long freestanding board on the back side of the tractor barn), the chicken is turned upside down (which calms him), his head is pulled through the opening, and a quick diagonal slash is made on the side of his throat. Sounds very nice and efficient. Except for one thing. Our chickens were too big. They didn't fit in the cones. No way were they going in those cones. After one bird experienced an unhappy moment or two and flapped himself out of the cone, we went to plan B. Good thing we watch "Poultry Processing with Russ" on YouTube so we had a plan B. Hadley ran back to the garage and got some nylon roping and they made 4 slip knots and attached those to the board. We ditched the killing cones. It went surprisingly well, and the designated chicken processor simply turned the bird upside down, slipped the chicken's feet into the knot, and made the cut, swiftly and without fanfare. We had a bucket filled with wood chips under each killing station to catch the blood while the chickens hung and "bled out." I know it sounds gross, but this is so much more humane that what happens in commercial, confinement chicken operations. Trust me.

Station Three -

Scalder/Dunker. The chicken has to be dipped in hot water to help release the feathers before it goes to the plucking station. We set up two propane tanks with 20 gallon pots of water on the stands. Once the chicken was completely bled out, we simply took him by the feet and dunked him into the hot water several times (probably not quite a minute) to loosen the feathers. We found after trial and error (and some torn chicken skins) that 150 degrees was the optimal temperature to dunk them in. You can test its readiness for the plucker by pulling at the feathers around the leg. If they come off easily, the bird is ready for the next station.

Station Four-

Feather plucking. We used a Featherman Plucker machine. It looks a bit like the tub of a washing machine with rubber fingers all on the inside of it. First, we took the bird to the plucker and laying it across the edge, cut off the head and then cut off the feet at the joints. We discarded the head but I saved the chicken feet. I know, I know, everyone gave me a hard time about my chicken feet, but I understand they make outstanding broth because they are so gelatinous and full of flavor. So that's another project to come. I froze them and will make the broth and can it later. You may think I'm crazy but I think my grandmother would be quite pleased with me if she were still alive =) You can the girl out of Arkansas, but you can't take Arkansas out of the girl.

Once you've prepped the bird, you place them one or two at a time into the plucker, flip the switch and the drum rotates and the rubber fingers amazingly begin to pluck. It has a switch to turn water on too so that the feathers drain on down through the tub and out an opening in the side. It is one nifty piece of equipment. It saved us hours and hours of work. I loved this thing.

Station Five -

Evisceration. This part of the processing reminded me of the game of Operation we had growing up. Wow. What an anatomy lesson that was! I never did get very good at it. Kristin and Marcia get the prize for stamina and perseverance in the gutting department. Jared was amazing too and could eviscerate faster than anyone. I think if Petroleum Engineering ends up boring him, he could easily get a job as an eviscerater with Tysons, ha. Gutting chickens require patience and really, just a lot of practice. You don't want to cut into the craw (which I did) because that is where any food is stored. And you definitely don't want to cut into the intestine. I think the reason for that is probably self-explanatory. Luckily we had careful cutters and our chickens fared well in this phase of the processing. We had a bit of trouble with a few chickens that were overscalded when the temperature in the scalder had reached 200 degrees. The skin had gotten too hot and the Featherman plucker ripped it off. Not a lot the evisceraters could do about that. So we have some "partially skinned" chickens. That's okay. We learned a lot from our mistakes this time.

Station Six -

Cooling. Kent's mom took this job and did a great job. We dubbed her "Quality Control." It's important that the chickens are cooled down quickly. First she put them in a tub of iced, salted water briefly to help draw out any possible remaining blood that might still be on the chicken. Next, she moved the bird to a tub of very icey water where it remained for about an hour. We wanted to cool them down thoroughly before bagging and icing them down.

We went through a ton of ice. Okay, not a ton, but I believe the final count was over 450 lbs of ice. With 69 chickens to process, we obviously didn't have adequate refrigerator space for them all so we begged and borrowed several heavy duty ice chests. When the chickens were finished in their ice water station, we checked for any stray pin feathers (quality control was strict about this but I'm sure some got away from us), cut the necks off (in the beginning, we at the evisceration table didn't think of cutting off the necks), and bagged them in heavy duty poultry bags. Except these handy dandy, heavy duty, "made for poultry processing" bags were not as handy dandy as I had thought they would be. Many of them leaked at the seams. Great. But we didn't find that out until some leaked all over my refrigerator. Another rant that I won't go into. We ended up double bagging many of them. I wrote a polite letter to the poultry place I ordered them from and requested a refund. We'll see what response I get.

We packed these bagged chickens in ice in the ice chests. We had emptied out the refrigerator in the garage (a requirement for rural living) and were able to get about 15 in there. What we hadn't anticipated was the size of these guys. We planned for 3-5 lb. birds and ended up with 5-7 lb. birds. I guess they were happy so they ate a lot.

I am pulling my first roasted chicken out the oven now, so I will get back to finish this post a bit later. I roasted it in a dutch oven in a 250 degree oven for about an hour and 45 min,. finishing up with the lid off at 450 to brown the top. We'll see how it tastes...

Raindrops on...fruit trees?

Harrison will die to know that I'm admitting this, but my random songs have given way to making up my own little ditties.

One morning last week, I was walking up the drive to open the gate when the song from Sound of Music, My Favorite Things, blew into my mind. I started singing, but as I started singing, I thought I actually felt a raindrop. Could it be? I was ecstatic! We need rain so badly. Huge cracks zigzag across the fields, some of them almost 2 inches wide. I was coming upon the peaches I had planted when the song naturally came to my lips...

"Raindrops on fruit trees and feathers on chickens..."

Pleased with myself, I continued,

"Cast iron skillets, a good read of Dickens...

I was on a roll now.

"Cows that are grazing on pastures out back.

No virus worries on my brand new Mac."

Okay, that wasn't exactly farm-related, but I have been so pleased with my new computer and so elated that I have not been having to share it with two teenage boys. It is off limits.

I searched for a refrain as I opened the gate and started up the road with Sadie to the GMO corn fields just past our pastures. It's a special treat for her when we actually get off our property and go for a longer promenade.

"When the chick dies, when the bee flies

Right into my face... "

This has happened on more than one occasion. I don't especially like bees but I can appreciate them. I'm learning to like them since Kent has started his own hives...

The last line came easily, though I admit it is a bit hokey...

"I simply remember I'm in paradise,

I'm out of the old rat race!!!"

I made the mistake of committing the song to memory and sharing it with the boys at breakfast. They were not amused. Kent was more forgiving when I sang it to him. That's one of the many things I like about him.

Several days later, I was in the garden, humming my song but feeling quite unsatisfied with the fact that I only had one verse. I needed another one before I sang the refrain about the chick dying and the bee flying. I was watering the potatoes (still working on that irrigation system) and I started to sing softly to myself (Hadley was nearby)...

"Potatoes are growing, the green beans are showing,

Corn is all planted in rows slightly slanted.

Tomatoes are bearing their first signs of fruit,

Fig cuttings planted beginning to root."

There! That was it. All I needed to complete my song. I could now happily go on to the refrain.

"When the chick dies, when the bee flies,

right into my face.

I simply remember I'm in paradise.

I'm out of the old, rat race!!!"

Honestly, I like Houston. I really do. I like the people and I like that I can get in my car and be walking into Target in less than 5 minutes. But I love the farm. I love looking out of any window and seeing cows instead of concrete. I love seeing the stars (I saw a shooting star last night! How wonderful was that?), I love having things to do outside every day, even when the weather is not the greatest. I love my huge clothesline that is protected by the upper porch ceiling so I can hang out clothes in most kinds of weather. I love the cardinals and the blue birds and, yes, I even love the two swallows that have persisted in making a nest over my front door (despite the rubber snake stapled to the wall) and who, along with their 4 little babies, have made a horrible mess on my porch floor.

It is a busy life here. I imagine people who know me have a vision of me lying on the hammock or sipping lemonade on the front porch for long stretches of time. I have done that, but it has been a special treat. I need to do more of it. Mostly I am working. I still have laundry to do and meals to cook, bathrooms to clean and homeschooling to oversee. But I also have fire ants to eradicate, irrigation to wrestle with, new trees to water, pastures to mow, gardens to weed (and to continue planting), chickens to move, water and feed, and low tree limbs to lop off. And more. Much more.

So, it's not that it's an easy life as much as it is a simple life. It is straight forward. I don't get in the car everyday and spend hours driving here and there. In the past 9 weeks, I've had to fill up my gas tank twice and that was because I had to take Harrison to Houston for an emergency trip to the orthodontist. I filled up 1/2 a tank going in to Houston and another half a tank coming back. So, one tank of gas in 9 weeks.

I'm not looking at the farm, or this chicken project, through rose colored glasses. It has been hard. I've been up at all hours of the night hunting coyotes or turning on a space heater on for baby chicks. I've worked on irrigation until my whole body hurt, I've gone to bed every single night covered to one degree or another with chigger bites or fire ant bites. I haven't been itch free in the past 6 weeks. But it has been with extreme gratefulness that I've taken the bad with the good, the hard with the easy, and the harsh realities of nature with its intrinsic beauty and never ceasing miracles.

I feel a bit like the woman that my aunt told me about when she was in line at the airport, waiting to board a plane for Hawaii. The woman in line ahead of her turned around and breathlessly asked (in a decidedly Southern drawl) "Where are YOU going?" To which my aunt smilingly replied, "Hawaii."

"So am I!" she shouted. "Pinch me, I'm going to Hawaii!!"

"Pinch me!" I want to shout. "I'm at the farm."

Day 51 - Texas heat and fat chickens

The chickens are getting huge. Lovely fat chickens. At least most of them. There are a few smaller birds but overall they are living up to the promise of the Cornish Cross. Fat with plenty of breast meat.

Every morning I walk up the long dirt drive to unlock the gate with Sadie (and sometimes William) at my heels. I pass by the chicken tractors and take a quick peek to see if they still have food. Usually they don't so I backtrack, fill the feeders partway and promise them I'll be back after breakfast and after the dew dries to move them to fresh grass and replenish their feeders. I'm such a sap, I know, because every morning I greet them with "good morning sweet babies!" and I always leave them with "I love you babies." I do this all, of course, knowing that the day is soon approaching that I will be faced with turning my loves into dinner. And yet that's one of the things I love about them. I love that I can give them a good life, that I can take care of them and that, in turn, they will take care of me. I confess that knowing their lifespan is quite time limited anyway absolves some of my guilt as I endeavor to give them a great life while they're here knowing that won't be for much longer anymore.

It has been so uncomfortably hot this past week (it registered 94 degrees in the shade on my upper porch) and that gentleman's warning to Kent about the Salatin style chicken tractors cooking his chickens in the summer became a reality for us on Wed. It was oppressively hot and I had propped open the corner of the tractor to encourage air flow, but apparently I didn't prop it enough. When I went out for what was probably my 4th check of the day, I found one big chicken that looked curiously lifeless. Well, bingo, he was. I was so disappointed. My first instinct was "poor bird!" but that was quickly followed with the realization that I just lost one of my largest chickens. A flickering of the possibility of using him to practice my processing skills flitted out of the realm of possibility as quickly as it flitted in. He was a bit stiff. No, I couldn't go there. I thanked him for his time of service and Hadley took him to the back pasture and offered him to the buzzards. The life cycle continues in its own odd and seemingly harsh way.

Yesterday we propped up the two corners of the tractor that are covered in sheet metal. We have been laying large pieces of cardboard, saved from "put it together yourself" IKEA furniture, on top of the sheet metal part of the roof too, in hopes of deflecting some of the heat. This morning we threw all caution to the wind and put a huge prop in the corner. Those chickens went wild! It was a sort of holiday for them and within a few minutes they went from cranky, lazy chickens to boisterous, exuberant ones. Freedom! About half of them made a break for it and waddled out from underneath the tractor. They scattered about the pasture but curiously they never wandered off more than a few yards. After a bit, they seemed to tire of their freedom and most of them made their way back into the tractor. A half a dozen others are still lounging about - half in and half out - of one side of the tractor. We reasoned that since they're too fat to fly that they aren't going anywhere. The tractor is in full sight so I can monitor what they're doing from where I'm sitting in the front room of the house. We will assume, then, they are giving us their parole and trust they won't go trotting over to the next farm.

In the meantime, we are already planning modifications for the next chicken tractor. That must mean we think we're going to do this again sometime. While I don't know that I'd want to raise chickens for a living (Hadley made it quite clear that he will do whatever he needs to do to assure that he will NOT be raising chickens for a living), I do rejoice in the idea that I might one day be raising my own meat on a more regular basis. Oh happy day!