First Signs of Spring

Every year it is the same. I am completely astounded by the coming of spring. I recognize and expect the changing of the seasons from spring to summer, summer to fall and fall to winter, but by far the most resplendent of the changes is from winter to spring. It doesn't take much to amaze me at this time of the year. Having just spent the last four months cooped up in a house with five children is enough to send anyone screaming for the door at the first sign of nicer weather, and for me, 20 degrees can sometimes be considered nicer weather. So, perhaps it is the deprivation of winter that makes spring so magical, or maybe it is just that, as I get older, my memory is getting worse and I can never remember from year to year just how things are supposed to happen.

It is still cold out. Cold enough that a quick walk around my gardens is really all I feel like doing yet, but even during that brief walk I notice subtle changes that herald the start of spring. Last week as I was peering out my window with a cup of coffee in hand, I suddenly realized that there were buds on the trees despite the general gloominess of the last week's weather.

"What! Really, they are budding out already? Did this happen last year this early? The trees are crazy!" Picturing them like a mentally unstable relative that has declared that they will no longer wear a coat and thereby bring on nicer weather, I went out to inspect them and make sure they weren't really freezing.....not that I could do much for them if they were, but I thought I had at least have a walk among them to be sure that they were all truly budding and that it wasn't just a deranged few. Sure enough, buds all around. "Well, okay....if you guys say it is coming...."

So, then I start looking elsewhere for spring. The birds are usually the next clue and clearly it is time to start spreading my lint piles and wool leftovers for nests. April chicks are usually the result of mating and nest building that starts approximately now. The first Robin is no doubt around here somewhere, but I haven't heard them start to call in the mornings quite yet, but the Cardinals are getting into it - my son noted that the other day, that the birds are back. Not so much back really, as just vocal and trying to let the girls know.

The snow continues to fall, but there isn't a lot of confidence in it anymore. The flakes know they will be short lived and the daffodil bulbs and irises will soon be pushing up through last year's leaves. How they know it is time to poke their tender heads out is completely beyond me, but I find myself crouching over their area in the garden with baited breath waiting for their emergence and knowing that when they do show up, winter's back will be broken at last.

Spring is always a lesson in faith. The trees bud out, the daffodils sprout up, the animals start to shed their fur - all on faith alone that the earth will continue its incessant march around the sun and the days will slowly but progressively get longer and warmer whether we realize it or not, even though the thermometer still dips into the teens and twenties during the day. Faith in the future- nature has more of it than I do myself, I am afraid to say. I am, however, happy to feel its optimistic effect and let it soak into my pessimistic soul like the sun slowly soaks into the soil and turns the frozen ground into fertile loam.

Our Chickens Have Only One Bad Day

There comes a time in every chicken's life.....today was such a day for four of the young males on our farm. We have known and loved these chickens since the very day they emerged from their shells. They have lived a life of chicken luxury with organic food to eat, a large fenced in yard in which to roam, other chicken friends to communicate with, but on our farm one rooster is, at times, more than enough. Our day of reckoning varies depending upon exactly when chicks hatch out, so we sometimes find ourselves having to deal with chickens in less than ideal weather, but we have developed enough of a system that regardless of whether it is July or the middle of December, we can make it happen. We usually know that it is time to organize the chicken posse when the hens start looking a little harried. Too many roosters to deal with can lead to some fairly stressed hens. This usually coincides with the roosters just starting to learn to crow, so as the adolescent vocal cords are just warming up and gaining some volume our knives are quietly being sharpened. This is one of our least favorite tasks that has to be done on this little farm, but it comes with the territory of raising our own food, and we view it as a responsibility that we have to these birds to see that they are handled well and don't suffer any longer than absolutely necessary. I have explained it to my kids like this......we eat chicken - we can get it from the store, or we can raise it ourselves. A chicken from the store lived out its entire life in a small cage, never saw the sun, never chased a beetle through the grass, never crowed out its defiance and domination of the hens, never scratched away merrily at the earth worms in the dirt. Our chickens do all those things and more. If we believe in eating happy, healthy animals that we raise ourselves, then we should be able to butcher said animal. The chickens that we get from a store are scooped up, plopped in cages and driven for many miles to a processing plant with much terror and stress in the process.....our chickens get picked up and within 3 minutes it is all over. Our chickens only have one really bad day, and actually more like only 3 really bad minutes. Now, if you have a squeamish stomach, don't continue on with this post because what follows is a graphic depiction of butchering a chicken. Why? Because when we first purchased chickens and hatched out this crazy scheme to raise and butcher our own chickens, there wasn't a good source of common sense description of what was to be done. Thankfully, I invested 7 years of my life becoming a veterinarian.....glad that my education can pay off somehow....and in those 7 years I became well versed with anatomy and the best way to separate a body from its internal parts, and butchering is really just one step below surgery. *********** Stop.....seriously! If you don't want to think about butchering chickens.....stop! If you are interested, however, in how a chicken gets processed (and even the ones in the store have to go through this ) then carry on. But don't say I didn't warn you. I apologize in advance for the poor picture quality....I was inside with one incandescent bulb and chicken liver covered hands The Day Before Reckoning Day Before a chicken meets the butchering knife it is best if they are kept off food for 24 hours to help empty out the digestive tract. We separate ours by putting them in a smaller "hut" with water and their other doomed friends. Reckoning Day A few key items to have on hand:

1. Sharp knives....and by sharp I mean as sharp as you can get them because they will dull quickly.
2. A cone-shaped holder. Sometimes called a "killing cone" for reasons that will be explained later.
3. A large pot to boil water in that will also hold a chicken
4. A bucket of dilute bleach water and a few rags for any clean ups that may have to take place
5. A place to hang the chickens to bleed out
6. A place to hang the chickens for plucking off feathers
7. A blow torch or other mean of controllable flame
8. A clean table upon which to dress out the chicken
9. Rubber bands - one for each chicken
10. 2 gallon freezer bags
11. Sharpie marker
12. Latex gloves
13. A bucket or other garbage storing device that you can throw the entrails, feet and heads in

You're still reading.....I can only assume that your curiosity has gotten the better of you. The first time that you behead a chicken, it can be a little unnerving. They really do flop around a lot so the saying "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" has some basis in reality. We catch our bird and hold him upside down. When held like this they tend to relax and become sedate. We then insert them head first into a cone that Keith made using some somewhat rigid plastic material. These can be commercially bought and are sometimes known as "killing cones". The head protrudes from the end thus allowing either slicing the jugular vein or decapitation. We do the decapitation procedure. I prefer not to have my hands anywhere near a flying axe so we put a twine noose around the chicken's head and that is connected to the fence with the chopping block at the correct point to allow for contact with the chicken's neck. I hold the chicken and control the feet. One quick drop of the axe and they are no longer aware of anything that happens. A quick end to a lovely chicken life. I would have a picture at this point, but it takes both of my hands to hold a crazy headless chicken and there is no way that I would delay this event in the life of a chicken to take time for a picture. The cone is a useful device. It controls the wild antics of a chicken not in possession of its head. Without a cone the wings flap wildly and it creates quite a mess of blood everywhere. With the cone, the wings are contained and the chicken can be held above a bucket and most of the blood can be caught. I usually start walking with the chicken to where it will be hung up since I live in the country and a little blood here and there is quickly washed away with the next rain. The "crazy flapping" is usually over within about 30 seconds as the muscles of the body run out of oxygen and the nerves stop reflex firing. Our chicken butchering is set up into four areas/events

1. Decapitation
2. Draining
3. Plucking
4. Eviscerating

Both Keith and I tackle the first part, the second event happens of its own accord as they hang upside down. Plucking tends to be Keith's job and I (being the small handed vet person) get the task of evisceration.

After the chickens have hung upside down for a few minutes, they are ready to drop into scalding water. We tend to hang the first chicken up and by the time we have killed the remaining chickens the first one is ready for the hot water. Our large enamel canning pot works well for our chickens as they are smaller than typical broilers. They get dunked completely about 8 -12 times in the near boiling water. This helps to loosen the feathers and makes them easier to pluck. The smell of hot, wet feathers, however, is not one that you will quickly be able to forget. Plucking takes patience. I usually start with plucking but quickly run out of said patience and am happy to give it up after the first chicken is done to start the eviscerating. When the chicken is first out of the water it is possible to pull handfuls of feathers rather quickly, but soon your hands are completely covered with wet, sticky feathers. I now understand how awful being "tarred and feathered" really would be. The hard part is getting every single feather... it doesn't usually work, but you can always pull an errant feather out later. When the bird is 99% plucked and looks like a proverbial "rubber chicken" and you just can't stand to pull another feather, then it is time to pull out the blow torch. We scorch off some of the odd "hair" that some chickens have by lightly brushing the torch over their skin. Then they come to me for evisceration.

First thing is first. The feet must be removed at the level of the hock. This is fairly easily accomplished with a sharp knife and a little hyper extension of the joint. Then, the neck is removed. It is somewhat hard to cut through the neck with a knife due to the cervical vertebrae of the chicken being very small and tight, but I have found that if you can wiggle a knife through the space between the vertebrae, you can eventually tease them apart. Avoid trying to "cut" the bone as this will definitely dull the knife very quickly.

At this point, what was once a chicken in my yard looks a lot more like a chicken that I could potentially buy at a store and my stress level starts to go down a bit, but all the insides still need to come out and I am sure that for many people, this is the stressful part.

I start by putting the chicken on his chest with his butt end pointed at me. I cut a circle around the tail (including the scent gland - the prominent little point just in front of the tail) and the cloacal opening. I extend the cut a little deeper through the superficial muscle layers until I start to see the gleam of the intestine. Then, a finger is all that is typically needed to break down the thin connective tissue that holds the cloacal opening and attached intestine in place. This is where the rubber band comes in handy. I place a rubber band around the cloacal opening to prevent any "spillage" of the intestinal contents. It works rather well and keeps the process a lot cleaner.

Then, I flip the rooster over on his back and extend the incision that was made around the cloaca opening toward the head along the midline of the abdomen. You run into the end of the breast bone at some point, but usually the size of the opening can be manipulated enough to allow for the admittance of a few fingers (or a hand). You have to understand that at some point in this process you will be wearing a chicken on your hand. I, being right handed, typically use my right hand for this part. I slide it into the body cavity along the right hand side. There are quite a few thin connective tissue bands that hold body parts in place, these can be broken down with some manipulation. I usually break these down and work from right side, down onto the spine and then to the left side until I feel like the mass of entrails are generally loose. Then, reaching as far forward as I can, I grab hold of the mass (typically the heart is the most prominent organ in the front) and gently and steadily pull back toward me. You don't want to jerk because that may cause something to rip and ooze all over.....not a pretty sight! Eventually, and usually with a horrid "sucking" sound the mass will come out.

There are a few organs that undoubtedly get left behind, namely the lungs and the kidneys. The lungs reside toward the head of the chicken and on either side of the back. See the picture at left....the knife points to wear the lungs usually reside. They are typically tight to the ribs and need to be gently freed from the body wall. I usually do this by scraping a finger in between the ribs - when you feel something soft and spongy....that will be the lung. They usually peel out easily and are a wonderful pink color that my friend and I have since used to describe the color of many things....."oh, that is the perfect color of chicken lung!" .....I know, I know....sick, but true.

The kidneys are a bit more difficult. These reside in the bones of the pelvis and behind many nerves and tendinous attachments. The best way I have found to get rid of the kidneys is simply to "dig" them out. The picture at right show some of the nerves, tendons, etc that are over the top of the kidneys at the end of the knife. I reach into the cavity where I can get to them and break some of the attachments over the top. They usually come out in many pieces and are the area that I focus on when rinsing the chicken out, as this is the time to make sure that any kidney pieces get washed out.

At this point I usually do a visual inspection just to be sure that I have all the stringy things out and anything that looks like it may be part of an organ. Sometimes the top part of the trachea is still in the chest area and that can be a bit of a challenge to get out because it is so slippery. Periodically, you will feel something very tough and sharp at the end of the trachea - this is the carina or the spot where the trachea branches off into left and right lungs- grasping this can sometime make removing the trachea a little easier. All that remains now is the washing, bagging and freezing.

Usually we scrub them out well in cold water from the hydrant. This makes sure that there are no little pieces of anything left in the chicken. We also scrub off the outside as well. Then they are placed in a labeled 2 gallon bag and put immediately in the freezer. As a frame of reference, today (moving somewhat slowly due to the chilly whether) we, my husband and I, processed four chickens in approximately 1.5 hours - start to finish including clean up. We have been known to do as many as 10 in two hours when we get going. I know that it is a much slower process than it would be at a processing plant, but then again we handle the entire process ourselves and monitor to be sure that they are clean and properly handled. When you know you will be the one eating it, you take better care.

In between chickens I usually wipe down the table with dilute bleach and let it dry. I love it when it is sunny out as the sunshine provides a good dose of antimicrobial ultraviolet light as well, not to mention a nicer working environment. I usually change gloves or at least rinse off the ones that I am using in bleach water and I clean the knife.

Now I can just imagine that there are some people that have read this and are completely grossed out, for which I am sorry, (I did warn you at the start).... but the truth of the matter is, if you eat meat, this is how it is produced. Just because it is under plastic wrap on a nice Styrofoam plate doesn't mean that it started out that way. It started out on a farm and the quality of the farm can definitely affect the quality of the meat.

We know and can account for every aspect of the chicken that we eat. We use almost every part of the bird that we can. When we cook with these chickens they are stripped of every edible piece of meat and then the bones, skin and remaining "tufts" of meat are further cooked down in a crock pot to produce some of the best chicken broth know to man. I wish I could fully explain the quality of this food and the incredible taste. All I can do is to encourage you to find a local farmer and talk with them about the food that they produce and then be willing to pay them what they actually deserve for taking the time and care in producing a good quality product.

When it Snows and Blows

Every once in a while Mother Nature likes to remind us that she really does have the upper hand. A drought here, a flood there, the occasional mud slide or earth quake. Sometimes she gets really serious and throws together a hurricane or two, or sends a tsunami on shore to keep us on our toes. I just heard the other day that all of Yellowstone park is sitting on top of a "super volcano" that is due to erupt anytime between this second and about 100 years from now, but they really have no way to know Mother Nature's schedule for sure.

We humans are starting to get slightly better are forecasting weather - at least that weather that will effect us in the next 24 hours or so, but we remain woefully ignorant and argumentative about what effect we may be playing on the weather. Are we getting warmer as a planet or is it just a cycle of sun spots? Are the polar ice caps just undergoing a natural ebb and tide, or are the Polar Bears just going to have to develop flippers due to all the pollution that we have thrown into our environment.