Day Five

Get ready: there are two posts coming at ya today. The first is chicken. Yes, just chicken.

Yesterday Adam and I visited our farmer friend Ken. Ken's a real 'live off the land' kinda guy and as such was preparing to slaughter some of his roosters for dinner. (Did you know that most of the chicken we eat is actually rooster? Because hens are used for egg laying. Of course! It just had never occurred to me...)

I can see I'm already making you squirm at the idea that this issue of Homemade will involve chicken slaughter. And squirm you should. I promise only to show the least gory of the pictures I took and to explain a little of why I'm even posting this entry.

While watching and participating in the slaughter and butcher of chickens didn't make me a vegetarian (well, maybe for the last 24 hours), it did certainly give me a new found respect for where meat comes from. It was very clear yesterday that an animal was killed so that I would have meat to eat. I have never really had qualms with eating meat as I have long felt secure about my place, as a human, in the food chain. I also believe in becoming more personally involved in producing the food I eat and limiting our store-bought meat to that from farms employing humane and sustainable practices. And that is why we were at Ken's farm yesterday.

Yesterday really drove home to me the idea that our relationship with animals is sacred, and that things like monster burgers, cheap meat, and daily doses of bacon are signs of a cultural addiction to and total lack of respect for meat and the animals that provide it. Today, to be honest, I still feel a bit traumatized from killing those chickens. In fact, we had to put our chicken in the freezer because I can't yet bring myself to prepare it, even though my renewed sense of the sacred is telling me that I'm verging on the wasteful.

Here are some of the images from yesterday's endeavour:

Adam looking clean and happy as Iron Chef of the chicken slaughter.

You know what these are for.

Farmer Ken. Everyone is still smiling at this point.

Putting the chickens momentarily in a paper bag calmed them down so we could tie up their legs.
This is where is gets ugly...

Dunking the dead chicken in hot water makes the feathers easier to pluck.

I was primarily on plucking duty.

Removing interior parts...
...including the testicles.

Cleaned and cooling chickens.

A more palatable scene...Ken's hens have begun laying eggs.