We have been gearing up to process about 7 of our roosters next Saturday. I’m not too terribly fond of the word process; I realize that it’s probably less offensive than perhaps butchering, and definitely a lot better than saying killing.  But, let’s face it, that’s what we’re going to be doing – killin’ chickens.  This is where the “prayer” part of Wing and a Prayer comes in.  We are both animal lovers, but we are also omnivores and if we’re going to be doing the full Permaculture lifestyle, a part of that is being self sufficient. We’re not raising these chickens simply as pets (we keep telling ourselves), but as part of our food supply.  So here we go, praying that we make it through the whole adventure and come out with a great tasting product at the end.

This photo is not, as some would think, a Steampunk style Cornucopia – but is actually a kill cone.  They are marketed as  Restraining Cones – restrains birds during processing.  Again with the processing.  But what it does do is allow us to process humanely.  No twisting the neck like my grandmothers did (didn’t I hear about that growing up!), and no wack with the ax like I watched my father do whenever we butchered chickens or turkeys at home.  I’m hoping that this will be a much less difficult type of butchering for us.  I really don’t want to gross out some of our more delicate friends (Bernadette), so that’s all the detail I’ll go into here; however, I’d like to ask for your positive prayers/thoughts/vibes as we both undertake something that is so contrary to our general beliefs, in regard to animals.  We’re hoping we can hack it because we have 15 or 20 more meat birds coming in March/April time-frame!  If you’re interested in trying an organically raised and cage free, pasture raised chicken we’ll put out the call in May. Still a grand adventure!  Everyday.   We’ll let you know how it turns out after next Saturday. Until then, as always,
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather:  Still pretty darn cold at night, 26° when I left for work at 6am.  High was a bit better at 54° – beautifully clear and sunny.  Tonight the low will be 30° and the high, according to the weather on my phone, will be a better 59°.

Egg Report: No eggs yesterday; we blamed the cold!  Today we have 3, someone is still slacking off.  Perhaps, as they days begin to lengthen, whoever it is will feel that they are ready again.