“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” ~ Lyndon B. Johnson
The first week we were to be ‘quarantined’ I did some serious thinking about how we were going to feed everyone under this roof. I felt extremely thankful that my passion for growing food and having a determinedly optimistic view, despite all my past failures, is finally paying off.
At the time, we had things that were ready to be harvested: beets, carrots, parsley, snow peas, broccoli and chard. It was so comforting to have vegetables for soup and my daughter is an amazing cook so she whipped up a lot of meals for us.
But what we (I) had only dreamed of and briefly talked about was having meat birds that we raise and then butcher. I’d heard from friends who’d done it that it was a lot of work. So, my thought was we start small.
After several discussions, I asked a few questions on the San Antonio Backyard Chicken group on FB and received a comment from a wonderful friend who does it herself and offered to sell me some for a great price.
So, we headed out to her country place and she sold us six and threw in an extra three, giving us a total of nine five-week-old meat birds! How exciting and invigorating to be able to finally do this!!! The plan was to get them nice and fat and then head out to her place to learn how to butcher them.
Unfortunately, when we got home after hanging around her place and seeing her amazing flocks and giant Brahman rooster, we realized we hadn’t paid attention to the birds nor had we given them sufficient air holes when we put them in the car. When we got home we opened the box to let them out and they were all deceased!
IT WAS SO HORRIFIC!
The children were so excited to see these chickens. The conversations went from ‘oh, aren’t they so cute’ and ‘are we going to eat these chickens?’ to, ‘Oh no, Gramma! They’re dead. How did that happen? Why? How sad, gramma and ‘THEY SMELL SO BAD!” (They were stinky, to begin with; being squeezed in the box only exacerbated the smell.)
Immediately I called Rebecka and she directed us to put them on ice and come back the next day and we would process them. They did have some meat on them. So that’s what we did.
Little did I know, though, that THIS would be my first lesson in how to process birds and my Love stood by and videoed it so now when the last three we came home with are ready, I can do it myself.
This horrible experience turned out better than I expected. We ate three little chickens I cooked in the InstantPot and Oh! My! Word! They tasted so good.
I felt so remarkably happy when we left her place that Sunday afternoon. I’d done something I’d only talked about, my Love said he was so proud of me and my friend and her husband told me I’d done great. They were the great ones in dropping everything they were doing to help us in our need.
Now, I must say that I did not do the ‘executing’ myself…they were already deceased. So, when it comes time to butcher the three we have now, well, then I can brag that I know how to do it!
…and lastly is the tractor my Love made for them!
Though this was an awful experience initially, it turned out surprisingly well and now that I’ve got some experience under my belt, I know we will continue to process our birds. It’s the only way to recoup the amount of money we first invested in this whole project!
Until next time,
Just keep planting!
