Cutting up a Chicken

I am the fourth oldest of ten children. We grew up in a small village in the middle of the Canadian Province of Alberta, and we didn’t have much money. These facts combined, mean that I was raised on very few processed foods (it was more expensive to buy enough Hamburger Helper to feed us all than it was to make a hamburger casserole from scratch and add in “stretching” ingredients.)

It also means that for the most part, when we had chicken, it was either leg quarters (thighs and drumsticks) because they were inexpensive, or a couple of whole chickens cut up into parts.

I was about 11 or 12 when Mom first guided me through cutting up a chicken. I clumsily learned how to find the joints, pop them and then carefully slice through. And thanks to Mom’s patience and close supervision, when I was done, it looked more or less like chicken parts were supposed to look.

After I moved out nd got married, I fell into the trap of the bland, boneless, skinless world of easy and “healthy” chicken. With few exceptions, I never cooked dark meat, and rarely cooked chicken with bones in it. I’m sure my kids had related the word for the chicken we had for dinner to the word for the birds we saw in books and on TV, but whether they made a real-life connection from the reality of the boneless skinless meat to the walking, squacking feathered creatures, I have no idea.

Of course, as you know if you’re been to our farm website or have been reading this blog for very long, you know that three years ago we moved to Washington State and started raising chickens. As we butchered the first batch of chickens and I started preparing them for the freezer, those chicken cutting-up lessons of my youth came in very handy.

As time went on and customers came by to get their chickens, I began to get questioned about how to cut up a chicken. I quickly realized that many people didn’t have the privileged childhood I had, and have never cut up a chicken in their lives. One lady told me that she and her mother had spent over an hour trying to break down one bird, and in the end, it was a mess. Others have told me that they always roast or poach their birds whole rather than attempt to cut them into parts.

Any time I get asked, I am happy to give a quick demo and explain the process, and I like to think that some people go home with their fresh chickens afterward and attempt the process for themselves.

A couple of months ago, as I was looking for something online, I found a link to a terrific video demonstration on cutting up a chicken.  Then the other night our dinner guest appeared to be amazed that the chicken breast on her plate looked like one that you would buy in a store. It made me realize how lucky I was (though I never would have thought it at the time) to grow up in a home where I did get the experience of learning how to cut up a chicken.

So for those of you who have not had the same opportunity and experience, here is a wonderful demo on how to cut up a chicken. Although of course, if you’re coming by the farm this summer to pick up your chicken and would like a personal lesson, let me know. I’ll be glad to help.

Little Bundles of Pigginess

Three weeks ago we woke up to the site you see here on the left. Mama pig had six little piglets. Actually, when we woke up, she had only five piglets. Paul was lucky enough to witness the birth of the last little red piggy.

And since that moment, I have struggled.

You see … piglets are cute!

I’ve gotten used to the big pigs wandering around, and while they’re nice looking pigs, there’s not cute. Not really even attractive.

In fact, when I look at them, I find it very easy to thing of the ham and bacon that they will someday become.

But it’s weird to look at these little red and black and spotted pigs and see them running around, rooting their little snouts into the ground, playing with each other and acting like any other little baby animal … and then come back into the house and take a deposit for the butchered half-hogs that they will be in a very short amount of time.

This experience has definitely made me think even more than I had before about how critical it is that animals we eat are treated with respect and raised humanely.

And I am so thankful that my family is able to be a part of this process.

The Words I’ve Been Waiting to Hear

Paul and I have been together for a long time and over the years, we have built up a million zillion memories.

I remember our first date when he told me he was going to marry me. I remember when he did.

I remember the first words out of his mouth when we found out I was pregnant the first, second and third times. I remember his phone call when he told me that he wanted to start a home business, and the phone call three years later telling me he had found a warehouse for us to move the business into, and five years after that when he told me we had a buyer for the business and we were free to move to Washington.

I remember Paul’s words when he told me that Ryan had run into a metal shelf and had split his knee wide open and the only thing in the world that Ryan wanted was me. And when Paul called to tell me that a mailbox had tackled Nick and broken his front tooth and that Nick wasn’t upset until he heard how much it cost to fix a tooth.

And then this past Monday, I got a phone call that started with even more words I won’t forget for a very long time: “We Are a Feed Mill.”

It seems like such a little thing, but the road to this moment has been long and windy. Check out Paul’s blog for more information, and the farm website for information on buying feed.

And leave your own words of congratulations for Paul.

I’ll take Things That Grow for $1,000

One of the best parts of living out here, and raising animals and having a garden is seeing everything change before our eyes.

The baby ducks…

and baby geese…

baby radishes…

And only a couple weeks ago these teenage chicks were these little babies…

And really, I don’t think this picture was taken more than a month ago…

So how did this happen?

Where the Green Grass Grows

This past week has been a challenge.

And yes, in this case, “challenge” is a euphemism for “hellacious”.

Paul and I are used to working long, hard hours. When we owned our business in Texas, there were many weeks when we both had to work 60-70 hours, and we would drag ourselves into the house at some horrendous hour and stumble to bed hoping to shut our minds down long enough to get even just four hours of sleep before we had to start all over again.

Those days, those weeks were hard. And because we were both very instrumental and involved in the business, one of us never had a week like that, those weeks hit us both.

Since moving and taking jobs in the “real world”, we haven’t had a whammy week like that with both of us hit at the same time. Until this past week.

The non-profit I work for had its big annual fundraiser this week, which meant early mornings and late nights. And Paul’s company decided to do re-sets of all the area stores, and pulled all store managers in to work twelve-hour long overnight shifts. This meant that on a good day, Paul and I saw each other for 15 minutes between the time he got home in the morning and the time I dashed out the door to work.

But really, this schedule, while exhausting, couldn’t knock us down. Nope, we had to find other things to really challenge us.

Like adding a mandatory-participation science fair on the same day as the fundraiser.

And receiving an order of 100 baby chicks of which 40 were dead when delivered, and 4 more died in the next couple of days.

Then, just to really add to the fun, we had a dog cut her paw and run in circles around our living room carpet, necessitating an emergency call to a carpet cleaner because we just didn’t have the time/energy to take care of it ourselves. And like the blood stains in Macbeth, these also are reappearing and now we have a hundred little round stains all over the carpet.

But don’t forget that we also have a farm to run, and this week required intensive gardening with over 100 tomato plants going in along with numerous other veggie starts and seeds.

AND it was also the first week of chicken processing, with 50 birds needing to be processed and packaged for customers.

And with customers coming to pick up birds, the house had to be at least a little bit presentable, and we had to make that happen.

…

So, here I am at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning, and for the first time in over a week, I feel like my brain has started to return to its normal processing speed. And although most of the muscles in my body are still screaming at me. I can look look back and see that through this past week’s screams of frustration, tears of exhaustion and chaos of life, there are certainties all around me.

I am certain that life is good. Through the open door beside me, I see rows of tomato plants, I hear the twittering of birds and the clucking of hens, I feel the calmness of the morning and the peace of the land.

And I am certain that I am blessed. I have an amazing husband who works hard to support us. I have three boys who are growing into strong and capable men, I have parents who step up to help when I’m stumbling.

And so, again, its six in the morning. My house is messy. My carpet is spotty. My laundry is piled up. My cupboards are bare of anything that resembles food and I have no idea where the hens have been laying their eggs lately, but they’re not using the henhouse.

But I smile. Because I am certainly happy.