Well, butchering day was a success. After a long, late night on Friday making sure everything was set up, we got up and got to the first birds about eight-thirty, two and a half hours later than I had wanted to start, but started none the less. With my dad running the killing cones and the scalding tank, and Becky's mom helping out at the whizbang chicken plucker we borrowed, the birds quickly made their way up to the eviscerating table where I turned objects that just five minutes before were farm animals, into food. It's amazing how once the feathers, head and feet come off a chicken, it turns in to chicken. At that point it has made the transition from animal to table fare. I would then pass the birds down the line to my lovely wife, Becky, who was in charge of Quality Control. Becky would check the birds over and make sure I didn't miss anything or that a stray feather wasn't left behind, as well as give the birds a final rinse inside and out before they made their way to the cooling barrels. All in all we processed 44 birds between eight-thirty and twelve-thirty. Not bad for a bunch of first-timers, I don't think. I think we'll be processing the remaining fifty or so that are left this coming Saturday. We shall see.
In other news, the garden is starting to really produce some fruit. This morning I went out and gathered two zucchini, one yellow squash, five tomatoes, four medium-hot block peppers, five jalapeno peppers, and ten cucumbers. It was exciting. In addition to what I brought in this morning, our pie pumpkins have blossoms everywhere as do the spaghetti squash. Next year we are really going to gear up and try to sell veggies here. I'm excited and have already started mapping out where it will all go.
No comments:
Post a Comment