First Meat Chicken

*WARNING - CONTAINS SOME GRAPHIC PHOTOS FROM OUR KILLING OF OUR FIRST MEAT CHICKEN.  FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS POST IF THAT BOTHERS YOU!!!!!!*


One of our meat chickens did not seem to be doing well, and was getting worse and worse.  We think it hurt its leg, or its leg just gave out from too much weight - but for whatever reason, it was not walking much, refusing to eat or drink much and we knew that it would be best to just put it out of its misery.  However, this was shortly after Jamie hurt his eye and so he couldn't really see well.  Luckily Ian was kind enough to offer to come over and help us with this one chicken - which worked to both be humane towards this one chicken AND show us their method for killing and gutting meat chickens (as we still had 12 more to do after this!!!!)

For whatever reason, the chickens freak out when you pick them up, but then calm right down when you hang them upside down.  So Jamie and Ian set up a station at the back of the property, with ropes hanging down to tie the feet on.  The chicken just hung there, as calm as could be while Ian talked through the process.

Then Ian cut the head right off the neck, and I'll share this photo of sweet Keane rather than the headless chicken - which moved liked CRAZY for a few minutes after being beheaded.  Longer than I would have guessed, and I just averted my eyes to not think about it too much.....

Once it stopped moving, Ian dunked it into super hot water a few times, until the wing feathers were easy to pull out and then dunked it into a bucket of cold water to stop the cooking that the hot water started.....

Then the guys set to plucking the chicken - it doesn't take long to get the majority of the feathers off, but man are there lots of finicky little feathers to pick off, so it seems to take forever.  In the end, I brought the chicken into our kitchen sink and used tweezers to get the last few ones out.....

The kids just kind of took it all in stride - Kea was the most upset by it all, but still wanted to be outside to watch it.  The other kids ran around, playing with the head and eventually playing with the feet, observing each stage with fascination.

The lungs are on the left hand side in this photo, not at all what I thought lungs would look like.  The heart is on the upper right hand side, and in the middle is the liver.  Kind of fascinating to see all the bits and bobs on the inside - most of which we just threw out, though I did keep the livers.  We'll see if they just stay in my freezer, or if I actually cook something with them?  I also kept the feet, as in theory they're a great addition to soup stock, but I haven't been brave enough to use them yet either.....

So there was our first foray into killing a chicken.....I took a lot more photos during the next session of butchery (not because I'm sadistic, but because it really helped us to see photos of what other people did - and well, some people are really curious!!!  But I'll warn you again, if you don't want to see the photos!!!!!)  I feel a little squeamish around it all, for sure, and haven't eaten this chicken yet, but I do feel good about the lives these chickens had and if we're going to eat it, this is how I think it should be done..........

You Are My Wild - August, 2013

Once again, a monthly instalment of portraits of my four great loves:-)  Loosely based on the project You Are My Wild, which I continue to LOVE checking in on every week and seeing how the portrait work is growing and developing over the year, here is this months version:

Kea, making ice cream in the chaos of our kitchen......you are getting so old and independent, capable and self-assured!  Increasingly I can delegate all sorts of tasks to you, taking advantage of my eldest like every other family in the world:-)  Luckily you are happy to help me, and I don't think you could ever fathom HOW MUCH I truly appreciate it.....that is, until you give birth to your eldest and are able to experience the joy of having an eldest yourself!

Tiegan, wondering just how long I'm going to stand there taking photo after photo of her beautiful face!!!  You are so full of spunk, some days it overwhelms me and I feel super frustrated but most of the time I just really appreciate your unique energy!  And every once in a while, I look at you and catch my breath at your beauty and strength and marvel that you actually came from my body.

Ryland, enjoying some cuddles with Fred (shouldn't come as any surprise that all children of mine are addicted to babies like their mama)!  Not so long ago you were as little as wee Fred, and it seems like in the blink of an eye you've become this enormous boy just full of arms and legs everywhere and feet that are continuously growing out of shoes as fast as I can buy them!  I miss the days of your babyhood, but am having too much fun with the 6-year-old you to wish the days away...........

And Jamie, are do-er of all tasks unpleasant:-)  Tiegan had caught another fish while we were camping, and immediately handed her rod over to Jamie to handle the actual fish, get the hook out of its mouth and let it go - as we all do!  No one WANTS to do these tasks, but Jamie ALWAYS steps up to the plate to do them:-)  I joke that all of these undesirable tasks, such as mouse catcher, fish saver, chicken gutter, stinky garbage and plugged toilets, were included in the small print of the marriage contract as HIS jobs.......in reality, I'm just full of gratitude that I married someone who loves me (and us) enough to step up to this sticky, stinky, slimy plate for us!!!!!!  (I also love how all three little heads are turned towards their dad in this shot - he is so often the centre of their world:-) )

What a blessed life I get to live with these four!

Basil Ice Cream!

The last few weeks have also been all about harvesting what we can from our little garden.  We didn't manage to grow much this year - learned a lot about what to do for next year (cut more trees to give more light, direct seed many of the plants, add more sand to our clay soil, figure out bug control......) but many of our big dreams did not come to fruition.  However, we have been enjoying what we DID successfully grow to the maximum:-)  The tomatoes have been thriving, so I've been cooking up tomato sauces to enjoy this winter.  We have a bumper crop of parsley so I think I'm going to dehydrate that for winter soups - and perhaps look up a few recipes to use it fresh (perhaps potato parsley soup?!).  Luckily we LOVE rhubarb as we've been harvesting tonnes of that, and we thoroughly enjoyed the one or two tiny zucchini, cucumber and squash we managed to grow!!!!  We also managed to grow a decent crop of basil, and decided to make ICE CREAM out of much of it!!!  I never would have thought of putting basil in ice cream, but have to admit it's very tasty!!!!!!!!!

I blogged about it here and shared the recipes on Anja and my little food blog......

Bon Echo - the first (and hopefully not the last!) of our fall camping adventures......

I think I've mentioned it here before, but we LOVE camping in Bon Echo Provincial Park.  WHEN it's not May/early June and the bugs are atrocious!  It's just over an hour from our house, there's a short portage to bring our canoe and gear down and then we paddle out to some of the most beautiful camping spots ever, with so few people around that we feel like we're literally in the middle of nowhere.

The kids run in the woods for hours

creating elaborate games together because there's no one else to play with.

They practice their solo paddling skills in the inlet by the campsite

and swear they're seeing moose through the binoculars.

It all seems so perfect and idyllic until you're set up away from everyone, quite a bit of effort to get in and out, it's nearing dinner time and your husband decides to tackle some big branches with his ax.  And said branch snaps back and ricochets right off his eye. 

OUCH!

A big wake up call for sure, to how much better our first aid kit should be, and what we need to plan on in case something worse would have happened.  LUCKILY the injury to his eye wasn't bad enough to warrant immediate evacuation, but it could have been SO. MUCH. WORSE.  And it made us realize that since we prefer to camp away from others, we also need to be prepared to be self sufficient in situations like these.  (and, as the eye specialist kindly admonished Jamie - he needs to be more careful. Oh, okay, thanks for those words of wisdom buddy!)

Luckily we'd only planned on staying for one night, and since Jamie felt that he'd just like to wait it out and see how his eye was doing in the morning, we decided to carry on with our camping trip.

I'd come across a recipe for raw kale salad that I thought would be PERFECT for canoe tripping as kale is so hardy - and it was DELICIOUS!!!!  (you can find the recipe here)

The view from our tent in the morning:

Or if you looked to the side, this:

Turns out fall camping is a wee bit chilly - I think we need to invest in fleece liners for our sleeping bags, and the focus becomes much more on hanging around the bonfire and doing physical activity rather than swimming and hanging out in the hammocks!

Though this kids had every intention of swimming, we just talked them out of it because a) we didn't think they'd warm up enough afterwards and b) Jamie's eye was not much better, he was having trouble seeing and we wanted to pack up and get out of there so we could take him to the hospital to get it checked out.

So after breakfast, and much less than 24 hours after we'd arrived, we started breaking up camp....

The kids tried a few rounds on the slack line while we took the tent down - Kea is getting so good on this!

and very patiently helps her brother - who often uses ski poles, but we didn't travel with them this time.

It was a sunny day, but C.H.I.L.L.Y. with the wind off the lake!

Here's our canoe fully loaded - the girls are sitting on top of our green waterproof backpacks that carry most of our belongings, the food is in a little cooler bag up front (thank goodness it was a short trip as I had an ice pack on hand for Jamie's eye!), and the water jug (that we portaged FULL to avoid having to iodine and pump water!) in the back.

My one-eyed gimp.  Poor guy - crazy vertigo, and when he used both eyes he'd see double (one on top of the other), so he'd squint out of one eye at a time.  (it's all fine now, by the way!!!!  Took about 10 days to recover.....)

Here we are at the other end - everyone picked up their share of the load and started walking.  Coming in, Jamie carried the pack and the canoe, going out he agreed to do a couple of trips so that I could help him carry the canoe and we could take it a bit easy.  

It does my heart good to look up on a portage and see this sight - Kea is a very keen camper, and always willing to carry her load/do her share of work.  I'm hoping that we have many fun adventures in the wilderness to come!