Much Ado about Something(s)

The full moon view from my festival sleeping bag

Yikes! It's Monday and it seems I haven't posted in ages. From chicken butchering to my first music festival in 35 years (concerts, yes, spend the nights music festivals, no) to right now, with a birthday party on the river this afternoon. And the filling in of gardening, cooking, and the other daily rounds. Which, around here, are considerably more varied than my Culebra life. A good thing! For now.

So I'll get right to the chicken part. First, I didn't kill the chickens, I didn't gut the chickens. It was happening on both sides of me, the Plucker. Yes, there are a lot of good plucker jokes, help yourself. We did. Actually, I only used the plucker machine - uh huh, there are plucker machines - once, because the chickens were heavy, I'm short and Larry took over the job for me. Thank you, Larry! I did the 'cut off the feet and pluck the leftover feathers' part. Sorry if you like chicken foot soup, because we didn't save them (except for the garden, with the other leftover bits and pieces). So if the idea of butchering your food is not on your list, best to stop here, though I kept it from being a slasher show. Really.

The dunker.  water 145 degrees, 1 minute makes plucking easier

The plucker (there are different kinds of plucking machines, but this what we used)

The killing cones. Think upside down chicken, knife, done

These are the boxes the chickens were in after we caught them. I wish very much we had video of catching the chickens, because the four of us chasing and catching was pretty funny.

Setting the chicken up to get dunked (after beheading)

Me and Buffy, still clean and pristine - it was a cold morning!

 Gotta have a knife photo in a butchering post..
.but I only used it to cut the feet off

Elijah sneaks a photo of me Pluckin'

Thank you, chickens

Larry using the plucking machine. It's pretty incredible how well it works

Flying feathers (hence the plastic enclosure)

Buffy and Elijah doing the dirty work on piles of plucked chickens

"and a strange holy light blessed the work..."

Of course, the photo I forgot to get was the chickens all bagged and on their way to the freezer, looking just like you'd buy one - if you buy organic, fat, young chickens. But different. I was glad it was done; it was one of those jobs you know is coming and you do it, but having it be over with is gladdening. We took two of them to the festival for the volunteers and then never got over to get a plate, but sooner than later we'll have one for dinner. And it will be a good thing!

Next up: the Head to Head music festival. After a shower and some lunch, it was hard to believe we had butchered chickens for four hours. It was time to play!

Have a multipurpose Monday! Do something mindfully.

And to our friend Gus, our love, our hearts.