Yikes!

I always make this crazy assumption that when school gets out for the summer I'll have more time and will get more things done.  That's true to some extent, but then again I'm always trying to do more things -- so it's been awhile and now I have a lot to catch up on.  I'll try my best to spread out the posts a little bit and to keep them relatively short.

So, where to start?  Every summer for the last three years, I have helped butcher chickens at our friends, the Matheses.  The first year I was somewhat volunteered by John because I'd told him I wanted to spend some time on their ranch helping out and learning.  I was thinking "helping out with and learning about cattle," but it ended up chickens.  Oh well.  I figured I could be a good sport.

I know a number of you grew up around chickens and may even have had to help butcher them, and while there's only so much that can be done to make such a task less unpleasant, George and MaryAnn have a great operation.  I must admit that I've never held the chicken or the knife at that most critical of moments, but I have carried chickens to the first staging area and then learned how to cut off their feet afterward.  And I won't get any more graphic than that.  Promise.

From what I hear, the thing that makes the job so much easier at the Mathes place is their magic finger chicken feather plucker (my name for it, not theirs).  My primary job is scrubbing the birds with hot, soapy water and removing the pin feathers; however, there are not many feathers at all once they get to me because of the magic fingers.  I wish I'd taken a picture of it, but I only have these:

I suppose it sounds odd, but there's something really satisfying about grabbing something small with a pair of tweezers and getting it out, whether it's a sliver, a feather, or a hair. 

I won't go into lecture mode because we eat a wide variety of processed foods at our house,  we eat fruits and veggies that have been shipped thousands of miles, and we buy a fair amount of chicken that I'm sure was once processed at a Tyson chicken plant, but I urge your to spend a little time thinking about where (and what) your food comes from.  The movie Food Inc. is one of my favorite documentaries because it explains some of the challenges facing us if we want to be eco-conscious about our food choices without terrorizing its audience with gratuitous images from kill plants and chicken farms.  (There are a few, but they're really not that bothersome.)

We do make a conscious effort to buy local products when possible: we eat a lot of pork, and John generously buys the pig we eat at the Carbon County Fair's 4-H and FFA sale; I buy tomatoes from the Special K Ranch, a local residency ranch for adults with developmental disabilities (http://www.specialkranch.org/); we drink milk and eat sour cream from a Montana dairy (http://www.countryclassic.com/); our flour comes from Wheat Montana (http://www.wheatmontana.com/).  We also buy almost all of our food from the IGA in Laurel and the little grocery in Joliet in order to support and sustain small, local businesses.  Sure, local products from local stores cost more, but every extra penny keeps such services available and supports our neighbors and friends.  And if you'd like a humanely butchered free range chicken that lived a pretty perfect life, I have one to give you that I scrubbed and plucked myself.