{"id":1825,"date":"2011-01-16T20:35:45","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T03:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=1825"},"modified":"2011-01-18T12:48:14","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T19:48:14","slug":"when-bad-chores-happen-to-good-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=1825","title":{"rendered":"When Bad Chores Happen To Good Farmers."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Not every day around here involves newborn goat kids or picking the first sweet snap peas off the trellis.\u00a0 Sometimes we are following a trail of blood drops into the barn to discover a goat with her eyelid split open. Or applying butt salve to the rear end of the guardian dog after he broke into the chicken coop, ate 20 half-developed eggs from under a broody hen, and developed a fur-searing case of the trots.\u00a0 Or spreading 30 wheelbarrow loads of manure in the corn rows.\u00a0 Don’t forget about leaving bloody patches of skin and clumps of hair behind in the perilously thorny blackberry plot after the fall pruning.\u00a0 Of course, not all the bad chores involve blood and poop.\u00a0 For example,…….um.\u00a0 Well, one time…… huh.<\/p>\n

Anyway.<\/p>\n

Sometimes bad chores just happen to good farmers.\u00a0 And this time I needed to stem the flow of layer pellets to our flock of 3 year old hens.\u00a0 Usually the hens and I trade layer pellets for eggs.\u00a0 But I think the hens had forgotten that arrangement.\u00a0 At first I made excuses for them—they were molting, the hours of daylight were decreasing, they had a hidden nest somewhere, they were under stress because the red tailed hawk had recently paid a too-close-for-comfort visit, they were too busy watching Dr. Phil to take care of egg-laying business in the morning.\u00a0 But when the cold weather hit and the ladies started demanding more food for zero production, it was time to reassess our relationship.<\/p>\n

All of the 3 year old hens were placed in the back room of the barn to be culled.\u00a0 Cull is a word that originates from the Latin word “colligere” meaning “to collect.”\u00a0 If you’re city folk, you’ve probably never heard anyone say “cull” because nobody uses the term to mean collecting of anything.\u00a0 It’s lingo used by farmers to mean selecting those animals to be sent to slaughter or killed.\u00a0 We use this lingo because city folk don’t like to think anything that they are eating had to be killed first.\u00a0 And farmers, who spend a lot of time raising and growing things, don’t like to think they are killers.\u00a0 So we don’t call it killing.\u00a0 We call it “culling”.\u00a0 Which is socially acceptable and even close enough to the real word that I can remember what it means.\u00a0 Unlike “freshen” which refers to when a goat gives birth.\u00a0 Or when she comes into milk production. Or when she gets pregnant.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 Which illustrates the problem with using farm lingo, which is that sometimes nobody knows what the hell we’re talking about, including us.<\/p>\n

But butchering these chickens wasn’t the worst part.\u00a0 After all, the farm hands (children) and I have developed a system.\u00a0 Young children are for catching and carrying.\u00a0 Older children are for tying chickens to the monkey bars and assisting with the knife.\u00a0 If you aren’t raising 4 children on your farm, you may have killing cones or other commercially touted means of hanging chickens.\u00a0 Believe me, a regular set of monkey bars works great and is nice and strong for the skinning session.\u00a0 Which reminds me, the skinning part isn’t so bad either.\u00a0 Lots of people ask me why we skin our poultry rather than pluck them.\u00a0 To which I respond, “Have you ever plucked a chicken?”\u00a0 If they are city folk, then I’ve said enough.\u00a0 If they are other farmers and start explaining the process of building a whizbang plucker or setting up huge pots over gas flame to scald, then they’ve said enough.\u00a0 If I wanted to build something in order to butcher chickens would I be using the kids’ swing set?<\/p>\n

I don’t even mind processing the meat.\u00a0 We come inside, change our clothes, bleach ourselves and the kitchen counters, and start rinsing, cutting, dividing, and sealing.\u00a0 The worst part is the sibling rivalry over who gets to press the buttons on the vacuum sealer.\u00a0 Or maybe if a friend stops by to chat and only after she’s gone do you see your reflection in the window and realize you have blood splatters on your forehead.\u00a0 Which is why most of my friends don’t stop by without calling.<\/p>\n

I have to admit that the truly awful part is the burial.\u00a0 Sooner or later I have to haul all the leftover bits and pieces of carcasses, feathers, and feet down to the garden.\u00a0 Using the chickens as fertilizer is all part of our biodynamic system–inputs and outputs all contained in the farm cycle.\u00a0 But digging a death trench for the body parts of your hens is a drag.\u00a0 Never mind back-breaking work.\u00a0 This time, Middle was assigned to be my helper as the older children were pulling up a dessicated wire fence for me and Little was gaily skipping rocks in the pond (Little is the youngest and feels free to flaunt his posh position as “the baby” at will).\u00a0 I broke ground with the shovel, Middle cleared large clumps with the trowel, and we agreed to divide the handling of dead chicken parts equally.<\/p>\n

By the time were sweaty and grimy, the last part had been covered with soil, and we were tamping down the dirt mound with the shovel, I felt it was time for moment of shared emotion.<\/p>\n

“Whew,” I said, “I think burying dead chicken parts is one of the worst chores we have to do around here.\u00a0 Don’chya think?”<\/p>\n

“I don’t mind it,”\u00a0 Middle shrugged,\u00a0 “Except for their creepy dead eyes.”<\/p>\n

Pleased at this chance for communion and enlightenment, I nodded.<\/p>\n

“I feel the same way.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, people have felt that way about seeing the eyes of dead things for years and years and years.\u00a0\u00a0 Medical practitioners still close a person’s eyes after death and I think they used to put pennies over dead people’s eyes a long, long time ago.”<\/p>\n

His face brightened and I felt relieved at being able to lighten his emotional load after such a grueling task.\u00a0 Sometimes kids just need to know that they aren’t alone in their feelings.\u00a0 That we understand.<\/p>\n

“Hey,” he said, “Speaking of pennies, do you think maybe I earned some money for helping you with this?\u00a0 I mean, since it’s one of the worst chores on the farm and all.”<\/p>\n

Eh.\u00a0 I gave the kid a dollar when we got back up to the house.\u00a0 I figured he deserved it just for being so quick on the draw.\u00a0 Now, if I could just get the thought of those creepy dead eyes out of my head…….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not every day around here involves newborn goat kids or picking the first sweet snap peas off the trellis.\u00a0 Sometimes we are following a trail of blood drops into the barn to discover a goat with her eyelid split open. Or applying butt salve to the rear end of the guardian dog after he broke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[101,8,16,17],"class_list":["post-1825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-butcher","tag-chickens","tag-eggs","tag-garden"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1825"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1849,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1825\/revisions\/1849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}