Meat

It's that time of year again...

...the eagle has been flying over the chicken yard every day, sometimes more than once, trying to get an order of chicken nuggets from McDownens to go.  We've invested a lot of time and feed into our meat birds and I wasn't willing to share.  Every day we get closer and closer to optimum butcher weight and every day the chances we would start losing birds to eagles and other health issues increased.  Finally, today, we cut those odds down and butchered 11 meat birds.

"Are we going to eat those feet?"

We practiced our routine a few days ago when we took care of five guineas and our mean rooster, Roosty.  Mark and I are getting so good at coordinating the work.  We each have our tasks.  Even the kids work!  We like the have the boys out plucking while Evie takes care of the younger kids inside, but watching three younger siblings can be a big job for a seven year old.  Ian usually gets sent inside to help her out while we keep Shane with us.  Plucking.  And plucking.  Most of the process time for a chicken is plucking.

Less talk, more work, marshmallow boys!  (The air was steamy from dipping the birds in hot water)

Mark's job is to kill and pluck (and tell the kids, "Talk while you work!") and I try to keep up with the pluckers with gutting.  When I'm done gutting, Mark quarters all the birds for storage.  Then he does all the outside cleaning and cooks a big meal and does all the dishes.  The most important job he has is to pick the playlist of work music.  I have one awesome husband, let me tell you!

I gutted seven birds in 57 minutes and 48 seconds, which happens to be the length of the Soundgarden album we listened to.  I'm getting pretty good at gutting, which is hilarious to everyone who knew me in high school and college...when I was a vegetarian.  Yeah, that lasted until Ian was on the way.  I decided there was no way I could eat my daily requirement of protein in tofu every day, so I switched to meat.  Way more efficient. 

We store our meat quartered and vacuum sealed in the freezer.  Now that we have such a large family, one bird no longer feeds us.  This year we wrapped five quarters in each package.  I did the packing while Mark did the quartering-outside; it was so much cleaner that way.  It was nice for Mark to come in after all the quartering and find that most of the chicken was already in the freezer.  Then we cook the remaining carcasses for stock and pick the meat for enchiladas and chicken salad sandwiches (oh, I'm getting hungry) and little snacks for my baby carnivores (Fiona and Lula).  All we have left to do now is eat our dinner of guinea, mashed potatoes, and gravy.  Oh...we can't wait!