The Roosters Croweth no more.

Eight "pullets".  Ya, right.  In the end, three pullets and five roosters.  The last two roosters headed to the chopping block today.  Or, should I say, the head ripping off broom handle. Today, however, I had accomplices.  Some Grandmas invite their grandchildren to come and bake sugar cookies, or watch a movie, or eat little cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.  But, remember who we're talking about here.  There will be no cucumber sandwich eating going on here.  No, I invite my grandchildren to come help me butcher chickens.  Mel wasn't sure about it at first.  Would they be traumatized?  Would they have nightmares?  Would they ever eat chicken nuggets again?  But, I convinced her it was a good idea for the kids to know where food came from, so she finally consented.  It's so hard to tell your crazy mother in law "no" sometimes.  I picked up Hannah, the 8 year old and the oldest,  in my Commander and we sped through town to my house.  She helped me set up the butchering table and get the plucking pot boiling on the stove.  Then the others arrived. We used Jay's, (sorry honey), big fishing net out of the boat and first Brie, the 7 year old, ventured into the chicken run.  Watching her chase the big rooster with a giant fishing net was way better than watching me run around in my  pink nightie and leopard print hair curlers.  Okay, maybe not, but it was pretty cute.  She dropped the big net over the squawking rooster's head first try and trapped him.  Enter Grandma to grab him by his feet and carry him to the butchering area.  Mel stood on the patio holding her breath as I put the big rooster's neck under my broom handle.  Paige stood quietly by the back door,  holding Sally, the nervous dachshund puppy in her arms.  Lincoln peered from behind Tater's big doghouse.  Hannah and Brie were right there next to me, waiting anxiously to see what happened.  Rooster neck in place, feet straddled the head, I grabbed hold  of the  big rooster talons and with a quick yank, the deed was done.  After it was all done, Mel admitted it wasn't as gruesome as she had imagined.  Everything was going according to routine.  With that line said, you all know things are quickly about to change.  My system of the bungee cord around the rooster feet and strapped to the side of my butchering table was somehow flawed this time around.  As soon as I hung the headless feathered beast upside down, it somehow managed to hop loose and proceeded to run, headless around the yard.  In a split second the girls were screaming like, well....., like little girls, and running away from the headless chicken that seemed to be chasing after them.  Mel was on the porch laughing, ummm, well I would say laughing her head off, but that just seems inappropriate.  She was laughing pretty hard.  Moose, the Lhasa Apso, was making a mad dash after the out of control chicken trying to pin it down so I could grab it.  It only took seconds, but I think it all happened in slow motion.  At last the situation was under control and we were ready for the 2nd rooster.  This time Hannah, who is quite the little warrior, face paint and all, took the big fish net and headed for the chicken pen.  She marched right in without hesitation and with determination she dropped the net right over that rooster's head before he even had time to jump.  Grandma snatched him up by the feet and with unexpected and a little disturbing glee, the girls skipped to the butchering site and prepared excitedly for the next rooster execution.  And, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but the retention system for draining the headless birds failed once again and the whole headless chicken running around the yard with dogs barking and girls screaming repeated itself.  Oh what a tale these kids will have to tell!  Now when they hear someone say, "I've just been running around all day like a chicken with my head cut off", it will produce a very distinct image in their minds.  They took strange delight in dipping foghorn leghorn into the pot of boiling water and then stripping him of his feathers.  And, weirdest of all, Hannah delighted in examining the gooey parts that I pulled out of the inside.  Mel nearly lost her breakfast as the partially digested chicken food spilled from the gullet.  Hannah, on the other hand, was fascinated by the heart, lungs, liver and the pebbles and crap that were inside the gizzard.  She asked me to cut off it's foot so she could look at it.  I am quite certain if Mel would have allowed it, she would have taken that foot home as a keepsake of the day.  We plucked, gutted, cleaned, and cut up those two roosters.  Mel took Hannah and Lincoln home and Paige and Brie stayed for awhile to do normal things like play with Grandma's dollhouse and toys. (yes, I do have some normal things).  Then I strapped them in the back of the Commander with the bungee net (because that is completely normal), and drove them back home.  This shouldn't be a day they will forget any time soon.  I can't wait for Paige to go to Sunday School class on Sunday.  She will be more than happy to share all the glorious details of head ripping, wild headless roosters running around, and blood spurting, with her entire class.  If only I could see the horrified look on her teacher's face when she does.

How to make chicken soup

First, live in a town with a no rooster ordinance.  Second, buy sexed chickens from the feed store.  Third, realize that someone messed up and you have a rooster.  Fourth, have  your husband, who is home on vacation for a week and sick with a severe lung infection, get woken up for the third day at 5:30 a.m. by a stupid rooster that can't keep it's beak shut.  You all knew this day was coming.  I warned far in advance.  Well, today was the day.  Jay had had enough of the 5:30 a.m. wake up calls.  I'm pretty sure most of my neighbors have too, but have been too nice to say anything....yet.  I was waiting for this rooster to get big enough to eat, and Jay determined that today he was big enough to eat.  So, at 5:30 this morning.  I was running around the chicken pen trying to catch an anxious rooster who seemed to be able to tell that something was up.  In the slide show attached to this blog, there will be no pictures of that particular scene.  It's bad enough that I am in hair curlers and sweatpants, which are now splattered with blood.  The sweat pants, not the curlers, it wasn't that messy.  So, here goes the tale.  I caught Mr. Loud Beak and stuffed him in a large dog crate.  Jay and I then set to discussing how to do the deed.  At first, he had planned to just take his .22 out and pop him off, but then decided that might be traumatic to the neighborhood not to mention that discharging a weapon in city limits is quite illegal.  So, then we decided to take him to the foothills and pop him off.  But, that seemed like an awful lot of work.  I just knew there had to be an easier way to get him from dog crate to pot.  As I've always said, you can find anything on Google. So I googled, "how to kill a chicken" and found a really fun and lively little blog that described the best way to kill, pluck, and clean a chicken.  Now, mind you, I have performed this task before, but it was probably 20 years ago and my memory is not that long.  So, I read the blog and it instilled great courage in me.  (all you people who think your blogs don't matter....guess again)  I looked at Jay and stated that I was going to do this and he was going to document it.  And then, as if the Shaw's aren't weird enough, at 6:00 a.m. I set up my "work" table in the backyard.  Assembled my tools of mass chicken destruction.  I donned my favorite apron and sweatpants (which will now need a good washing in chlorine bleach), put on my farmer hat, (to cover my curlers....because cutting off a chicken's head and gutting it in my backyard while showing my hair curlers would certainly not be socially acceptable), and was ready to go.  I woke my sister and told her I was going to kill the rooster, did she want to watch.  After all, he has woken her up every morning since she's been here too.  Her response was an overwhelming, "NO! I most certainly do not want to watch!"  Hmmm, okay then.  So, out to the back yard where I snatched Mr. Loud Beak from the large dog kennel in the barn.  I held him upside down by his feet, because according to the blog I read, this makes him docile.  Hmmm, not so much. He squawked pretty loud.  I then employed the Amish method of chicken termination which entails placing the chicken's neck under a broom handle, standing on the handle with one foot on either side of his head and then yanking him quickly by his feet until his head is removed.  This method worked well, it was simple and kept the blood splatter to a minimum.  With the vocal chords now separated from the body I heard the entire neighborhood breath a collective sigh of relief.  Now I bungeed his feet together and hung him upside down from my table to let him bleed out while I cooked link sausage, raisin toast, and fried eggs for Jay's breakfast.  (Yes, I did wash my hands first).  At the same time, I set a large pot to boil on the stove.  After breakfast I carried my large pot of near boiling water to my work table and carefully dipped Mr. Rooster in and out of the hot water.  I was pleasantly surprised at how easily his feathers came right out and in just minutes he was plucked clean.  Then with a few swift cuts of my filet knife I opened him up, removed the gooey inedible parts, separated out the heart, gizzard and livers (because they are my favorite), cut him up into parts, scrubbed him clean and vacuum sealed him for the freezer.  Wham, bam....ya, you get it.  It's too hot today for that chicken soup, but the day will come when I will stew him up, throw in some of my homemade noodles with carrots and onions from my little garden and sit with satisfaction knowing that I am truly eating by the sweat of my own brow.

Slide show below.  Disclaimer....it's 6 a.m, I'm in my backyard, my neighbors have seen worse, and.....since when does Calamity Jane care what people think.