September 19, 2006

esterday was chicken butchering day to get rid of all those noisy roosters. There was an extra nice Plymouth Barred Rock rooster, so we saved him back to give to "A" along with a hen as seed stock and "just in case" something happens to our chickens here. We saved back the nicest and heaviest roosters for our breeding stock.

Picture to Left: Weighing live birds yesterday

We had a nice crew going with 4 of us and we had all those birds done within an hour and a half or so. We got 46.25# of meat and the birds averaged out at 3.55# each. We had one for dinner and it was delicious, however, just as we out it in the oven, the electricity went out 4 minutes later, so without missing a beat, we put it into a stainless steel pot and tossed it on the woodstove.

With the electric out, we listened to the wind-up radio, "A" took a nap on the sofa which was about 3 feet too short for her with the kitten, the boys had hand held electronic games and I read by oil lamp and watched dinner on the woodstove. My bf started to complain he was getting a headache (probably too hot from the woodstove- he does not tolerate heat very well) and went to go lay down on the bed until dinnertime.

RAIN! At 7 pm, it started raining for the first time in forever. It was nice.. even with my cold I had to go stand out in the rain for a couple of seconds before I went to bed.

This morning it was much quieter without all those extra roosters and I slept late.

The produce boxes are a headache. I got alot of local vegetables to put into them and with our freeze the other night, we lost quite a few crops around here, so this morning I was scrambling to call people (with almost no voice) to find out what we could substitute to put into the boxes for the right price. I do not throw in the towel about anything easily, but I am resigning from doing this. I honestly have not had alot of time and this week, no extra energy to expend. I have been working with this for 6 months.