Roosters


One of the things I find most fascinating about life is the way that people change. When I got married, I knew I was not marrying the same man I started dating 6 years earlier. Now another 6 years have gone by, and the man I am married to now is neither the man I dated nor the one I married, but someone new entirely. On the same note, I have known my mother in-law for more than 12 years, and our relationship has evolved drastically several times over.

Our second group of baby chicks was a mix of Barred Rocks and Golden Comets that we purchased from a feed store. My mother in-law ordered 15 chicks, she picked them up, picked out the 7 she wanted, and gave us the other 8. These chicks were already sexed, meaning they were all hens, supposedly. Now not one of ours turned out to be a rooster... and not one, but TWO of my mother in-law's did.

A couple weeks after getting the chicks, my mother in-law kept saying to me, "I think Rosie is a rooster." I thought she was paranoid. Then she kept saying, "I think Dorothy is a rooster." And I told her she was paranoid. But then she called one day and said, "Well, Rosie is Rosco." And soon after, Dorothy was dubbed Dilbert.

For weeks she agonized over what to do with her roosters. Roosters are not allowed in the city, and her neighbors several houses down could hear Rosco crowing all day long at the top of his jarring voice. Briefly she entertained the idea of finding a farm or 4H kid that would want a rooster, but those do not exist. Roosters are not nice animals to have around, and if anyone wants one, they certainly do not want more than one. And really, considering how many chickens the average family eats per month, the choice was obvious.

Well then she agonized over how to have them butchered. It's not like you drive down the road to the local butcher and have them slaughter and dress your birds. Very few people are in that business nowadays, and the people who are, are not exactly local. She found a couple places that would do it, but she did not want to drive that far. It was becoming increasingly evident, that she was counting on her son to do the deed for her. That would be my husband.

When Alex was a boy and we were dating, I never would have imagined that he could kill anything. He was so sweet and mild tempered. He is still mild tempered, but men change. One minute he can be painting our daughters toenails and kissing her baby doll, and then next he can flip this switch that turns him into an unfeeling killer. He hunts, and for the last year, all of our red meat has come from a deer he shot. He has wonderful reasons for hunting. Free range, organic meat, from an animal that had a great life and was killed humanely is not something you can buy in the store. And frankly, anyone opposed to hunting who eats meat is choosing to be ignorant of where their meat comes from.

So Alex said he would do the chickens at our place, if I didn't mind. I said it was ok with me, as long as I did not have to clean up after it. So, my mother in-law set a day to bring her chickens out to our place, and we loaned her a big dog cage in which to transport them.

Well the day before, she called me, and I could tell she was a little shaken. She had attempted to get these roosters into the cage. First she tried to get ahold of them the way you would normally catch a chicken, which requires great stealth and cunning, and looks absolutely foolish. She hopped all around the run, chasing one until it was cornered, then got her hands over the wings, so he could not flap. The rooster however, had gotten really strong and aggressive with those same hormones that made him crow. He lurched and squirmed violently until he got first one wing, then another free. This left her grasping his feet, holding her face back while he squawked and flapped with all his might. She had to let him go, and after that dramatic performance, all her chickens were hiding from her. In the end, she came in embarrassed and exhausted. I suggested she take them off their roosts that night when they were asleep. She agreed, but confessed she was afraid of them now.

So Alex and I went over to his parents' house, and he scoffed at his mom's lack of chutzpah, and our silly plans of outsmarting these roosters. He walked into the chicken run, saying "watch the man do it." He disappeared and we heard all kinds of chicken outrage. We eagerly watched, delighted that he was going to make a fool of himself, but then he reappeared carrying a placid looking rooster hanging upside-down. He put it in the cage, marched back to the run, and reappeared a few seconds later with the other rooster. And that was that. His mom and I just stood there with our mouths hanging open, until finally I blurted out, "Who IS that man?!"

The next day, Alex's mom arrived bright and early with her roosters and a plan. She had watched all kinds of YouTube videos and had become highly educated on the butchering of chickens. Alex very matter-of-factly changed his clothes and went outside to construct a chopping block and sharpen his machete. I heated up a huge pot of water, and my mother in-law filled a cooler with ice water. Alex chopped the heads off and drained the blood, then his mom put them in the hot water, followed by the cold, then scraped off their feathers. I let the kids watch everything but the killing, thinking this was a highly educational experience. After they were done, they cleaned up. My mother in-law scooped up all the feathers and threw them in the woods, which my dog later discovered, ate, and puked up all over the inside of my house.

They brought the chickens inside to wash and gut. As we were all working in the kitchen (them on the chickens, me frantically putting my dishes away to protect them from chicken guts), I noticed that Alex and his mom were spattered with blood, and I was having another of those, How did I get here?!,  moments. Alex's mom looked up and our eyes met. We both laughed, and she said, "Did you ever think, in a million years, that you and I would be butchering chickens in your kitchen?"

The next day, the whole family got together for a delicious chicken dinner, and we all went away with a more profound respect for the life and work that goes into our food.

Popular posts from this blog

"Lick my tongue Dad!"

I am learning that a crude sense of humor may not necessarily be learned, but can also be genetic. Eden, my 3 year old daughter, has every ounce of her father's appreciation for rude humor. And we have been pretty careful to not teach her any of it. She is fascinated with certain body parts as was mentioned earlier in this blog. She likes to add the word butt to other words, and then laugh hysterically. She does these things to entertain herself, not to get a reaction out of other people. When she was "cleaning" her room one day, Alex looked in to see how it was going. She was pulling things out of her drawer, singing, "Naked Butt, Naked Butt, NAY-ked... BUUUUUTT!" One day we made the mistake of laughing when she pulled her pants down, stuck her butt in her brother's face and started chanting, "Booh-ut, booh-ut, booh-ut..." In our defense, it was hilarious, unfortunately she thought so too, and many serious conversations about privacy hav...
Read more

Amelia Soup

I find myself having little patience with people who think something is gross or beneath them, when they are simply coming from a place of ignorance. Sure, it is easier for people to not think about where their food comes from. But it is absurd to believe they are somehow better because they refuse to think about these things. I have even had people act disturbed by our eggs, because they did not like being brought to the realization that the eggs they eat were once inside an animal. Thanks to Disney movies and a consumerist lifestyle, we can have this distorted and glorified view of nature, without ever touching it. Not my family, we touch it, plant it, grow it, eat it, raise it, feed it, scoop its poop, butcher it, and eat it. From my high horse I like to pretend this does not phase me at all. We are connected with our food and the natural world around us, and I like to act like this is a higher plane of existence. But I have to confess, there are times that the city girl in me...
Read more

Babies Pt 1

Two weeks before the arrival of our third child, I went into labor... that's right. I had been having Braxton Hicks contractions for a while, and they were getting more intense, but one day they just kept coming. I kept track of them all day... 15 minutes apart... 10 minutes apart. We went about our normal business, taking care of our children and put our kids to bed. Alex and I sat up watching a movie, timing contractions, when we heard the unmistakable sound of vomit. We ended up spending most of the night cleaning up our son and changing sheets, while he fought the stomach flu. By 5 am , my contractions were 5 min apart and a minute long... time to head to the hospital. So we packed up our kids, and brought Micah a bucket. I sat in the hospital for an hour or so while the nurses monitored my contractions. It seemed I was in labor, the contractions were real. But when they checked my cervix, there was no progress, which was not normal. Well, then I started vomitting. The low po...
Read more