chickens again

Chicken processing day.
Last night was a wild night-- heavy winds, gusts, downpours of rain; I was convinced I didn't sleep a wink but I'm alive so I must have done, I do recall waking up several times and so I must have been asleep in the first place. I could tell you an approximate summary of the path of last night's storm-- windy, then rainy, then gusty, then calm for a bit, then-- so I know I was awake enough to be aware, but. I know I got some sleep.
And then the fucking boar-- well, he has this habit he's adopted of banging on the wall of the barn to amuse himself, and he does it for a while and then he stops, and he freaked me out with it the first night I was here, it's so loud, but now I'm over it.
And when it was calm this morning at 5:30 he woke me up doing it.
I found out yesterday he has a birth certificate, by the way-- he's pedigree, apparently, and so we know he was born July 7th of 2015 and his legal name is Gunnar 5 Polly, son of Gunnar 4 and Polly. Very creative.
I tried to convince Willa we need to make him a birthday cake the way we made one for Chita last month, but I don't know if she was convinced. Like, not a cake for him to eat, because as she pointed out he'd gleefully eat pig food and mud, but a cake for us to eat, with him as an excuse. So. Anyway. I put the seed of an idea into her mind, we'll see if it gets us anywhere. (Her mother makes a fantastic chocolate cake, and it's quite easy, and we just need a reason for her to bother, see.)

I'm being a little bit lazy, I should be running out to the barn to make sure everything is ready, but listen, I did that yesterday, the last five slaughter days in a row I've gone out and made everything ready and then stood around for an hour waiting for everone else. People show up to catch the chickens at 7, and there's 100 extra hens already pre-caught in coops for them, and I can go outside then and start my work and that's fine.

Mom and Dad are on vacation and so Farmkid is, and this is a new thing, going to a friend's house, who will take her to school (last day! ever! at this school! for both of them, they're both going to the public school down the road next year, though her friend will be in 1st grade already so she'll have to make new friends-- the new across the street neighbor will be in kindergarten with her though!) and then keep her the rest of the day and come over at the end of the day. This is fantastic, as it's normally a huge hassle and drama to figure out what to do with her if Mom and Dad aren't available, but this particular friend has become super important. (They were close before, but the family moved and now lives right down the street, quite close, so-- fantastic.)

I was so tired yesterday, and achy, and I didn't do anything that strenuous I thought, but I'm just beat down. I hope today goes a little better, because it's slaughter day so it's not like there's any part of it we can just--- not do.

We're processing the last 100 hens from last year's laying flock, to sell as stew hens. We did just a couple last time and my test batch of stock was uh amazing. So. I highly recommend finding spent hens or laying hens or stew hens or whatever they're called where you are, and throwing one with a bunch of vegetable scraps into a pressure cooker for like half an hour and then straining the stock and then picking the carcass, you will have the most intensely flavored chicken stock ever and it's just-- it's dark, it's rich, the fat's bright yellow, it's such a noble end for a noble bird. We made ramen with some of it and froze the rest, and it was like-- restaurant ramen. Fantastic.
So we're going to sell those alongside the broilers, two to a pack, frozen, and see what kind of market there winds up being. We've been selling these birds one-off for a bit over a year now, to various specialty customers-- largely, Filipino and Chinese people looking to find chicken that tastes like chicken to them, as American broiler chickens, even pasture-raised ones, are bland meat blobs in the mouths of people used to eating animals that have enough muscle tone to walk.
So we'll see if Americans will buy them, and failing that, we'll call up the nice Filipino guy who was so concerned at his children's taste buds not developing properly.

All right. it's seven. Gotta get out there.

218 down, about a thousand more to go

So we decided to do the hens first, because they were going to be much more difficult.
We had a huge crew-- everyone was present, including the entire Overqualified Moms crew.
I guess I should go into some detail about the Overqualified Mom Squad because they are possibly the most charming part of Chicken Days.
( it's not that they're overqualified to be moms, there's just a lot of advanced degrees and some bloodlust and it makes for a great poultry crew )

After dinner Farmkid was running around being a weirdo, and I noticed that Veg Manager was just... walking around outside, no shoes on, glass of wine in his hand, looking at stuff in the picking garden. I thought for a bit that he was weeding, or planning, but after a while I looked out and he was just sitting in one of the pathways, petting Reno the cat, looking at the garden as the sun moved toward setting, in its lovely golden hour. I went out and took some pictures of the cat, the plants, and he was happy enough to chat with me, but I almost felt like I was intruding; he'd clearly just been enjoying the evening, enjoying the garden that's largely the work of his hands-- I mean, my sister's done a ton of it, and the other workers on the farm have done a lot of the actual planting and such, but probably if you measured out the hours, a slim majority would be the work of his hands and his planning, and just a little ways up the hill it slides over into being over 90% his labor and 100% his planning. He ought to enjoy it, and it's wonderful that he does. He's just such a good dude, I like him so much.

I was on my way out to the yurt when Dude's mom called me with a computer question. She was under the impression that I was home and could pop over to look at it, but I was not. I gave her advice anyway, and then walked out to the yurt even though it was still quite early. I saw the cattle on the hillside-- there are five young steers, I think they are, and I tried to go look at them with Farmkid but they have such a big pasture area it's hard to tell where they are. But there they were, in the sunset, grazing happily.
I swung past my flax patch and weeded a bit by hand, since the weather was nice and the mosquitoes not so bad. I'm exhausted and my whole body hurts but like... weeding sucks and since I already hurt I might as well just do it? IDK, it felt like the thing to do. I've done like, a third of one of the five rows, so it's better than nothing.
Supposed to be 49 tonight, but not stormy, or windy, so I'll take it. I'm so tired I just want to sleep.