Nov. 21st, 2020

dragonlady7: self-portrait but it's mostly the DSLR in my hands in the mirror (Default)

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vikingmanx https://vikingmanx.tumblr.com/post/135299602558/what-business-have-people-who-call-might-right-to :

“What business have people who call might right to worship Odin? The whole point about Odin was that he had the right but not the might. The point about Norse religion was that it alone of all mythologies told men to serve gods who were admittedly fighting with their backs to the wall and would certainly be defeated in the end. ‘I am off to die with Odin’ said the rover in Stevenson’s fable, thus proving that Stevenson understood something about the Nordic spirit which (Nazi) Germany has never been able to understand at all. The gods will fall. The wisdom of Odin, the humourous courage of Thor (Thor was something of a Yorkshireman) and the beauty of Balder, will all be smashed eventually by the realpolitik of the stupid giants and misshapen trolls. But that does not in the least alter the allegiance of any free man. Hence, as we should expect, real Germanic poetry is all about heroic stands, and fighting against hopeless odds.”

— C. S. Lewis, First and Second Things

dragonlady7: self-portrait but it's mostly the DSLR in my hands in the mirror (Default)

husbandry, animal slaughter, animal death

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well that’s one turkey processing day down.

153? ish? birds, plus three for someone else. (We’re doing another guy’s birds on Tuesday but he asked as a favor if he could get three of them done today so his mom could take them to give to various family members who need to start their cooking early. who knows why. whatever man. it was no big deal. less to do tuesday. plus then we could figure out our process on three birds we didn’t have to worry about selling, LOL.)

it went fine but, well. they put Assistant Livestock Manager on to man the plucker and also put the birds thru the pass-thru window into the clean room. And the thing is, he’s young and strong and healthy and like, 26? but also he dislocated his shoulder a month or two ago and it’s not entirely better. So he did like the first nine birds (he’s been doing chickens, and it’s been fine, but a chicken is at the absolute outside seven pounds, maybe eight soaking wet and with all its bits still attached, and a turkey is uhhh completely packaged they tend to average around 22 lbs for us, and that’s naturally minus a bunch of stuff they’ve got while alive like guts and feet and feathers and such) and was like “uh, I’m pretty much done, this isn’t going to work.”

and I said, “well, i haven’t hurt my back in a while so probably I’m good,” and I switched with him.

Which, like, famous last words, right? I just committed to lifting every bird out of the plucker onto the counter, and then off the counter and through the window into the other room.

But, astonishingly, it was fine.

cut; there’s not really any specific gore below but I am talking about, well, a livestock slaughter, so if you are not into that, you’re best not continuing to read. :)

It helped that I was surrounded by hilarious people. We were a lighter crew than normal; due to The Ongoing Situation, we were much less densely-staffed than normal. But the people we had were all experienced; nobody needed to be trained. Next to me, on the rough-pluck table, taking out flight feathers and tailfeathers, was a kid who was an apprentice here two years ago and has come back for turkeys mmm this is their third time. Across from them, also on the rough pluck table but with a knife taking legs off as he helped with the feathers, was the livestock manager from Soul Fire https://www.soulfirefarm.org/, just up the hill. He is 6′8″ and hilarious, and he and the former apprentice hit it off and kept up a wildly entertaining conversation almost the entire time. Then next to me was our Assistant Livestock Manager, who is small and soft-spoken and sarcastic, and added very few but very entertaining words to the conversation. And then on the other side of the table was a guy who I met at the first turkey processing I ever helped out with, five years ago; he’s a landscape architect, mild-mannered and good-natured, who usually works for the yogurt lady at the farmer’s market.

At one point he and I reached for the same set of tweezers to pull out feathers on the birds. I laughed and said it was like a Hallmark movie, and we spent the rest of the day describing what kind of Lifetime Channel shit would actually go down in a slaughterhouse. (I said I wanted to see a straight-ahead totally serious rom-com filmed somewhere like this, gesturing around at the absolutely horrifyingly blood-and-feather-splattered room. I mean, not to be gross, but turkeys are way messier than chickens, being much larger and featherier, and there was literally just– blood on the walls, blood washing the floor, blood on the ceiling, and blobs of black feathers spattered everywhere, and every time I looked away and looked back it looked even worse. It was like a slasher flick. Chicken processing is absolutely nothing like this. I mean, there’s blood and feathers, but it’s a lot more contained.)

At various points throughout the day, SF’s LM would say, “Our hands met as we reached for the same handful of feathers, and then I knew,” and Former Apprentice would cackle-laugh. I think they might be friends now. Which by coincidence, FA is the only non-white apprentice the farm has had in the last five years at least and SF’s mission is specifically POC-aimed, so like. A good connection to make!

I kept swearing at the turkeys as they got caught in the plucker, and SFLM was like “uh why are you talking to them they’re dead,” and that was one of ALM’s contributions to the conversation. “I talked to those turkeys every day of their lives,” he said, “I’m not about to stop now.”

Which is true. (My only semi-sad moment of the day is when we were about to get started, and the other people had their 3 turkeys in a dog crate by the door, and they were honking in confusion, and ALM said “aww that’s their come find me I’m lost noise.” Because they didn’t know what was up and they could hear the flock of turkeys in the pen around the corner, and turkeys aren’t wild about being alone. (Early on, when our turkeys went out on pasture, one got out, and there was a nearby flock of wild turkeys that kind of came to get it, but then were like “ok we don’t know what you are,” and it was like “uhhh hm this is uhh weird,” and ALM caught it and put it back with its cohort and was like “I wasn’t actually sure it was our turkey? but i figured a wild turkey wouldn’t let me grab it? anyway it grew up looking like the others so probably it was ours, or if it was a wild one it just escaped quietly under cover of darkness later.”))

SF’sLM looked at ALM at one point, who is a full foot shorter and slightly under half his weight, and was like “what is the view like down there” and ALM was like “i can reach yr kidneys juuuuust fine” and they made their peace. (Actually they’ve been friends a while.)

We got through it all right, in the end; we were done by 1, and went in to lunch and left a mess. Then everyone else went home, and those of us who live here went out and cleaned up and put everything away and started setting up for tomorrow, which is Thanksgiving Vegetable Pickup And Turkey Pickup. ah! i was going to make a sign to promote eggs! in previous years this is the time when the hens don’t lay prolifically, but they started up the new pullets in spring this year so they’re laying now so we are A W A S H in eggs currently, including pullet eggs, so customers are used to not being able to get their eggs here, and I figured just having a little sign showing that we not only have eggs, we have pullet eggs on SALE– anyway I just stopped this and went and made that. Marketing!

Tomorrow’s gonna be another long day, but I already pre-sharpened the knives for Tuesday’s processing day, and I also washed another 12/doz eggs for tomorrow just in case we sell a lot, since that’s a pretty good opportunity for selling eggs and also I didn’t want to have to find room for two more egg baskets in the walk-in cooler. (It’s the time of year when you have to put stuff into fridges and coolers because if you leave it out it’ll get wrecked by getting frozen.)

Tonight I also was possessed by some spirit to make a loaf of whole wheat bread to go with a soup I’d already made for tomorrow’s lunch, and a frittata for us to eat, and this in turn inspired my sister to make vegan cookies because the Vegetable Manager is in the midst of converting to the Orthodox faith and they do a lot of fasting and their idea of fasting is functionally just being vegan and he’s currently fasting until Christmas and that’s fine but this time of year we get through it by eating a lot of baked goods and most of them have eggs, which actually was my impetus for making a loaf of yeast bread because that’s vegan while cornbread or other quickbreads are not. (eggs yo. they’re in everything. especially when uhhh we’re egg farmers and this is the annual Egg Glut when the new pullets are laying but the old hens are still cranking merrily away as well.)

Fortunately Farmsister was mostly vegetarian for most of college so she has a deep bench of meatless recipes, many of which are additionally vegan, so it’s not a big deal for her to just cook vegan. It’s just really funny to do a bunch of livestock processing and then eat all-vegan meals.

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