Too beautiful to waste

It was absolutely gorgeous here yesterday. A bit windy, but it was in the 50s and mostly sunny.

We could've spent time at the park. We could've gone hiking. We could've done a million leisurely activities to take advantage of a rare winter day of mild temperatures. Instead, we butchered chickens.Two visiting boys catching chickens

Our homemade Whizbang Chicken Plucker

You see, a beautiful day just simply cannot be wasted when you've got a chore needing to be done like that. If we hadn't butchered yesterday, we might end up doing it on a day when the chickens start to freeze as soon as they come out of the scalder. We've done it on days like that. It is not a process I'd like to repeat. When everyone is competing to be the one to do the gutting because having your hand INSIDE the chicken is the warmest place there is, you can bet the day is not pleasant. It is much better to use a beautifully warm day to do it. In fact, I'd rather do it on a day like yesterday over ANY summer day as well. Things smell better in the 50s than they do in the 90s.Picking off a few remaining feathers

We did 38 chickens and 6 ducks. We had 6 extra sets of hands with friends, including a friend of a friend who is wanting to get more involved with his own food after watching Food, Inc. He wanted to experience this to see if he might want to raise some of his own food because he has opportunity to buy a small farm near the city. Butchering is always more fun with friends to get bloody with!