We turned six more roosters into roasters last night. As A., the MiL, and I were sitting in a circle around a bucket plucking them, I kept feeling a tickling on my leg. Eventually I realized it was coming from the toenails on the rooster A. was plucking right next to me. Getting tickled by chicken toenails is kind of disturbing. But also sort of funny in a disgusting kind of way.
Later, when A. was eviscerating them, he kind of leaned down on the bird he was working on and it, uh, squawked. They can do this if there's any air still left in their windpipe or whatever, but to call it startling would be an understatement. I can see what a wonderful practical joke that would be if there was someone around who was not aware of that peculiarity. And if the joker has a particularly sick sense of humor.
Not exactly funny, but sort of odd, is the skill I am acquiring at breaking chicken legs. See, the easiest and least messy way to cut the feet off is to break the joint right below the thigh and then just cut the skin. No bone splinters that way. So I am becoming quite adept at twisting the joint apart and then cutting away the skin with a knife. I broke 12 chicken legs last night. That seems . . . wrong somehow, right? Like a poultry mob hitman, or something?
Oh well. Six more roosters to go, and then peace will be restored to the ram pasture, our freezer will be full of chicken, and I can retire from my current gruesome job of leg-breaker.
The things we do for food.
8 comments:
I gotta hand it to you, Kristin! I can't even deal with cutting up a whole chicken from the store! I buy from a grass fed farm and as the farmer was showing me around I told him I did not want to see the butcher room!!!
All I can say is, I'm glad there's someone out there who can do these things. Left to my own devices I would simply have to go vegetarian.
I admire the skills you're acquiring. When I was a teenager my mom insisted on teaching me how to cut up a whole chicken - one that someone else had already done your job. I cried the whole time, and to this day I nearly gag when I have to cut up a chicken. Good for you!
Yes, the country is getting soft.
What you are doing used to be an everyday thing. We really are growing up a nation of wusses.
The closest most folks get to that is the drive thru window. Those ways , just like the Native American ways need to be passed on from generation to generation. :) Beth
Yes, this was all very funny in a weird way. I guess you must have a good sense of humor with processing your chickens or you'll simply be traumatized. The squawking of a dead chicken is something I'm thankful you revealed because I think if I'd found this out the hard way, I would have passed out cold!
Cubby will eat some good clean homegrown pasture raised chicken. That makes all the work worthwhile.
Just read this aloud to Bubba as he's brewing beer on our vacation and I get ready to purify beeswax for lip balm.
To say that we laughed and felt less absurd is to put it lightly. Thank you.
And brava to your chicken leg breaking skills! All people should be able to take rooster to roaster, as you so eloquently phrased it.
My husband used to call himself a "small job hitman" because he once had to do the neighborhood a favor and "take care of" of a nuisance dog.
Seems to apply to you, too :-)
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