Well, kiss my pickle-- look who's choking chickens!

First of all, the title for this post is courtesy of my husband, Bill. Any number of titles would have worked: "Amish Survival School," "Why I Hate Eating Chicken," or "Kimi Has Lost Her Mind." Let me try to break this down for you and not leave anything out.  Before I continue, I will leave a disclaimer (not joking) here: I tried to keep the pictures clean and wholesome. For those of you who eat meat, you will not have a problem with these photographs. There are no dead animals in these pictures, except for fully cleaned birds, like the ones you buy in a grocery store. (And if you don't read until the end, you will miss out on the cutest goat picture you've ever seen, so hang in there). The picture of feathered friends on the gallows is of live birds with heads attached. They were relaxed as I told them it was a spa treatment--this was right before my dad came out with the shears.  And, for those of you who thought meat came from a package in the grocery store, grow up. Finally, for those of you who are vegetarian, there is a sale on electric hybrid cars at a local dealership near you, and we also have a tree in our woods which you can hug on an hourly basis for a reasonable rate.

My father called me three days ago and pretended to be a politician: he pandered to my ethos and pathos to get me to drive up to his house yesterday and help him and my grandma butcher 30 live chickens.  He used rhetoric like, "We would appreciate your presence," and "You'd be grandma's assistant."  What a total schmoozer, right? Well, it worked. He doesn't ask much of me, really, and now that I am only an hour and a half away from him and not 2000 miles, he is eager to keep me involved in the farm operation. 

Since we brought up the word "farm," now is as good a time as any to insert a few text messages I received on my phone yesterday as I was driving up for my fun, fun, day of chicken adventures.  I texted my closest friends, some of whom have actually butchered chickens before.  My Russian, Kylie, and my wild west girly, Shannon, have both done this before so they knew exactly what I was getting into. The others were just amused.

Message sent from Kimi's phone to Max, Shannon, Kylie, and Jenni (Seneca already knew where I was headed): "Um..yeah... I'm on the way to Farmer Ron's to help butcher chickens. He asked. Basically, I'm going to sit in the house and drink tea, right? "

MAX: "OMG, LBD (little blonde devil), I totally understand your desire not to assist in this task. The cost, however, for not sticking your hand up a chicken's ass is that you're surely going to miss out on a damn good story! You've already got the start of the makings below!"

(Max is my brilliant friend, former professor, and current editor, who has faith that my musings will make me famous someday. Do you see how he's totally disregarding my emotional trauma from witnessing the chicken demise for a story? What am I, a frickin' journalist after an award-winning story, here?)

KYLIE: "You are in for a treat my friend....Kimi is never going to eat chicken again, is she? Rflmao"

SHANNON: "Yeah, imagine.... butchering chickens is fun!... If you're gonna talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk, Farm Girl!"

(I don't feel any love or sympathy in that last message, do you?)

JENNI: "Did you pluck 'em yet?"

So, those were the supportive words I received as I started for Farmer Ron's house.  Thirty miles from home I stopped to put gas in the urban assault vehicle. When I turned the car back on, my GPS would not come back on--it had a habit of doing this in Tucson, but hasn't done it in a while. Instead of carrying a map, I use the GPS device to tell me where to turn! The way to Farmer Ron's house is not a straight shot and there are many highways to cross and turn on before arriving.  I don't have this memorized yet, coming from our new house!! I mean, I know where my dad lives, but I've never driven from this part of Wisconsin before to get there! I start to panic, not sure if the roads I need to turn on will look familiar. Luckily, my car has a built-in compass, but I still call my dad and explain my predicament.

Farmer Ron chuckles as I tell him what town I'm nearest to. Then, he launches into the directions I need to find his house: "You're gonna keep going on highway H which will take you to a stop sign in the Dells.  Take a left and look for the Paul Bunyan statue and keep going until you hit highway 23."

He's got to be kidding. I am looking for one--of one hundred--stop signs, which actually turned out to be a stoplight, and then a statue of an historic, American icon. Geez. Who gives directions like this? Again, you have to watch "Funny Farm" with Chevy Chase to really get a feel for this new life!

I suddenly realized that I was being recruited by "the Agency." That GPS didn't shut off by accident--someone sabotaged it! I was about to continue with yet another test in order to pass Amish Survival School.  It all makes sense: I learned how to make firewood over the last two weeks, I milked a goat three weeks ago, and now I'm about to partake in chicken butchering! This is way more covert than getting recruited to the CIA: I never saw it coming! Too late now--I'm on the way to Farmer Ron's and there's no turning back.

Way more cold-blooded than the real Wisconsinites like my dad--who was in a tank top--and much more germaphobic than my grandmother who was covered in chicken blood when I got there, I had on jeans, wool socks, long-sleeved shirt, and hooded jacket, all encased by a pair of coveralls.  What did I have on my feet? Waterproof rain boots, of course. I have never seen the Amish wear anything but rain boots; someone is controlling my mind!!



This is a picture that is very reminiscent of Old World Europe, eh? The goat says, "It's best not to watch, Kimi."

 There are several steps in butchering chickens. First the execution team is put in play--I am definitely not on this team. I was spared this trauma and wasn't even asked to participate; even Farmer Ron knows better than to think I'd be able to assassinate a bird. First of all, I'm deathly afraid of birds (except hummingbirds), so I couldn't even help him hold them as they were placed on the gallows. Flapping feathers make me want to lie down and go fetal, especially if there is a beak searching for a soft spot on my arms or face to peck.  No thank you. Apparently, I helped butcher chickens until the age of eight; even back then I was in charge of organ procurement--I reached in for the gizzard. But by age ten, I couldn't hack it.  So when I arrived at Farmer Ron's I said, "Look guys, I was a lot tougher at age six than I am now, so don't expect much." They just laughed and kept on cuttin' off heads.

This was all done very humanely and swiftly.  Then comes the really gross part: feather plucking!  In order to pluck feathers, the birds are dipped into boiling water. We proceed to spend a lot of time pulling feathers out of these chickens. Farmer Ron sent grandma to the milkhouse to start cleaning chickens.  Yes, we did this in his milkhouse. The health department guy would have had a heart attack on the spot if he'd have seen all three of us in the milkhouse, cleaning chickens, and me drinking coffee from a mug I was holding with blue latex gloves covered in chicken slime.

After feather plucking comes singeing the birds to get any little hairs off of them; this is also disgusting. Farmer Ron asks me to go into the milkhouse and get the new bottle of rubbing alcohol he got just for this task. A little alcohol is placed in a pie tin which is lit on fire--very high tech equipment, don't you think?  I get the bottle of rubbing alcohol but can't understand why the liquid is bright green. As I walk back outside, I see why: it's wintergreen rubbing alcohol. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

I start laughing and have no idea why, but I hand it to my dad and watch as he fails to light this green stuff on fire. By his fifth try I'm actually rolling on the ground, laughing hysterically. I finally tell him that the thought of singeing chickens with a rubbing alcohol that seems like it was designed to make candy is disgusting me. I think this hit me like it did because I watch a lot of cooking shows on cable television, specifically Chopped.  Chopped is a cooking show where four contestants are forced to cook, in a short amount of time, from a basket with several mystery ingredients in it. These mystery ingredients never seem to go together; as in, they are nauseating together and these chefs have to make a masterpiece in twenty minutes each of three times, or they will be eliminated. For example, a basket may contain strawberry jam, catfish, gingersnap cookies, and a turnip. I swear, that's similar towhat I've seen.  Farmer Ron is essentially going to singe chicken skin with mint flavored alcohol and I envision the next two years worth of Sunday dinners tasting like a wintergreen candy. Yuck!

I run to the house in my survival gear-of course- and retrieve a plain, unflavored bottle of rubbing alcohol. At this point I'm thinking about nipping out of the bottle due to the hysterical stress I'm feeling over the strange afternoon I am spending with the family.



Wintergreen scented rubbing alcohol!

 Singeing done and over with, I was recruited to the transplant and organ procurement teams: my job was to remove the tail of the bird, ready hearts, and dissect gizzards. I do like to dissect gizzards. Grandma did not leave anything to waste: she saved lard for Christmas cookies (don't tell my stepmom), eggs that would have been laid that day, and these little balls of liquid sunshine that would have been eggs that Farmer Ron swears is the best part of chicken soup when thrown in the pot. He drooled all day over this!

While Farmer Ron drooled over these wanna-be eggs for his chicken soup, the little clan of gray kitties attacked the chicken heads.


Waiting for chicken heads

While Farmer Ron drooled over chicken soup and the kitties drooled over chicken heads, Seneca and Kimi (the goats, not the humans) hid in their playhouse and watched:

Farmer Ron, Grandma and I worked from 10am until 5:30pm on this project. I got to take home one dozen really fresh eggs and was promised two cleaned, frozen chickens, the next time I find my way up. Seriously? I am bartering for chickens, now?