At any rate, Rachel snagged 2 catfish (which we released). I spent the last 45 minutes trying to persuade Drew that patience is important though despite having a few nibbles, it wasn't enough to keep him interested. He would prefer to play in the dirt. I can live with that.
Jeremiah and I started on the job of butchering the meat chickens. It was not a job either of us were looking forward to simply for the sheer undertaking it was! It started off slow as we weren't sure how to go about all of it but like anything else, you find out what works and you get in to a good rhythm. It wasn't the actual butchering that was causing problems, it was the, 'which job are you better at and which am I and what table do we use, where do we put this', blah blah blah.
After about bird 8 we had it all figured out and the remaining 18 or whatever it was went quick! I can pluck just as fast as he can skin and I can skin and in about 3 minutes flat, Jeremiah took a little longer but by the last few birds he understood what I was doing. We did not pluck all of them. A friend showed us how easy it is to skin so I'd say a little better than half are completely skinned which is fine with me because we cook most of our chicken with the skin off anyway but I wanted some for roasting. These birds did not require hot water dunking to loosen feathers, which I don't mind doing but it makes for a wet dirty mess. We just hung them by the legs and got to work.
It was supposed to be well in to the 90;s yesterday but it started out overcast with rain and continued on that path for the better half of the day. Working under the trees was really pleasant actually and other than our feet and legs being tired last night, it was an easy day.
I am relieved that job is over. Those birds will eat you out of house and home, but that's kinda the point. Their feed conversion is outstanding. Now, the group that's in the shop is ready to go in the roving coup and THAT will do us in chicken for the entire year and beyond. We'll have to try to sell some. As it is we'll need a second freezer to put them in, but more importantly, Jeremiah and I cannot butcher that many birds alone. In our defense, we were never supposed to get the second set. The order was canceled and not paid for, someone didn't get that memo and you cannot just ship chicks back once at the post office!
We leave for Tn. tomorrow and there's lots left to do. I wasn't expecting the chickens to take as long as they did yesterday and I hate leaving the house a wreck to come back to so there's some cleaning in my future today...and laundry. When is there not laundry??
I'll try to update along the road. We'll be someone in Tn. tomorrow night and finish the drive Tuesday. I've only been to a small part of Tn. (Cumberland Gap), and Rachel and Drew have never been. Drew will also get Ok. and Arkansas under his belt too. Rachel has been to both. I have wanted to drive through Tn. so we're taking a longer southern route. We could go through Mo. to Tn. but it's just as fast to go down to Ok. and cut across and up. On the way home we'll hit Indiana just because we do and I am sure we'll be going to Ohio as it's just right across the river. We've all been to Illinois and Mo. before. Jeremiah's "bucket list" is hitting all 50, surprisingly, he doesn't have too many more to go! I'm not sure what the fascination is, but I do love driving through states though some are a lot more fascinating than others and time of year and time of day dictates a lot too! I-80 and 50 are a lot prettier through Utah in the winter covered in snow and Nevada is better in the dark, ha ha!
Anyway, time to start on chores, the day isn't getting any younger.
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