New Life

I see a lot of magnificent things here on the farm. Though I suppose when you're spending at least 8 hours a day outside, that is just what tends to happen. Nature holds a multitude of beauties.

One of my greatest pleasures is watching the cows graze. On the back of the washroom (same building my room is in) there is a small deck. To the left of the deck is the outside area for the chickens, directly ahead is the pond, which is in the cow pasture. The cow pasture is quite large, so the cows aren't always in sight from the deck, but often enough they are, as they do so enjoy cooling off in the pond. I love sitting on that deck when the cows are grazing and bathing, and the chickens are clucking and Dr. Cockles (the wiley rooster) is out, waddling around cockadoddling.

Sometimes the dogs will come back there and will chase the cotton-tailed rabbits around. A battle of speed and so far, the rabbits always win. They are quite speedy and thoughtful when the dogs are in pursuit. These simple things make me so happy. I feel both pleased and at peace.

It being spring there are many little nuggets. On our farm and the farms around ours there are many wobbly baby animals growing quickly! Calves, chicks, baby goats- kids, yes?, baby donkeys, kittens and even little Charlie - Jacob and Sue's baby boy! He was just five weeks when I arrived and he's grown so much in the last few months. I love watching all these little ones grows. Doesn't matter if they're human or animals, when they're babies they're so cute! But like I said, growing so quickly. The chicks that were only about a week old when I arrived are so big now! Soon they'll be laying!

New life is beautiful. It reminds one of all the potential that lays ahead. And all of the innocences that was. I bask in it.

I killed Dr. Cockles

Last night I killed Dr. Cockles, the rooster. Yikes. This was not an accident. It was indeed intentional.
Jacob brought their old rooster over to the farm and showed me the process of killing, plucking and cleaning the chicken. I followed suit with Dr. Cockles.

It was a really intense experience for me. I have been wanting to do it because I feel we, as a culture, are so far removed from how our food is prepared. For most of my life I've eaten primarily processed foods. When I lived in cities, I ate out or ordered in 80% of the time. 15% of the time, I at pre-made meals/foods and maybe 5% of the time did I prepare my meals from scratch. I never had grown my own food or been a part of the killing process of any meats I ate.

That is a bit horrifying to me as food occupies the majority of my thoughts. This is what spurs me on to farm, I want to be the one that brings to life the food I consume. It's important to me and I think it should be important to everyone. So, I felt I definitely should kill a chicken in order to fully grasp what meat consumption means to me.

I had considered myself a conscious omnivore. Boy was I wrong. I was not conscious before this experience. It's one thing to think about the death of an animal and to appreciate the sacrifice of its life for some tasty meat. It's a wholly different thing to cut the animals throat, feel its warm blood flow over your hands, and hold it still until the life literally drains out of it. Every single animal I consume goes through the same or similar experience. There is no nice way to take the life from an animal. And if you don't think its a big deal, I think you've got to have something very wrong with you.

The process took me roughly 30 minutes from start to finish. The following are the steps I took to end Dr. Cockles life so we could enjoy him as a meal.

One - Catch him.
Two - Place him upside down in what we call the "cone of death" - a crude metal cone which holds the chicken while you cut its throat.
Three - Once he bled out fully, remove him from the cone, by his legs, take him to a pot of hot water, twist him around, dipping him in and out of the water, soaking all the feathers.
Four - Remove from the water and with your hands, pull the feathers out. The reason why he's soaked in the water is to make it easy to pluck. The feathers pull out surprisingly easy when the skin is warmed.
Five - Cut off his head and legs. In order to achieve this, I had to cut (with nothing more than a sharp kitchen knife) cut into the joints on the legs, then snap them with my hands, finish this by cutting from the other side anything that was still connected. As for the neck I just had to use a lot of strength to cut the spine.
Six - Cut around the asshole, carefully as to not cut the intestinal tract. I reached my (whole) hand into his anus and pulled out the entrails.
Seven - Clean with water. Sprayed out the inside of the rooster with a hose and cleaned off any excess feathers, grim, etc. on the outside.
Eight - Place in a fridge/freezer or prepare for dinner.
Nine - Remember the feeling of warm blood pulsing down my hands and fall into deep thoughts about how much meat is consumed every hour.

I am very glad I did this, but I didn't enjoy it. I definitely will not be eating as much meat as I have in the past. And when I do eat it, I will be very, very conscious of the life that was taken and the person who took that life so I could have a bit more protein. Thank you Dr. Cockles, you were a good rooster and your death is not in vain. I've learned much that will follow me for years to come.

My Cup... :-)

Last week I flew into Seattle to return home for a very full week. I arrived at the airport to be picked up by my friend Lana, whom I hadn't seen since Italy last Fall. It was wondrous to see her and catch up. First thing the next morning I hopped on a bus to meet my Dad, Mom, Sarah, Ben, Shamarye, Jada, Bella and Luna in a two car caravan headed for Boise.

It felt so good to see my family again. What a welcomed event! It was quite the drive as well. We took a leisurely pace, making it to Boise in about 12 hours. We arrived to see many cousins and aunts and uncles and my granny. It was beyond joyous. A somber reason to gather, but truly the most heart-warming experience I've had in a very, very long time. In total, there were 45 Wiggins spanning five generations that gathered to celebrate the woman we all respect and admire so much: my Aunt Dianne.
While in Boise I got to see my friend, John, that I haven't seen in years. It was fun to have him meet many of my family members and to catch up.

Once back on the island I got to spend more time with my family, we celebrated my Dad's birthday and got to soak each other in. Much peace and much joy. In addition to my lovely family, my friend Calder, who I met on the farm in Texas, came up to the island to spend a couple days with me. I'm so lucky!

Since I was flying out at 6AM, I had to spend the night in the city in order to catch my flight. Up to Seattle Calder and I drove to meet up with about a dozen of my most favorite Seattle folks. I kid you not, they all showed up on the beach to visit me for the few hours I had. Are you kidding me? How lucky could a gal get?

I am currently feeling wildly thankful. Despite any and all shit thrown my way, I am feeling thankfulness pulsating throughout my body. It's caused some schemes to begin brewing in my mind. But as you know, can't be too sure what will happen.