Well, sorry it took me awhile to update this thing again. It has been a busy week full of going to a punk show for the first time since I moved here (!!!!!!) and hanging out with pals and doing another stinkin' market in Nelson and killing 150 chickens and that sort of thing.
The photo above is of the pigs devouring a bunch of raspberry goop. Said goop is the pulp and berries and stuff left over when Judi makes raspberry juice, and next to watermelon rinds, it is their all time favourite food. It's rad for me because it's healthy and they like to eat it, but perhaps more importantly, it makes them look all bloody-mouthed and badass, which is always a bonus. As for the other picture ... Gretchen is neither farm related nor news, but she is cute, even though she just threw up on the floor.
We spent most of the last three days doing the chicken slaughter, which was a lot of work. Getting the cones (metal cones that you put the chickens into head-down, then cut their throats and bleed them out in), the giant pot of hot water (to dunk them in post bleed out so their feathers loosen up), the plucker (a magical rubber-fingered device that thunks the chickens around frantically for a couple of minutes and removes their feathers ridiculously fast), the gutting table (I'm sure you can puzzle this one out on your own), and everything else set up took quite awhile, and there is, of course, a lot of cleaning up to be done afterwards. I did a bit of gutting, no killing, lots of chicken catching, and mostly worked in the kitchen. The kitchen is the quality control zone where you are equipped with tweezers to pluck out any stray feathers that escaped the rubbery clutches of the plucker, a stack of towels to pat the birds dry so they aren't frozen full of water, and a scale and plastic bags to get 'em weighed and tucked away. I think next time I'd like to try some of the killing, just so I can do all the different parts, but it's definitely pretty intimidating. Devin killed all the birds this time and vastly preferred it to the kitchen work because pulling out stray feathers makes him pukey, so it worked out well. All in all, I think I like the pigs better ... you don't have to eliminate as many lives to get a lot more meat, and it seems to be far more profitable. We are still deciding whether we'd like to do meat birds after this year. Part of the issue is just the way the birds have been bred. They are disgusting beasties that smell ridiculously bad, have no personalities, and can't lead very good lives. I feel a lot better raising animals that I enjoy being around and that I can provide with a good life.
On a non farm related level, some Victoria pals played a show here, and that was super rad. I also ran into an old friend from Calgary who's living here now and also met some punks from around here. All of this is very encouraging ... it's starting to feel like there are good folks around to hang out with, which makes me uber stoked.
The market is still frustrating. I think I just plain hate the market, actually. It's the worst combination of wanky Nelson hippies and wanky tourists, and it's just not an efficient way to make money. We are now starting to sell to a local grocery store, and I think that will go way better. We spend less gas money to drop off the produce, and don't have to stand behind a table schmoozing and hoping things will sell. We have little enough free time and time off the farm ... I don't want to waste it all doing a crappier and less rewarding form of work. It's good to be getting a sense of what is working and what isn't, even if it's frustrating at times. I am loving living in the country, the work of farming and keeping animals (with the exception of chickens), being outside all the time, living with Devin, and getting to do some woodwork on my own. Working on a farm that will never be ours is frustrating, though, just because we work really really hard every day and in the long run we won't see much out of it. We are starting to seriously think about finding a way to buy land on our own. I don't know whether that would be out here or back on the island, and there are advantages and disadvantages to both, but I think that will be our next big endeavour.
So, yeah, all in all, stuff is good. Occasionally frustrating, but good. We leave for Victoria the day after tomorrow, and it will be rad to see friends and get a bit of a vacation, and it'll be good to come back again too feeling a bit more energized.
