The Chickens and Chicken Broth are Canned

First thing this morning I took the chicken out of the roaster, strained the broth and put it back into the roaster.  Added a little dehydrated celery and a pinch of dehydrated onions and cooked it for a while.  Then I removed the chicken from the bones.  This is one of my most hated jobs.  Got that done and got out 2 canners to get things canned.  I canned 7 quarts and 1 pint of chicken broth and 7 pints of chicken.  Not as much chicken as I was hoping to get.  Some laying hens are not big chickens so that is why they were small.

Picked 4 tomatoes and 8 cucumbers tonight.  The tomatoes are starting to turn now.  There are several that I will be able to pick this week.  Last night Ron and I pulled the onions and laid them out to dry.  We have a lot of nice sized yellow and white onions this year.  My red onions are pretty small.  I never get big red onions and they are my favorite.

Chicken and broth from the chickens we dressed out this weekend.

The Chickens are in the Roaster.

I just finished putting the chickens in the roaster, filled it with water, add a little salt and pepper and now will cook all night.  I really had to squeeze them together to get them in the one roaster.  I have 2 roasters but that means having to clean two of them when done.
We will butcher chickens next weekend, not sure exactly how many but it will probably be more than 6.  I told Renee, Tony and Brandon that I was really thinking about butchering a small pig.  We can get a pig from the Amish by us.  The only thing I wouldn't be able to do is to kill it.  The best way is to shoot it in the head and we don't own a gun.  Our neighbor hunts and he would probably do it for me.  Something to think about doing in the early fall.  The older I get the more things I want to do for myself.  I LOVE the shows on the History Channel that show the people who live off the land up in Alaska.  I've said for years I would love to live one full year in Alaska to experience all the seasons and to raise as much of my own food and to hunt for the rest.  I know it wouldn't be easy but nothing worth doing is.
I've also said I was born in the wrong generation.  To travel across the country in a wagon train would have been my choice of time of life.  Hard but a rewarding lifestyle to me.

The roaster with the 6 hens we dressed out yesterday.

Our Very First Chicken Butchering Day

WARNING THIS IS ABOUT BUTCHERING CHICKENS DO NOT READ THIS POST OR LOOK AT THE THE PICTURES IF THINGS LIKE THIS BOTHER YOU.

Chicken butchering went very good.  We butchered 6 old hens and have more to go.  We stated out before 8 getting everything set up and the water hot.  Our first chicken was hung about 8:30 and we were done butchering around 11:00.  I thought it went real fast and the time flew by.  Ron and I both started out killing and taking the feathers off the first 2 and I gutted the first one.  Ron's back was bothering him so he sat down and did the gutting while I did the rest.  Renee and Derek came over to watch the process and Derek was our helper.
I would get one, Derek would spray her off with the hose,I then hung it by both feet, slit the juggler, after bleeding was done I cut off her head then dunked her in the 170 degree water.  I then would hang the hen by one leg and then proceed to remove the feathers.  Derek would then take the blow torch to them to get the tiny hairs that are left after removing the feathers.  After this was done Ron would then gut them, clean them out and put them in a pot of ice water.
I put all the feathers and remains in the burn barrel and burned the stuff so we wouldn't have a smell.  I then used some industrial cleaner to clean everything that was used and washed down the entire area.
I did a final cleaning on the chickens one by one and they are in a pot in the fridge and I will put them in a roaster tomorrow night and cook them for at least 12 hours.  I will then strain the broth, can it and then pick the meat off the bones and can it in pints to use in soup and noodles.
We will be doing this again next weekend and only 2 things we would do differently would be using a cutting board when gutting and bring a cooler out with extra ice in it.  We had to have Renee come in the house and get some when e needed it.  Thank goodness she was here to do it.
The hens dressed out are not that big, the weights are as follows:
2.13 #
2.3 #
2.10 #
2.4 #
2.7 #
1.15 #

The setup and Ron.

The boiling pot.

Ron and I plucking a chickens.

As we were doing the chickens the farmer was raking the hay field.

Derek burning the fine hairs off the hen.

Ron gutting a hen.

Everything is out.

I took over the burning when Derek got a little carried away.

Washing a hen before we begin the process.

Plucking the hen.

The finished hen.

Derek helping me wash the hens.

Ready for Our First Butchering Day

Tomorrow morning we will be butchering our first chickens.  We took out 6 of the oldest hens and put them in a cage by themselves tonight with water only.  Catching them without getting attacked by the rooster was a little hard.
We've got the setup outside done, got the other items in the house lined up and watched the videos again to refresh us.  I think we are ready.  I know the first couple will be long and a little difficult until we get this down.  Honestly it doesn't look that hard or gory.  Wish us luck.  Hopefully we'll have pictures for those who want to see it.

Bummer of a Day

I've been feeling down since I got my results from my CT yesterday.  When working in those conditions I always said "oh well we all got to die from something" never thinking that possibly the environment I was working in might be the reason.  I can only pray that nothing else will develop and the nodules are nothing to worry about.  Enough about that, I give it to God.
This morning I planned to get some items posted on Etsy.  I kept having trouble with the internet and thought it was the wireless, went to the main computer and no luck.  I am stubborn and tried everything I could think of to fix the problem with no luck.  Called Gina and had her look up my cable company number so I could call for tech help.  Talked to someone, thought it was fixed.  Had to call again and in the end it was the wireless router that was causing the problem.  Called them and after about 20 minutes of help they then informed me that my router was not under warranty and to proceed with help I needed to pay $29.95 for a 6 month extended warranty support with no guarantee that the problem could be fixed.  My router was over 5 years old and have been having problems for a while now.  I decided a new router was the fix and so when Ron got home we went into town to Staples and picked one up.  Installed it my self and up and running in less than 15 minutes.
I can't believe I lived with out a computer for over 3/4 of my life and now when it's down I am lost.  I depend on it for everything.  I will admit I am addicted to the computer, I guess it could be worse and be addicted to something else.
I accomplished nothing today and feel it was a waste of a day.

Follow-up Lung CT

Earlier this year I found out that I have some nodules on the right lower lobe of my lung that had grown.  I had a needle biopsy and the results were inconclusive.  I had to have a follow up CT this week and it showed the nodules are about the same size and will have another CT in 6 months.
I worked the last 13 years in a room where there were pipes that had the asbestos wrap torn and full of mold. I complained several times and they tested the air once and they said the mold was "good mold".  Also someone from the corporation came and looked at the room and said things needed to be done to remedy the problems.  Guess what that never happened.   When I complained again I was basically told that this was the only place to house the materials that I managed and if I felt threatened by my environment maybe I should find another position, that was not an option for me.
Now I am having some lung problems and I keep thinking about the room I worked in and the problems it had.

Ted and Thelma Find a New Home

Ted and Thelma went to live the rest of their lives out on a farm where they can free range all day with another turkey and lots of chickens and ducks.  Ted and Thelma were 6 and 4 1/2 and too old to butcher and the eggs have not been fertile.  I decided to save a male and 2 females from the turkeys that hatched this year for my breeding stock.  Of the 5 turkeys I have now 2 are females, 2 are males and the other is too young to tell yet.  If the unknown turns out to be a female she will also be kept as breeding stock.  So that means we will only have 1 turkey to butcher this year unless some miracle happens and the 6 turkey eggs I have in the incubator turn out to be fertile.  

Saturday we will butcher a couple old hens, I have 32 hens that range from 1 1/2 years old to 3+ years.  The older ones were rescue hens and they will be the ones we butcher.  I also have 6 pullets that should start laying this month and then we have about 30 chickens that I and Brandon hatched this year.  We will butcher all the roosters and some of the hens and save some hens to replace the ones we butcher.  My target number of laying hens is 30.  That would give me about 2 dozen eggs each day and maybe I won't have to turn away any customers.