The Grass is Just as Brown...

      I wish that someone would tell those rascally calves.  I know that they are young, so they don’t have much experience to go on, but it’s winter.  The grass on the other side of the fence is just as brown as the grass on their side.  It doesn’t matter.  They keep busting out anyway. 

     My husband and I have chased these two calves down the edges of the road, to an open gate, at least ten times in the last four days.  In the pasture, where the rest of their friends seem content to hang out, they have access to fresh hay and to calf pellets, delivered daily.  There is a fine source of fresh water, so they are not thirsty.  But, still these two roam and we can’t figure out their escape route or their reasons for escape.

     It happened again this morning.  The phone rang just as the sun came up.  “Your two calves are in the road again,” a neighbor said.  We pulled on clothes, coats and boots and fired up the truck.  A mile away the calves trotted into a neighbor’s front yard and put down their heads to graze on dead grass.  It must taste better than the dead grass on their side of the fence.  It must.  Otherwise, why would they insist on escape?

     The calves have gotten used to our herding them back down the road.  They aren’t scared of us anymore.  They sashay, stopping to grab another bite of dead grass.  They halt and consider the clouds racing across the sky. They pause to ponder, they stop to stare.  Finally, they trot back through the gate and Joe and I walk the fence-line once again, looking for gaps.  He hammers in a few loose staples and we study the grass looking for signs of escape.  We should see footprints or bent grass, but we don’t so we go back to the house.

     I have just placed a couple of pieces of bacon in the pan and turned up the heat when the phone rings.  “Your calves are out in the road again,” the caller reports.

     I have come to the conclusion that these calves are going through puberty. They are seeking to assert their independence.  I’ve read that in Rio de Janeiro adolescent boys, and some girls, get their kicks by hopping on to the tops of speeding trains as they roll down the track.  These thrill seekers stand, with arms outstretched- surfing, as the trains rumble down the mountain.  Despite the fact that over 600 kids a year are killed or severely injured riding the rails this way, the young Brazilians continue to flirt with danger.

     When I chase the calves down the road, back to the safety of their paddock, they exhibit this same “devil-may-care” attitude.  They are not afraid of failure.  My only consolation as I once again corral my boisterous beeves is the fact that my four-legged adolescents aren’t surfing the tops of trains for thrills.  Maybe I can train them to hop on top of cattle trucks as they lumber by.  

     

     Then they could get their adrenaline fix and I wouldn’t have to pay to get them to market.

The Hawk

That

Damn

Hawk

sits in bare branches

considering which

of my

hens to eat next

while I sit at

the window

considering how long it will be

before I get arrested,

if I shoot him.

Then

 the wind shifts

and the hawk

extends

elegant wings

to rise in silent circles

sunward

and I decide to let him live

just because

he is so

Beautiful.

Free Range Fricassee

    

 If someone had told me thirty years ago that I would one day kill a chicken and giggle while doing it, I would have scoffed.  Yesterday, Joe and I beheaded four of our roosters-who-should-have-been-hens.  I didn't think I could ever find any humor in death, but my husband looked so silly with specks of blood and feathers on his face that I did it.  I giggled.

     Joe was kind enough to do the beheading while I boiled water over on the other side of the fence, so I guess I can’t claim to be a total farm girl, yet.  My father says his grandmother used to chase the chickens down, grab them up by their necks, give each neck a quick twirl, and bring the old girls in for the stewing.  Our process was a bit more complicated.

     First, I read a book about how to butcher chickens.  Joe humored me in this, but thirty pages later I decided it might be easier to just listen to him.  He had, after all, done this before with his mother and had the chopping block and ax to prove it.  So, he gathered up four of our overdose of roosters and guided me through the process.

    After head removal, the roosters were tossed into a bucket to bleed out.  They shuddered and shook as rigor-mortise set in, but my book assured me that this was the dance of the dead.  Then we dipped the carcasses in 160 degree water.  The feathers came off pretty easily and in forty minutes, we had four headless, featherless birds ready for phase two.

     Phase two was to singe the long hairs off of the body.  Joe’s mom had always done this with a rolled up newspaper which she lit and passed over the bodies, but after almost setting the kitchen, the porch and the yard on fire, we decided to use a blow torch instead.    When the roosters were as slick-skinned as body-builders, they were dropped into the sink for phase three.

     Phase three made me appreciate my underdeveloped sense of smell.  We made a slit in the skin around the crop and removed it, cut off the feet and then worked to carefully remove the intestines without any spillage into the body cavity.  We were mostly successful at this, but since Joe’s mom had always done the innard removal, we had to experiment a little and consult the book (which frustratingly had no pictures).  By the fourth bird, we had mostly figured it out.

    The four boys, which at this point actually looked like store bought chickens only skinnier, were placed in water for a cold soak to remove the rest of the body heat.  Then they were placed in the fridge for storage and aging.

  The final step was the easiest.  We watched a video on You-tube of Joel Salatin butchering.  He had lots of fancy equipment and completed four hens in ten minutes.  He recommended using a knife as little as possible, tearing the skin open instead, to save meat.  He said every ounce of meat was worth fifteen cents, which made his chickens worth $2.40 a pound.

   Tonight we are having $4.80 worth of chicken fricassee.  But what we are really having is a farm-raised, free-range, antibiotic free, cleanly slaughtered supper.  That's worth more than any fat, overfed, cage-raised hen that money can buy.