Production

Let me just say it was a full and productive weekend.

Saturday I made it down to the farm to start the demo on the old house I build years ago. It has so much sentimental value the only way to tear it down is to put those thoughts out of my head while in the process.  If not I will spend all my time sitting and reminiscing.
It is amazing how I can hardly remember yesterday, but while walking through the old place every square inch brings back a memory. I know it's just a structure that is rotten and unlivable now, but there was a time that old house held so much love and commitment. It's where my kids were brought home from the hospital, learned to walk, talk and latter learned to run and play. It was where a young married couple started a lifetime.
If you can't understand the emotional stronghold I have on this place then I'm sorry. It breaks my heart to do what needs to be done and I am sure I will shed a tear once it's done.

Saying all that, we were able to get all the siding off, electrical out, cabinets, sinks and windows this weekend. Next weekend we will start on the roof and work our way down. It will take a while and I can't start on the girls condo until I get this all the way done.
Next week I will take some pictures of the old place.
          
Early Sunday morning found me over at my Dad's for a good old fashioned chicken killing. He had a bunch of birds we needed to process and the cold temperatures made it perfect weather to do it in.

 Once we got started we had a great system turning out a finished bird about every minute or so.

The guy on the left was the hatchet man, I (middle) was in charge of the chicken plucker and dad (on the right) was the cleaner. My oldest daughter was also there catching the roosters and bringing them to us.   

 The end result is was four full coolers of naked birds ready for the fryer.

These birds stayed in the salt water overnight, then washed and put in freezer bags.

It only took two hours from set up to clean up to do all those chickens. At that pace you could almost make a living at it, but who would want to.

After that, the rest of the day was getting ready for the week and the storms coming in. They say we will get 3 to 6 inches of rain and we need it. The last rain was soaked in and it did nothing for the lake levels. I hope this time it will give us some runoff. Plus my rain water tanks need to be topped off.

One more thing before I go,
I want to welcome three new readers.
amymorgan1970, doo and Garland Girl 
I can't thank y'all enough for hitting the follow button and becoming the newest family members of Modern Day Redneck. If you need anything you can leave me a comment or shoot me a email.
Thank you and again, welcome.


I got some more stuff to share but I didn't want a long brawn out post so stay tuned.

Never Enough Time

If the weekends were three days long we would want four, if five then six. No matter what, there is never enough time to complete everything that was planed.

Early Saturday me and the youngest girl "Wee" took some roosters over to my Dad's for a good old fashioned chicken killing.
Some would turn their nose up to this and some would say this is cruel but it is a way of life. I think they call it Homesteading and I don't play it, I live it.   
When I talk about this to other people it is funny, everyone has a story about when they were little at their grandparents house. The story always ends with the chicken running around with it's head cut off. Our system is a little more modern than that.
Just to let you know, everyone who does this has their own way of doing it so I am sure if you process chickens then you do it a different way. Here is our process. I may be a little vague, but it is for a reason.

Take the head off the chicken and bleed him out in the kill cone. After he is done, dip him in 140 degree water and swirl him around for about twenty seconds. If you let him sit in the water to long it will set the feathers and it will be harder to pluck him. The same if you do it to quick.

 

When the chicken is good and soaked, throw him in the plucker. My dad built this out of a 55 gallon barrel. The bottom spins throwing the chicken up and spinning him into the rubber fingers that grab all the feathers off. It only takes a few seconds to pluck a chicken this way. This thing is fantastic!

If done right the bird will come out pretty, clean and naked.
Now onto the processing table where he will be gutted and cleaned.
I didn't want to show any of the pictures of the actual process because I am sure some would have threw a fit over it. I call those people the "bleeding hearts", but if you plan to do this yourself and have any questions you can always email me.

After the chicken is processed we give him one more washing and then into the salted ice water to sit overnight. This is kinda like a weak brine then will limber the chicken up.
The next day after another washing you should be able to fold the chicken into a little ball and put him in a freezer bag and into the freezer.

All and all we processed about 20 or so chickens. The more you have helping the better. You can create kinda of an assembly line and work more efficient.

This has nothing to do with chickens, but prom came and went. This is the middle girl "Boppie" in all her glory.
Saturday morning her new dress she bought still didn't fit so it was a scramble for her to get another one. Even if I wasn't killing chickens I probably would have found something else to do than to be around the house while this was going on. Don't let her cute little smile fool ya.   

After the chickens were done I made the trip to the old farm and got all the tin I could get. I will be putting it up in the bathhouse during the week.

A freak storm blew through with 60+ mph winds Friday night creating some damage to the Mini Farm so Sunday was spent on repairs and maintenance with the oldest "BEB" manning the weedeater. 

In the end it was a good weekend, but I still could have used a couple more days to get it all done.