Goodbye Chickens, Hello Life (and fridge)

We are done! All the chickens are butchered and froze! We can now leave our house for more than 3 hours at a time without finding a babysitter (not for a kid that I didn't tell you about - but for the chickens)!!  It is just so exciting - who knew that those birds could control our life as much as they did?! Chicken butchering went well - we had a good team of helpers with Luke's dad and grandparents. I would clean up any remnant feathers and remove the legs, and Luke's dad and grandma did the rest (I won't share the nitty gritty details). We had it worked out to a pretty smooth process. EXCEPT...I had to spray down each chicken with the hose, and I always felt like chicken juices were ricocheting into my face, yuck! But, for the most part, it felt good to be a part of it, and know that we raised healthy chickens with no added hormones, and that they had a good life before they died (unlike most conventional chickens). And, I even got to put my biology skills to the test an identify some chicken anatomy :) Too bad I couldn't preserve some specimens for class. Little things like this excite me! But, they were all butchered, so it was time to celebrate.

Luke and I like to keep a pretty tight budget - it helps us save up money and make sure we aren't spending money unnecessarily. I was so excited to say goodbye to the last chicken that I drove straight to the local grocery store and spent $60 on beer and liquor! We threw ourselves a spontaneous "Yay, the chickens are gone" party - and it was a good time! Now that our chicken adventure is over, I wonder what exciting things are to come!

I know what else is getting easier - we are just a few days away from having a walk-in cooler all installed! It is all built - now it just needs to get hooked up to electricity. Exciting things at Twin Elm Gardens. Now if only the stupid mosquitoes would go away. 22 bites later and it was time to put out the campfire (I didn't actually count the bites - but that feels pretty accurate. Time for some much needed sleep....