I use a blow-dryer on a chicken

Since I am later then I meant to be on this post there is a lot to write about, or in your case read about.

The Saturday before last Saturday we went to the bus stop in Las Vegas and picked up our two new interns. One is Mat Kessler He is from New York. He is also in the WWOOF program (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms) so he has worked on a farm in Hawaii and a goat farm in Israel. The other new intern is Jordan Sorenson. He is from Provo UT. I don't know much else about either of them. So far they are proving quick learners and hard workers. I love having more company while doing anything on the farm. Both of them are also super nice.

After picking them up we went to DW BISTRO (one of the owners and the chef often come to the farmer's market and love Quail Hollow Farm's produce and people.) If you are ever in Las Vegas I recommend eating here. I think it might have been the yummiest food I have ever had in my life. Instead of ordering something off of the menu the chef Ricardo suggested we do a tasting. We didn't decide on any of the food we just told Ricardo to bring what ever he thought we would like the most. I believe it was four courses and then a dessert. All the plates that were brought out were small portions so we had room for everything. Each bite was so full of the perfect combinations of flavor that it seemed to melt on your tongue. I can't remember what everything was called but I know the first thing was a Mango sorbet to wet the palate, then it was a pasta type of salad with basil and pesto and cherry tomatoes, then there was steak, then there was a fish dish. Dessert was the best Carrot cake I have ever tasted in my life. One word for this meal... Heavenly. I could probably use more words but will leave it as is.

On Tuesday we had to do 20 of our chickens. (by "do" I mean butcher.) If you do not want to read anything relating to the process of this event feel free to skip to the next paragraph. We secure the chickens in these little upside-down cones and tie the chickens feet at the top with a wire. Monte would then slit their throats, this also helps the chickens to be less bloody for the rest of the stuff because all the blood drains to their head. Well I now know why we have to secure them in the cones with wire before we do this. One of the wires was not as tight as we thought and the chicken scooted out and fell on the ground and did flips. Instead of seeing a headless chicken running around I saw a dead chicken do flips. GROSS! I am sorry if I made you hungry in the last paragraph and made you sick in this paragraph, but I figure if anyone else out there wants to be a farmer you need to know the gross as well as the good. After they are dead they are plunged into boiling hot water with a drop of dish soap in it. The dish soap will help the feather plucking process. They are then moved to the plucker machine. Monte will cut off their feet and head before this. The plucker gets almost everything. We have to hand pluck the rest. This is what I volunteered for. I plucked the chickens then passed them on to have their innards pulled out. They were then given back to me and I rinsed them thoroughly inside and out and then put them in a cooler filled with ice water. And the chicken process is done.. I'm sure you are very glad.

Shares started again last week so on Harvest Day there was LOTS to Harvest. We have a 115 shareholders right now and may get more. To give you a glimpse of how much we harvested I will tell you the amount of beets that we needed. 120 bundles all with 4-5 good sized beets. That is a lot of beets to pull out of the muddy ground and then wash. Happily since shares started Kim and Sandy have returned. They are two of our share holders that help during share season. They are two delightful women, also very unique and interesting.

Sunday I found scorpion # 2 in my room. Same size as the last one... probably the size of my palm in length. Out of all the rooms in the house WHY MINE? I hate scorpions! Again Monte came to my rescue and killed it, he then looked under the bottom drawers of the dresser to see if there was a nest... which their wasn't (thank goodness!). More motivation to keep my room perfectly clean always. And as my own defense my room was not too untidy this week (nothing was on the floor), but I have decided to be better (all surfaces clean as well).

Monday (yesterday) we went to this apple orchard in the middle of no-where, a little oasis spot in the desert. We picked 8 bushels of Johnathon, 8 bushels of Winesap, 8 bushels of Golden Delicious, and 8 bushels of Red Delicious. These we will sell at market and put into the shares. We then shook a few trees and gathered 9 bushels of Johnathons for apple sauce and apple butter. I stepped outside my comfort zone and actually climbed several of the trees. I did not go very high like Matt or Jordon but I did actually get inside the tree. This is an accomplishment for me. For picking apples you need the nifty apple picker tool. A pole with a kind of open cage at one end. The cage bit has a little bit of cushioning at the bottom of it and blunted curved hooks at the top of half of it. You use the pole to give your arm more length and the hooks you might call metal fingers. The hooks help break it off of the stem and then it catches it in it's cage thing so that the apples don't fall far and bruise. I don't know if this explanation made any sense but I tried.

Oh last Saturday we also got 3 little pigs... or piglets. We put them in the goat pen, because our pig pen has onions hanging up in it drying. It is the funniest thing to see 3 little pigs chasing 8 big goats around the pen. Our goats didn't know what to do about these new arrivals. So if a pig approached the goats they all ran the other way. If one pig was standing on one side of the feeder, the goats would eat from the other side or not eat until the pigs had wandered off somewhere else. The goats are now getting used to the pigs so they don't re-act as much as they used to. One little pig is black with a white stripe on his back that continues on his leg. I named this little pig Percy (i.e. Sir Percival Blakeney a.k.a. The Scarlet Pimpernel). The second little pig is brown with white spots on his backside, Jordon named this one Pumba. The third little pig is brown with a white stripe and Matt named him Piggy. I suggested they all have "P" names that way there is better alliteration. I had thought of Percy and Pierre but couldn't think of a third name starting with P. So they just decided we would each get one pig to name.

Now for the story that relates to the title of this post. I used a blow-dryer on a chicken. I am sure you all are wondering whats the meaning of this, or what is the story behind this title. It is actually not too exciting but made a great title. Last night as I was doing evening chores I noticed a sad wet hen sitting in the goat water. Often the chickens will stand on the edge of the goat's water tub to get a drink, if the tub is slightly empty they bend farther and fall in and can't get out because they float and their feet can't touch the bottom to give them a boost up and out. Well this chicken had been in there for some time because we had been gone picking apples and weren't there to fish it out after it had fallen in. Now chickens can get hypothermia and die after they are fished out and don't warm up. So I used a blow dryer on this chicken for probably the equalevent of 10 minutes. I have never seen a half naked chicken (due to being pecked at) look so fluffy. Well she lived and so I didn't have to pick up any dead chickens this morning. I was so happy.

Oh.... I almost forgot to mention I got my Young Woman Medalion on Sunday becaue I finally finished my personal progross (I was a little later then I had planned on being)!!!

TTFAW (Ta Ta For Another Week) TTFN :D