Chicken Butchering

Today we butchered the chickens from Mama and Papa's farm (we think there were 15 left this morning, though we started out with 25!). Dave went over to the farm bright and early to get things set up for the big event, and then my parents and a couple of their friends joined him around 7am. They were done and back to our house with the chickens in tow by 8:30am, and by 11:15am we had successfully plucked, washed, cut-up, and vacuumed packed them all! The kids really didn't participate in this event, though they have been indirectly learning about the process of raising animals for food, just by listening to our conversations. Belle did sit up at the counter with Dave for awhile while be vacuumed sealed the meat -- and he did a great job teaching her about the process of food storage. Hopefully in the next couple of years the bigger kids can start to be more involved with this process. I feel so blessed that my parents are so involved with our lives, (and that they own farm property so close to our home!). Sometimes I forget to express to them how truly grateful I am for their presence in my children's, Dave's, and my own life - tomorrow I'm going to make an extra effort to tell them how much they mean to me!