Life in the Big Cedars: Bad Tomadoes and a Chicken Dinner

Friday when I picked Grace up from school she told me they had experienced some "bad tomadoes today and we had to get under the tables" at school. I had to take shelter at the blood center, Bryon was in the basement at Wheeler and my Mom was hiding out at work listening to the only radio in the building (hers) for the weather.

My Dad was on the lake fishing through the whole thing. He caught 65 crappie. Not a bad day considering he could have been blown away.

We didn't have too much damage considering how hard the wind must have blown. The good thing is, we are in the middle of the woods so the wind gusts get dampened before they ever get to us. The bad thing is, we are in the middle of the woods which means lots of trees could fall into our house. Bryon had a tree trimming service out a couple of years ago and we took out a few questionable trees just in time for the 2007 Ice Storm. Friday, a big tree on the west side of the house uprooted and crashed down. It missed the house but hit our local channel satellite dish. They can't fix it until May 28 because of all the requests for service since the storm. The storm knocked over an empty gas tank, flipped our canoe and totally turned our trampoline around and moved it about 10 feet. There were lots of limbs in the yard and one of the fryer chickens got injured in the fray.

I took her out of the cage because she was just continuing to get trampled on in there and put her in a separate cage. I covered it, gave her some food and water and bungied her to the big cage so a coyote wouldn't just pack her off in the night.
I inspected her and didn't really see any injuries that looked too severe.

I kept thinking she'd perk up after I got her out of the main cage but she didn't. She wouldn't get up at all. This morning, she would barely even hold her head up. I was afraid she'd be dead by the time we got home tonight but she was still alive. I figured we'd better just butcher her and eat her before we lost her completely.

So tonight after dinner we all went out and did the deed. Grace insisted on going to watch. We didn't let her watch us cut the head off or the chicken flap around in the trash barrel but she watched all the rest. Bryon skinned the bird so we wouldn't have to worry with the mess of plucking it. Grace was pretty interested and wanted to see the insides and the heart especially. She said the heart looked like an acorn. She wasn't the least big upset about the whole thing. She's a good farm girl. After it was all over I took it inside and weighed it. It was 2 pounds. Still small but they are only 42 days old still. I plan to butcher them Memorial Day weekend if all goes well. My friend Lindsey is going to loan me her plucker. She has about 200 birds right now. She's selling 30+ a week at the farmers market in Marshfield and plans to get her turkey's started in a week or so.

I thought I might raise a couple of turkey's but I don't know. If I have to start them NOW, that is a LONG TIME until Thanksgiving! Uggg!

I did find this one injured place right on the tip of the breast bone after she was dressed. I cut out the bad spot. I think she just got trampled in the fray in side the cage by all the other birds. She didn't seem to have any internal bleeding. Who knows?