I love my butcher.

Today with the help of a very knowledgeable young woman and her friend, we killed and cleaned 3 gargantuan chickens, 2 of whom are sitting in a pot in my kitchen at this very moment.(The other I gave to my Momma) I have a new found admiration and love for my butcher. Life would be very difficult, and might I add, VERY bloody without him. Thank God for the butcher! Hip hip hooray for the butcher! I think we should have a national "Butcher"day as a matter of fact. Are you wondering why I needed to slaughter 3 harmless innocent sweet little hens? OK, here's my story. I simply wanted to have a few laying hens. As you may have read in my previous post (RIP Paul), I purchased 4 darling fluffy tiny white chicks about 5 months ago in hopes of having in the very near future 4 darling fluffy normal sized laying hens. Well, as it turns out, these were White Plymouth Friars. Not to be confused with White Plymouth layers which is what I wanted. Looking back on the situation, I now realize that any animal named after a car is going to grow to be substaintialy big, but the feed store did not tell me what kind they were. I guess they thought I knew. That or they have a really SICK sense of humor. Well these little chicks did not stay little for long. They grew and they grew and they grew. As of today they were the size of a turkey. I kid you not. We actually weighed them and between the 3 they were 51 lbs. Yes you read that correctly, 51 lbs.! When I asked my friend Heidi who has a farm about these chickens, she immediatly knew that they were the kind raised for meat, and she says that by feeding them laying mash and kitchen scraps, I actually caused them to get this big. The grew so much that their legs could barely support their weight, and instead of walking, they waddled. One would even waddle over to the food and lay down to eat. Doing research on them, I found that they will at one point die of heart failure. Still, I did not want to kill them. I guess I am a little bit of a princess. So when my friend told me that her daughter Sammi was an expert on butchering, I called her up and she agreed to come over this morning and help me. She asked me if I had equipment, or if she should bring her own. My answer was,"Uh, equipment? You mean knives?" So, ever the professional, she brought her "Equipment", and completed the task, efficiently and completly. I am so blessed that she did. There is NO WAY that I could have done this by myself. Thank you Sammi. I learned alot this morning, more than I ever wanted to learn about butchering chickens. And I hope I never have to do it again. But if I do, I know I can. But then there is always Sammi, and I might just call her up again....I am keeping her number just in case!