Finally Made it Back

So much has happened since I last posted. Sickness, birthdays, recitals, etc.
Shame on me for not taking just a few minutes out of a busy day to pop in and say HI to all you sweet people and let you know I was still here. This is sometimes hard for me to do and my typing skills are not what they were long ago.lol
Now lets see what time in my life can I share tonight....
This may sound Gorey to some but I will tell it in a kind way.
We were a self sufficient farm. That also involved raising our own meat. One time Pa got 100 biddies from the feed store to raise for food. Turned out there was a mistake of a few chicks and we kept them to lay eggs. On a Saturday morning bright and early we would start the fire under the ole wash pot and then set out for the chicken yard. When the first one's neck was wrung it was a shocker to us children. But being that we lived on a farm and knew about having to slaughter animals for our food, soon got us over the first shock of watching the chickens flop all over the place, and at times is seemed like they were coming after us for wringing their necks. Now if you remember mention has been made of being faintable over the sight of blood. Yeah right, the others decided they too couldn't stand the sight of blood and might faint at any moment. Now that left two of us to wring their necks. My oldest brother who was the pesticator and myself. We didn't seem to be doing the job fast enough and Pa told us to get one in each hand and go to town wringing those chickens necks. Well the party got in full swing then I have never seen so many dancing chickens in my life in one spot. My brother and I were doing the twist and the chickens were doing all sorts of dance steps all around us. Of course my brother had to make fun of me and goad me on about the task at hand and I got so mad at him that when I wrung the next two chickens necks they were left in my hands. "Sorry" I felt terrible to begin with for committing the sin of killing that I burst into tears over the happenings of my job. If you can imagine a 12 year old farm girl wringing chickens necks while squalling and tossing them in a pile, it was surely a sight for confusion with my brother laughing so hard he looked more like he was playing than working. The other girls had to douse the chickens in the hot water to loosen the feathers to pluck them easier while we were wringing their necks. Pa had already started butchering the plucked chickens getting them ready to put up in the freezer. Mama was in the kitchen frying up chicken and cooking collards, beans, mashed potatoes,gravy, and banana pudding for our dinner. The two youngest ones didn't have much to do in the line of work. About 50 chickens had been butchered by noon so we broke and ate dinner. No talking while at the table was my parents rule as well as eat everything on your plate and be quick about it, as we had to always get back to work doing one job or the other. While we girls cleaned the kitchen and put the leftovers away Pa went back to butchering chickens. This was also the time when I learned how to butcher a chicken all by myself. The only thing he threw away in the tub was the intestines. Waste not want not was his motto. The feet got skinned and eaten in chicken and rice along with the backs and necks. So I watched Pa for awhile then did it with his supervision and then he let me do it by myself telling me to not cut myself. I had a lesson in what a blood bath was about that day. The lessons learned came in handy later when I first got out on my own and had to cut up my own cwn chicken for the economical purchase price instead of the more expensive precut chickens. Well we didn't end up with 100 chickens in the freezer as they planned but close to it. It would certainly get us through the winter with the other meat we would butcher later in the Fall. It's amazing what we can do when we are in a position of have to do it or suffer the consequences like that day and many others on the farm while I was growing up. That was surely a long time ago, almost 50 years, and I can still remember it like it was just yesterday.
Well that's it for not so until next time I leave you with just this... Alice