Fall is the very best time to buy trees.  Not only is the weather alot easier on the newly-planted, but most nurseries have amazing deals to try to clear out as much as possible to make room for next year's inventory.  So Sunday we took a drive to Elmore Roots Nursery who was advertising $20 trees and $10 shrubs.  These guys have been around for 30 years and trust me, if it can grow in Elmore its got to be hearty.

We packed the fifteen trees and three grape vines into the back of the pickup, covered them with a tarp, and headed to Stowe for an early birthday party for my friend, Ali.  Kyle and I planned a vacation day for Monday so we carved pumpkins, ate and laughed the night away with good friends.

We woke up on Monday to a clear sky.  After bringing the dogs and Elvis to their appointment with the vet we grabbed some breakfast sandwiches at DJ's and headed home.  By now the sun was high up in the sky and we set to work.

First we had to decide where exactly we wanted to plant our trees.  They would take up a considerable amount of space, needing about 25' between them, but we didn't want to take up potential grazing or garden space.  It was a debate between a nice little hillside behind the house where there are currently three birch trees and a beach tree in residence that faces west, or the flat section near the road that faces south.  It was a long debate but in the end we decided not to choose either spots. 

Instead we looked to the front yard where there is plenty of grass but unsuitable for grazing or gardening.  Not only would this be a beautiful spot for an orchard, it would also provide some great privacy from the neighbor across the road and people driving by.  And I love the idea of sitting on our front porch someday, enjoying the beauty of apple and pear trees in bloom.  While we debated on the layout of the apple orchard we planted the lone cherry tree (self-pollinating according to the orchard) in the front-right yard which gets some great southern sun exposure.

We set out the eleven apple and three pear trees and began placing them along our yard, twenty-five feet apart.  Kyle dug the holes and filled them with a bit of mineral mix, then I'd give them a big drink of water laced with some seaweed juice (highly recommended by the orchard) after we planted each tree.  It took some time, my hands were solidly brown from the soil which is always a good thing, and when we were finished we stepped back to enjoy our new landscape.

I painted all the trees with some special tree paint to protect them from sun and wind damage and we even clipped on some garlic-oil deer repellent to each tree.  I liked the end result- each tree was more visible with the white paint- at least Kyle will see them and not hit them with the lawn tractor.  Someday these trees will become a beatiful orchard and we'll cover their branches with white lights for Christmas and in the summer we'll have birds nesting in their branches.  But those days are far away, when our future-children are grown.  I like that; good things take time.

So last weekend was not only our big APPLE weekend, it was also when we had scheduled to butcher our fifteen broilers that we'd been raising.  This was more of my husband's project as I wasn't sure how ready I was to really actually kill anything.  So, for fear of becoming attached to them as I have with my laying hens (I use that term lightly as they haven't actually started laying yet), Kyle was in charge of the feeding and watering of these chicks during their time with us. 

They arrived and were little balls of fluff, cute and peeping, but after a month they were already the size of our 5-month old hens in the side yard.  We knew this type of bird was bred to grow fast and grow fast they certainly did.  Of course, they required an immense amount of food and water to support their amazing metabolism so I'm not sure that we had saved any money in raising our own chicken for food.  The point, though, was not to raise our own broilers to save money, it was to be responsible consumers.  This was our own little boycott on big commercial poultry organizations that claim to sell free-range birds but in reality keep them crammed in pens above eachother with just a small door allowing a few of them at a time into a slightly larger yard.  No, I did not feel good supporting that.

So the time had come.  Thanks to the hard work we had done with the apples the day before I was able to sleep through the night.  Otherwise I probably would have tossed and turned thinking about the chickens and their fate.  Sunday we woke up to a cool and cloudy morning and got to work.

Kyle created a workbench from some old wooden boards we salvaged from the part of our barn we had to tear down which I wrapped in some plastic wrap to try to keep things a little more sanitary.  He cut a hole into one of our 5-gallon buckets we had kicking around as sort of a make-shift "killing cone" and attached it to the tree next to the bench.  Much to my relief Kyle's brother, Sean, arrived who was going to be helping us with our task.  He is a hunter so we decided his experience and input would be invaluable.  He showed up with his very own home-made, McGyver-estque chicken plucker.  We all looked at it, basically a hand-held drill with a bit made out of a piece of PVC pipe with some pieces of rubber bungee cords attached to it, with a little bit of humor and went on with the preparations.

After some hot coffee (or tea in my case) Kyle and I began bringing the birds outside to keep them in our chicken run that we created for our chicks back in July.  Perhaps it sounds a little silly but I said a quiet 'thank you' to all them as they went outside.  It was an extremely poignant feeling as I looked at our birds for the last time as they laid calmly on the grass.  We had raised these birds from two-day old chicks, tending to their every need to be sure they were healthy and comfortable.  Now they would nuture us in return.

The boys grabbed the first bird and I stood by.  I was not ready to take a hand in the killing, but I wanted to be respectful to the lives that were being taken, so I stood there as a witness.  There were no axes, just a sharp knife and a quick hand.  I watched as the silent bird slowly drifted off into a hazy sleep with a few tears in my eyes.  This was going to be tough.  Just in time, my brother and sister-in-law arrived to help as this was going to be a long process.  My sister-in-law, Viola, is almost always up for a new experience and I think she was, frankly, a little excited to be involved in the cleaning that would come later.  She's a tough gal, that one, and I love her for it.

When the time came for cleaning the chickens we had quite the group- Kyle, Sean, and Viola standing by donning disposable gloves and my brother and I standing by trying to help with the instructions.  No one had any experience in this, all we had was Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens that was lent to me by a co-worker just a couple days before.  But as I am better with visuals I sought after some kind of video.  To my rescue I found the Featherman website which is a company who not only makes some great poulty-processing equipment (too rich for my blood, we were doing this old-school) they also provide links to a few videos on Youtube that are amazingly informative on how to process your birds.  So I brought the laptop out to show to the crew and they got to work.

Oh, and I forgot to mention, that little home-made chicken-plucker worked like a charm!  After scalding the birds in hot water, Sean put his contraption to the feathers and they literally flew off.  It wasn't perfect, mind you, there were still feathers here and there that had to be pulled out by hand, but it was alot quicker, cleaner, and easier than doing it all manually.



At this point my dear mother arrived to help with more of the apples (she wanted NOTHING to do with the chicken activities of the day) so after watching and trying to give pointers (having dissected animals in college during my brief stint as an animal science major) I adjourned to the comforts of the house to help peel and and slice some fruit.

It was a busy day.  I gave the birds a final wash in the sink, packed them in zip-lock freezer bags and tucked them away into our chest freezer.  While I had planned to roast the first-to-go to feed the group in thanks for their help, no one was really up for eating any chicken that day.  While the experience was relatively positive, let me tell you: these birds don't exactly smell like a bunch of flowers.  When I saw my sister-in-law last night at a little birthday dinner for yours-truly she mentioned that she still wasn't really ready to eat chicken, the smell had been that bad.

The "thank-you" chicken we sent home with Sean was the first to be consumed.  His wife, Andrea, cooked it rotisserie-style and they said it was delicious.  Zach and Viola's chicken is still in our freezer until they have room to house it themselves; we have more than enough room.  Mom didn't want one.  We have yet to cook one of ours but with this cold and rainy weather we're looking at for the next few days I might just have to pull one out of the freezer to try it out.

We're already making plans to raise our own turkey next year- probably a heritage breed after reading a blog on Antiquity Oaks- and we're going to raise another group of dual-purpose birds for slaughter next fall.  I would not recommend the Cornish x Rock broilers, they grow too fast for their own good.  I'm thinking of getting a straight-run of Sussex to add to the Dominiques, Black Australorps, and Easter-eggers that are in residence currently.  With this plan we should be able to dispatch the roosters (to keep peace with the neighbors) and whatever older birds that are no longer laying well in the years to come.

This was a difficult experience for me being such an animal-lover.  But I feel good knowing that we gave these birds the best life we could.  We could have brought the birds to a professional to be butchered, there is one just in the next town over, but we are thriving for self-sufficiency; the more we can do ourselves the better.

How you do you feel about raising animals to feed your family?  Have you had any experiences with raising your own food?  If not, do you think you ever could?  Let me know what your thoughts are on this, its nice to hear back from you.  Thanks for stopping in- take care!

As soon as we arrived we immediately set in to getting to work.  Two pots cooking apples for applesauce and the canning pot were set on the stove while we peeled, cored, and sliced apples to freeze for treats to be baked later during the chill of winter.  My dear friend, Ali, arrived to help us with our monumental task.  While we processed the apples I turned on the grill (maybe for the last time this year) to cook the burgers for dinner; black bean burgers for Ali and I, and regular beef burgers for Mom and Kyle (although I think Kyle had one of each, he loves those black bean burgers so much).  After our break for food, Ali started working on four loaves of apple bread which I think turned out deliciously!

By the end of the day we had finished off a good chunk of the apples from the back of the truck.  We managed to freeze six gallons of apples and can about twelve quarts of apple sauce.  It was a great day, full of good friends, good food, and lots of laughs.  Thanks to everyone who made a beautiful day even more special.