Processing Day Support Group ~ HELP us through the Emotions PLEASE!

[LindaB220]

I will! Just today she decided she might like to take horse riding lessons...said she always loved horses but just never had the chance to do anything much with them. Dad would never have allowed it anyway, but now he's in a facility with dementia so she's done all kinds of things she was never allowed to do. She learned to drive at 75, used her first ATM card the year after that, and gets to finally go to the library and have a library card any time she wants now. There's no telling what she will learn and do next...she was thinking about taking computer courses.

I'm only here to be her companion as she learns new things and to stand back and marvel!

My ex MIL never wore pants until her husband died when she was 70ish. Loved them and tennis shoes. Husbands can hold you back.

 

[LindaB220]

Well...when it's time, it's time. It's either that or put them out to pasture until they die on the hoof. *sigh*

Bahahahahaha You two crack me up.

 

[Beekissed]

My ex MIL never wore pants until her husband died when she was 70ish. Loved them and tennis shoes. Husbands can hold you back.

Sure can. Mom did a lot of those years of homesteading in a dress/skirt too....wasn't allowed pants for many years, but she could put sweat pants under her dress for working outside in the wintertime. Wasn't allowed to shave pits and legs either....

 

[LindaB220]

Amazing indeed. And I know just what it's like, to feel so free.

I lived with my mom 'til I was 22. She meant well, but was extremely bad about smothering folks... Then one year I flew across the Atlantic all by myself. Mind you, I had never been away from home more than a few days (and those were things like summer camp), or been on a plane! Never been to a bar, or stayed out past 10, never learned to drive... I was very, very sheltered.

Freedom .... it's a wonderful thing. Can't put a price on it.

Ofcourse my young and clueless self got married and ended up with a new control freak, this time in the shape of a husband

Ah, well... Learned my lesson after six years of marriage. Learned to drive, got a good job, lost a lot of weight and I was free once more! (and then I met someone new, had kids yada yada. But, he's respectful and enjoys growing and learning together. He loves the chickens and all my crazy wild plans)

Ya know.. I always wanted to ride a horse.

It sounds like you landed on your feet. Good for you and your man.

 

[Tomtommom]

My polish grandpa is 99 and I love to hear his stories. Can't even imagine what it was like growing up through all the hard times. He too was raised on a farm with an insanely large family of which he is the last living child. He is a hard controlling man though and we only get along because I don't take his crap and have what they might call loose mouth. I love reading books about their times but can't imagine it. My husband is Cheyenne and was raised on an Indian reservation and boy was it harsh.

Oh the stories....

My mom was born in '49 in Holland.. a harsh time, recovering from WW2. 8 siblings, her mom passed from typhus when my mom was 14, making her the new 'woman of the house' and she had to leave school. Her dad biked to work (30 miles there and 30 miles back), working in the shipyard. Stories of sugar sandwiches (cheese and meat was a luxury) and woolen knitted underpants.. a job sweeping at the bakery at 12 years old, getting a bag of broken cookies as a bonus on weekends. (Funny enough, my brother ended up working at that same bakery, owned by the same family, 40 years later)

My dad was born in July 1945... sadly, never spent much time with that side of the family. I can imagine the stories his parents would've had. The winter of 1944 was extremely lean, must've been hard as a pregnant woman.

We sure got it easy these days. A little struggle and hard work makes you feel alive though. When everything comes too easy, you get complacent. Like raising meat, it's more work, but you feel alive, connected, part of the circle of life... something so lacking when you use your pieces of paper to buy a slab of something on a styrofoam tray.

 

[LindaB220]

Oh the stories....

My mom was born in '49 in Holland.. a harsh time, recovering from WW2. 8 siblings, her mom passed from typhus when my mom was 14, making her the new 'woman of the house' and she had to leave school. Her dad biked to work (30 miles there and 30 miles back), working in the shipyard. Stories of sugar sandwiches (cheese and meat was a luxury) and woolen knitted underpants.. a job sweeping at the bakery at 12 years old, getting a bag of broken cookies as a bonus on weekends. (Funny enough, my brother ended up working at that same bakery, owned by the same family, 40 years later)

My dad was born in July 1945... sadly, never spent much time with that side of the family. I can imagine the stories his parents would've had. The winter of 1944 was extremely lean, must've been hard as a pregnant woman.

We sure got it easy these days. A little struggle and hard work makes you feel alive though. When everything comes too easy, you get complacent. Like raising meat, it's more work, but you feel alive, connected, part of the circle of life... something so lacking when you use your pieces of paper to buy a slab of something on a styrofoam tray.

What a difference. I was born in Louisiana in '47 and though money was tight we did not have troubles like that. Yes I walked a dozen blocks to school but it never snowed.

 

[tommysgirl]

This is not supposed to be easy; taking a life is a solemn thing. For me I do not want to ever get so calloused that I do not feel sad about taking a life. I want my meat chickens to have a lot of good days and one bad day.

My brother, who is a scientist, has a theory of conservation of difficulty. The theory goes that in any situation there is a certain amount of difficulty. You can move the difficulty around, but you cannot eliminate it. For example, anyone who had a computer in the 80's knows how hard it was to use a computer. You had to learn a lot about programming in order to use simple programs. Now computers are pretty simple to use because the designers and programmers have taken the difficulty away from the user and hidden it behind the scenes. So today you can fire up your computer and go directly to your desktop instead of start from the C prompt. To bring this back to chickens, if you are going to eat meat, then there is a certain amount of difficulty in the situation. Factory farms have allowed people to ignore that difficulty by raising chickens in conditions that are horrible and that do not respect the nature of the chicken -- the difficulty has been shifted from the people eating them to the chickens. I see the sadness and discomfort I suffer from killing chickens that I have carefully raised as my taking some of the difficulty on myself.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense.

This is beautiful and brilliant and you and your brother are geniuses. Thank you so much for posting it I will happily assume the difficulty on one day so that the boys in the dog crate this morning and all of those that come after them can enjoy chicken lives all of the others.

I also want to thank all of the people who mentioned thanking the bird and saying a prayer over the bird(s) If we say a blessing when we are about to eat it we should say a blessing when we are preparing it to be eaten. God Bless all of the kind and gentle people on this thread too.

 

[ronott1]

This is beautiful and brilliant and you and your brother are geniuses. Thank you so much for posting it I will happily assume the difficulty on one day so that the boys in the dog crate this morning and all of those that come after them can enjoy chicken lives all of the others.

I also want to thank all of the people who mentioned thanking the bird and saying a prayer over the bird(s) If we say a blessing when we are about to eat it we should say a blessing when we are preparing it to be eaten. God Bless all of the kind and gentle people on this thread too.

You are very welcome!

It gets easier to do this too. It is great that you are taking this step.

 

[tommysgirl]

I just culled a hen that had repeatedly gotten into trouble laying an egg. She was deteriorating. I just feel sick about it.

I am sorry. I have an internal layer. She has appeared pretty healthy for while but I am not looking forward to the day I have to cull her

Got it done. Three done two more tomorrow. NH red roo is the size of a small Turkey! On left. Saving that for a weekend dinner. Currently making soup with roo #2. The tiny one was cut up and put in freezer to make stock, along with feet, necks, and gizzards. Yup I'm feeling farmer today. Took me about two hours.

These look great!

Welcome to the new folks!

For putting chicks down, the easiest way for me is sharp pruning shears. Dig the hole first, cut the neck with the shears and drop in the hole. It's still hard on me, but the chick goes peacefully.

Thank you for this too...I am reminded again that we assume the difficulty ourselves to lessen the difficulty for the chick.

You are very welcome!

It gets easier to do this too. It is great that you are taking this step.

Thanks I am grateful to my friend and colleague who is hosting this processing party this morning. Looking forward to being done!

 

[Beekissed]

This is not supposed to be easy; taking a life is a solemn thing. For me I do not want to ever get so calloused that I do not feel sad about taking a life. I want my meat chickens to have a lot of good days and one bad day.

My brother, who is a scientist, has a theory of conservation of difficulty. The theory goes that in any situation there is a certain amount of difficulty. You can move the difficulty around, but you cannot eliminate it. For example, anyone who had a computer in the 80's knows how hard it was to use a computer. You had to learn a lot about programming in order to use simple programs. Now computers are pretty simple to use because the designers and programmers have taken the difficulty away from the user and hidden it behind the scenes. So today you can fire up your computer and go directly to your desktop instead of start from the C prompt. To bring this back to chickens, if you are going to eat meat, then there is a certain amount of difficulty in the situation. Factory farms have allowed people to ignore that difficulty by raising chickens in conditions that are horrible and that do not respect the nature of the chicken -- the difficulty has been shifted from the people eating them to the chickens. I see the sadness and discomfort I suffer from killing chickens that I have carefully raised as my taking some of the difficulty on myself.

Anyway, I hope that makes sense.

This right here should be a sticky on the top of every page of this forum and all the others dealing with chickens out there. This is the true essence of the lives of chickens and how we got here and with a great analogy.