Happy Chicken Day: do not look closely at the following photos if you get queasy at the sight of blood

It is Thanksgiving here in Canada, and we found an appropriate way to give thanks.  Butchering our own chickens.  Our friends, Mark and Katie Elias, raised chickens this year and we bought some of them.  We visited the chickens once or twice this summer and watched them growing.  Then on Saturday, we participated in their demise.

You might be surprised to learn that I was expecting something a little more unpleasant than what we encountered.  The hardest part for me was training myself to think of the dull thud of the hatchet as just chopping wood.  My first experience cutting off chicken heads (when I was twelve or thirteen) was rather traumatic, and I vomited, and somehow the sound is what stuck with me.  But once I got over the sound, the entire experience wasn't so bad.  Without their heads, they're really well on their way to the table and it's very easy to impersonalize the experience.  I think I just made up the word impersonalize.  But it's what I mean.  And you should know that it's much easier to get over chopping their heads off when you remember that they poop in their own beds, lay their eggs in that poop, and often peck weaker chickens to death for no apparent reason (hence the term "pecking order").  It's way easier than killing a thoughtful, hygienic, cuddly creature.  And when you think of the delightful dinners we will enjoy on the other end of the experience, it seems worthwhile.

There is much more to say about this experience, but for now I will leave off by stating my conviction that everyone ought to experience the process and understand where your food comes from.  It will remind you that the food you need to survive comes from the earth, not from the grocery store.