Never Thought I'd See the Day

The unthinkable has happened! Nick has slaughtered TWO of his chickens. He had to kill the first one because somehow it damaged its leg severely and all of his research told him to put it out of its misery. So he gathered a group of friends and prepared the scene and when it came time to chop the head off, he couldn't do it.:)  So another brave friend stepped up and offered to do it for him and you should've heard these boys screaming like girls as the head flew off and the body started flapping around...I'm feeling a little queasy even writing about it. And no, I was not outside watching this, but I was watching through the blinds at an angle that I couldn't see the head become separated from the body. But Nick stepped right in while all the other boys were running the other direction and did what he had to do to make sure everything was contained in a bucket. Then he proceeded to de-feather it, etc. to get the practice since he decided we are going to eat a few of his chickens...WHAT??????

So yesterday he and a couple buddies (the rest were apparently traumatized to the point of not coming back for the 2nd one) prepared everything for the 2nd slaughtering (that's such a harsh word).They built a fire in the fire pit and put a big pot of water on the grate to get it boiling to soften the feathers once it's dead. They decided to kill this one another way (which Nick researched of course) but I'm not going to say how because I think it's even grosser but apparently the way some farmers do it. Once again, when it came time to do the actual killing, Nick couldn't do it so another brave friend stepped up. But once it was dead, Nick took over and proceeded to de-feather it, and everything else to prepare it to one day be the centerpiece of our dinner table. As you can see from the picture below...it was a pretty stinky process. Deep down I understand that this is where ALL chicken comes from and I eat chicken all the time, but after watching and hearing about all of this I'm really not sure that I'm going to be able to eat this one...I'll let you know.