The Day At the Nice's

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

Acts 2:42

Saturday, July 31st, we woke up bright and early:  today was the day to process our chickens! :)  We ate a very quick breakfast and then we were piled into Daddy's truck for the 15-20 minute drive to the Nice's house.  Mr. Jon, our friend from church, came along too (he was stuffed in the back of the truck with 4 of my siblings ;)!  Once at the Nice's we prepared to start processing!  Ice was taken over to the processing area, clothes were hung on the line, aprons were donned, and then we started! 

I'll give a quick overview of the process with very little detail:

1. 
   
   Bleed out the chickens. 
2. 
   
   Once immobile, dunk them in 147 degree water.
3. 
   
   Put the chickens in the FeatherMan, turn on until most of the feathers are gone.
4. 
   
   Trim off feet.

After this there was a myriad of things that happened:  heads cut off, eviceration, checking for pin feathers, rinsing, placing in ice-cold water tank, etc. 

Hannah stayed pretty faithful on the eviceration table (even though she cut her thumb on her 1st chicken!). Lexi rinsed out the chickens after eviceration.  Caleb cut legs off and Seth dunked the chickens in the water and put them in the featherman.  Mr. Jon helped end the chickens' lives and Daddy helped out wherever needed.  As for me, I checked for pin feathers and (thanks to Mrs. Nice!) got to shrink-wrap (a.k.a. bag and weigh) the chickens after they had been cleaned out and looked like a chicken you buy from the store.  [In case you were wondering, I did *half-way* evicerate a chicken.  But only one! :)]

The Nice's have four sons (Jon, Jeffrey, Jeremy, and Jason!) and they evicerated, cut off heads/legs, etc.  Mr. Nice helped out wherever (mostly near the killing station) and Mrs. Nice helped where needed too (and watched Jason - the youngest Nice). 

I can't forget to add that Eden came along also.  She did a great job playing with Jason!  :)  [Mama, Josiah, and Lydia were at home still preparing lunch and dinner for all of us.]

There were lots of funny and gross things that happened that day ( for example, Hannah could make the chicken squawk after eviceration :).  

Just as an interesting note:  we had two Jehovah's Witnesses show up as we were killing, slicing, gutting, and bagging.  They didn't stay very long. ;)

 So, anyways, we finished all of the chickens in 2 1/2 hours!!  I think there were about 40 chickens so that's approximately 3.75 chickens a minute.  :) 

Once we were done we cleaned up and went inside.  :)  Mama came over around 12ish bringing lots of food with her!

For lunch we had a taco-salad bar with banana bread and chocolate chip cookies.

After lunch, some people played outside and some stayed inside and talked. ;) 

For dinner we had roast beef, mashed potatoes, greenbeans, carrots, and buttermilk rolls!  Everything was so yummy!

Potatoes.

(Lump-free...just the way I like it. ;)

Greenbeans - from our garden! :)

Roast beef and carrots.

(Yes, we had thought of eating chicken for dinner but we decided against it! :)

This is everyone (minus me) eating dinner.  The Nice's have a HUGE table and we could fit all 17 of us around it! 

After dinner, and more talking, the men churned ice cream.  Once it was done we had vanilla ice cream and chocolate pound cake! :)  It was already about 10:00 when we finished eating dessert, so the guys packed up the van and we said goodbye to everyone.

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So, there is my report of the chicken-processing day!  We all had so much fun with the wonderful Nice family, and we look forward to getting together again.  (In fact, we're probably going to help them process their 300+ chickens next week.)

One more thing - don't forget to check out the Nice's website here.  They've updated it with pictures and lots of information so make sure to take a look! :)

Delighting in Jesus,

                                                                            Kimber :)