I expect to see tons of fiber beasties, and hopefully you, too!

The Fiber Arts Festival at Bonanzaville was absolutely fabulous!  Bonanzaville is a recreated pioneer village in West Fargo, North Dakota, and it made a beautiful back drop for all the spinning, weaving, knitting, crocheting, tatting … *gasp* … all of the fiber arts on display.

The turnout was wonderful.  If you stopped by my booth, whether to say hi, pet yarn, smell soap, or watch me spin on the drop spindle with more enthusiasm than grace, thank you!  I met people from all over the US - even Merritt Island (next door to Cape Canaveral)!  I even got to meet someone I’ve been cyberstalking:  Deb of Northern Prairie Alpacas.  Don’t be terribly surprised if you see some alpaca news here in the next few months!

I did actually take a few pictures, but I’ve misplaced my camera…  Instead you get an action shot of me weaving on Mark Bernstein’s loom.  You can find his gorgeous rugs at Log Cabin Looms on Etsy.

Loom or Torture Device?

Next I’m heading to Eureka, Montana, for Fiberfest EUREKA!! The boys are going with me this time - it could be very interesting!

Below you will find my thoughts on the process, things the books didn’t tell me, and my musings on a very intense first step in a direct relationship with my food.

Most modern references recommend using a “killing cone” (basically a wide mouthed funnel used to suspend the bird upside down) and a very sharp knife to severe the jugular.  The key is the very, VERY sharp knife; we’re talking razor sharp, scalpel sharp…  I wasn’t confident enough in my knife sharpening skills, but I knew my hatchet was sharp enough to cut air.  I decided to go old school.

We’ve all heard stories of chickens running around after their heads are chopped off.  I can tell you that mine didn’t run, but there was a definite twitch and flop that was very disturbing.  Honestly, it will take me a long time to get used to that - if I ever do.

Once the chicken is dead, the next step is to drain the blood from the carcass.  Maybe I watch too many horror movies that imply everyone and everything is basically a blood bag walking around, but chickens have a lot less blood than I expected.

Next is plucking, or “picking” as the professionals call it.  I dry-plucked as much as possible so my husband could use the feathers for fly tying, then I dipped the bird in 130* F water for thirty seconds to scald the feathers and loosen them up.  Plucking feathers is disturbingly like popping zits on a dead body.  Some feathers have gooey insides that need to be pulled out after the feather has come off; some feathers pop off at the skin, leaving a shaft that has to be tweezed or scraped out, and that’s not even talking about pin feathers and hairs…  I decided next time I will skip picking all together and just skin the bird.

I won’t go into details of eviscerating the carcass - it’s not much different from cleaning a fish, if you’ve ever done that.  I will say that if the bird is properly drained of blood, at this point it’s just meat, meat with bits that have to be cut out, but just meat. Three things of note during the evisceration:

One:  chickens have an oil gland above the tail that has to be carefully cut out.  The oil gland has a nipple that looks just like the base of a feather, but no matter how you pull on it, it won’t come out.  The guides describe carefully cutting out the oil gland, following the back bone in a “scooping” motion.  They don’t tell you that the gland is shaped like a saddle over the base of the tail.  I ended up starting the cut about an inch above the tail and just cutting off the whole tail.

Two: I wish I had used my kitchen shears more.  This is what they were designed for and I think I would have more control with scissors than with a knife.

And three:  I wish I had kept a mental checklist of organs as I pulled them out.  I am not a fan of organ meat, so I didn’t plan on keeping anything.  They all went into the trash bag as they came out.  Unfortunately, that meant I kept checking the carcass obsessively, convinced I missed something.  I didn’t, but I would have had more peace of mind if I had paid more attention.

All in all it took about three hours from start to finish, and a lot of that was stealing myself up for the death blow.  I can say that I will continue to cultivate this direct relationship with my food, so I can ensure that the life of my livestock is happy and healthy, their deaths are quick and painless, and the meat is kept clean and contaminate free for my family, however, I don’t think I will ever say it’s easy.

Enough gushy stuff!  How about some chickens?

Evil Little Dinosaurs

We bought ten Red-Sex Link chickens from the feed store in April.  They brooded in our sitting room in a giant storage bin with a heat lamp until they were fully feathered, when they graduated to the A-frame coop outside.

Red-Sex Links are a hybrid between (white) Leghorns and (brown) Rhode Island Reds.  They are one of the most common backyard chickens and they are fabulous for first-timers (like me) because the boys (cockerels) are born yellow and feather-in white and the girls (pullets) are born brownish-red and feather-in fully brown.  We bought five of each, cockerels for the freezer and pullets for the eggs.  One pullet didn’t make it, so we’re down to nine chickens.

I'm a boy!

The girls are shy...

Chicken Yard

The coop is a work in progress - and I *still* haven’t painted it!  Currently it’s an open bottomed A-frame with one side hinged to open completely.  Every morning I open the coop and let the chickens roam their little yard.  Every night they troop back to their coop and I close them in, all safe and snug in their little beds.  Every day or so I move the whole kit and caboodle so they always have fresh grass to graze.

When we finally move to our own property - or at least when we get it all fenced - the chickens will be truly free-range. I’d love to let them range the whole yard right now, but our baby bird dog cannot resist anything with feathers.

JackJack and the Chickens

Both the dog and the chickens pretend that the fence is impenetrable.  Of course, it’s just $19.99 garden fence that bends with every breeze…  We’ll be using woven wire on our pasture with a strand of electric on the top (to prevent predators from jumping over) and a strand near the bottom (to prevent our beasties from lounging on or shouldering the wire.  Once we finish that, the chickens will have the run of the whole pasture.

Last night, when I went to shut the chickens in their coop, it was already dark.  And when I say dark, I mean *dark* - pitch black - no ambient light whatsoever.  I grabbed my flashlight, double checked that all chickens were in their coop, and shut the door.  As I was walking back to the house, I heard loud rustling in the reeds near the creek.  The flashlight was too weak to reach all the way across the creek, but I did catch some eye shine.  As I was trying to figure out what the hell it could be, I heard the most unnatural groan followed by strange snuffling.  It was so disconcerting (read “scared the crap out of me”) that I *ran* back to the house, laughing at my own fear, but not slowing down a bit.

This morning when I got up, I finally saw the evil creature that terrorized me last night, and it was not the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal…

Cows are not scary in daylight...

The dogs tried their best to scare the cows out of the wheat field, but eventually their owner came and rounded them up.

Did I forget to tell you we have chickens?

Depression sucks for a number of reasons, but one of the most infuriating can be the well meaning reaction of people around you…

ME:  “I’ve been depressed recently”

THEM:  “Oh, really? Why?”

ME (thinking): Oh my god, I don’t know why!!  If I knew why, I’d fix it!  Stabbity stabbity stab!!!!!

ME (out loud):  “Hmm, I don’t know; just tired I guess…”

The world has made great strides in accepting mental illness and better living through chemistry, but we still want to know reasons why.  Why are you sad?  Why are you anxious or paranoid?  Why? Why why why?   If we only knew the reasons why, we could fix it!

It’s taken me a very long time to admit it to myself, but there is no reason why.  I’m sad sometimes.  It’s not from watching too much news or who got the better land deal.  Those are just excuses.  I could be living the perfect life and I’d still be sad sometimes.  I don’t need to justify my depression or be embarrassed by it, any more than I would justify or be embarrassed by having diabetes. Both diseases, at their most basic levels, are simply chemical imbalances.

So, here’s to admitting chemical imbalances without justification or embarrassment!  I promise I won’t wear my mental illness on my sleeve (ugh can anyone say emotional vampire?) but I will be honest about it.  I only ask that you please try not to ask why…

To badly paraphrase Yoda:  There is no why, only do.

The boys and I spent a leisurely week driving from Florida to North Dakota.  The weather was with us most of the way, but there was some white knuckled driving through Iowa and South Dakota.  Yay, freezing rain!

Traveling in Style

All in all, everyone did great on the trip, although I think the cats have just started to forgive me for stuffing them into pet carriers every day.

Living in the Past

When we got to North Dakota, we moved into my parents’ farm house, the one my uncle lived in for twenty years and never cleaned…  I spend every day scrubbing walls, cupboards, and closets, just trying to clear out some living space and places to put our stuff.  It can be overwhelming, but I find myself smiling all day long.

I’m planning a grand e-opening of the shop on March 15.  Until then, I’ll be scrubbing and organizing, listening with wonder to the hooting of owls and coyote calls and losing myself in the breath taking night sky of the Great Plains.

Oh, sorry about that, I got a little carried away.  I’m just a little excited…  Because we’re moving in January!! We realized it was either move after the new year, or wait until June, and really, why wait?

That means *everything* in the shop is on sale! All the yarn, soaps, and sundries would be much happier with you than traveling cross country in raggedy cardboard boxes.

Óskýr Mörk Sport Weight Yarn

Óskýr Mörk (Icelandic for fuzzy edge) is a deliciously soft blend of Suri Alpaca and Merino fibers.  Each generous skein of sport weight yarn is approxiamately 100 grams and 320 yards and will retail for $18.00.

Óskýr Mörk Soul Mining

I will debut Óskýr Mörk at Yarn Con on Saturday, October 17th, 2009.  After the show, it will be available at my Art Fire studio:  www.turtlecove.artfire.com.

Óskýr Mörk Precious Things

This yarn is so decadent I’m tempted to keep it all for myself!  I hope you love it as much as I do!

Mark your calendars for July 8th!  I have a huge update planned for my return to civilization!