Today, we killed roosters.

When I got up this morning, I did not know that today would be the day. I knew we were to have a lesson. I went for a bike ride at 9 a.m. Jeff called and said that Bob was coming before noon and that we were to kill the extra roosters.

 

“Oh,” I said, and inhaled deeply. I still didn’t know what to think about the whole dilemma. I rode home and arrived just as Ross was driving up in his truck. Melissa, Ross, Jeff and I all sat for several minutes, talking. I asked Ross if he was sad.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I’m not particularly happy, but I’m also not sad… It has to be done.”

Bob arrived in his truck and pulled up right next to the chicken coop, unloading a butchering block with two nails stuck into it, a propane tank, a tall, large gas range, and a large pot. He filled the pot with water and turned on the range. I asked, “What’s the pot for?”

“For boiling the roosters to get the feathers off,” Bob said.

“Are we going to kill them away from the coop?”
“No, we’re going to do it right here.”

“I don’t think it’s good to do it right where their brethren can see them killed.”

“Why not? I’ve seen that.”

And he walked off. I said (to the air, really), “Well, that must have sucked.” 

 

Ross and I moved the butchering block and the pot to where Bob’s truck would block it. I was very relieved. I really don’t see why we would have wanted to freak out the chickens by beheading the roosters in front of them.

 

I was crying. I couldn’t help it. I was turning my face away so no one would see how twisted it was into a frown. Jeff left the scene. He was not cool with the killing of the roosters. Ross and Bob went into the coop and grabbed several roosters. The first to be caught and have his feet tied together was a shiny brown one. All the others were an orangey-blond. It was set on the ground after being tied, and it kept getting up and hopping. It hopped close to the range, so I walked over and restrained it. I held it down and pet it. It calmed down. It was looking around, its little eyes blinking. What a beautiful color it was. I picked it up and held it on my side, like I do with my cat. I held it for a long time while six others were caught, tied, and set on the ground underneath a tarp (To keep the sun off? To keep them contained?).

 

As the last ones were getting their legs tied, everyone was kneeling around the rooster-filled tarp. Mostly, they were calm, although every five or ten minutes, one would squawk and make a ruckus. Bob was talking about how tasty old rooster meat was, and how he, Ross, and Marius (his other son) shoot glass bottles with a 22. Marius is the best shot, but when it comes to shooting a rabbit, he always misses. For the killing of a chicken, he is never around, but when the liver pate is on the table, Bob said, Marius is right there.

 

The brown one I held was the first to go. Bob said that it was the oldest, two years old. I asked how long they live if you don’t kill them and he said two to three years, and that these roosters were nearing the end of their lives anyways. That’s a short lifespan, no?

 

Bob took the rooster, wedged its neck between the two nails on the block, and beheaded it with one swing of the ax. Then, he put the headless body into an empty trashcan, and the body jumped and flailed, making a great noise jerking the can around, and its throat making a dull clucking sound. I looked at the rooster’s severed head. Its mouth was opening and closing for about ten seconds after it was debodied, although its eyes were closed. It made me think of how connected the body and head are. When does life end in that context? Is the movement of the body really “just nerves,” or is the body still alive?

 

The blood had splattered onto my shoes. On the block, it was such a bright, rich red.

Aurelio came and spoke with us, talking of his experiences with chickens in France as a child. He spoke of how some people would cut their tongues and let them bleed to death upside down, and how he thought that was torture. A man who is working on the grape harvest also came over during, and was talking about how tasty roosters are. (Afterwards, Melissa said he was making her want to hurl). He asked twice if we wanted anything for lunch. Duh.

 

It continued in this way, I would hold and pet a rooster, trying to calm it, and then it would go to the block. Bob would chop its head off, flailing would ensue, and Ross and Melissa would do the defeathering…until the very last rooster. Bob handed the ax to me. I got up and took hold of it. Bob said, “Now, you hold its legs, and put its head between the nails—actually, I’ll hold it for you. Just give it one good clean whack right here.”

 

I did it. I gave it one good whack. I did well. I hope the rooster did not suffer too much.

 

Bob butchered the roosters right there, taking out their heart, liver, gizzard, and tossing their other entrails into a trash bucket. It was really nasty, really nasty. I think it made meat even less appetizing than it already is to me. It was good, though, to participate in that process. I think everyone should, particularly meat eaters. One of my biggest qualms with meat-eating is our disconnection with the origins of the animal and the process whereby it became meat on our table. It’s incredibly mystified, and I feel the industrialization of meat-production and its resulting mystification leads to a total lack of respect for the animal. It’s quite analogous to the lack of respect for the soil itself that Bob talks about.

 

That whole experience was intense, emotional, and draining. I was very upset at first, but when it comes down to it, to live is to die. Some of those roosters may have even been party to the roostericide that occurred on two occasions in the last month. Yes, there is death, but there is also rebirth and regeneration. Those roosters were immediately food for flies and yellowjackets that were all over the carcasses right away, and will be food for humans as well. Their internals are now in our compost pile, and will probably be dug up by a coyote, but also may make it to nourish the soil as well.

 

One rooster that Melissa had buried in the ground must have been dug up, because Jeff discovered a head in the garden. Interesting: a reemergence of the dead rooster.  Rooster zombie, Jeff said. I hope that my body decomposes into the earth one day.

 

I collected the few good feathers of the brown rooster I could find, and sewed them onto my hat.

A Good Economy

Our lesson with Bob the other day was about soil—it’s chemistry and analysis. Soon, we will have a lesson with Bob Schaffer (so many Bobs), who is a soil analyst. He uses the Albrechian method of analysis, which is the only one Bob said he trusts.

 

Bob began by discussing the importance of a farm that is self-sustaining, self-supporting. It’s whole, it’s cycled, it falls in on itself, a wave within a wave. The foundation of farming, he said, is the foundation of nature.

 

If you have a farm that is too large, it is a different economy. It is not able to be self-supporting. As the farmer, when your farm is too big, you cannot look at all the plants growing under your jurisdiction, you don’t know your employees, there is a data glut, and if you make a mistake, it can be devastating. If your farm is diversified, you can safely make mistakes (and experiment with new things). If your farm is simple, your necessary data is minimal and manageable. If your farm is manageable, you only need a few employees, and these people become an important part of your social and economic network. Most of all, you can look at all of your plants with your very own eyes. Nothing gets out of control, nothing escapes your attention (well, to a reasonable extent, anyways).

 

However, get too big and much can happen of detriment to your business, of detriment to the environment, and of detriment to your product—your food. Bob talked about a time when the Clines were employing a farm manager who had been convinced to use Monsanto’s products. This was in the 1980’s, when weed killers had just become very popular in Sonoma County. (Funny, this coincides with the deregulation of corporations and the neoliberalization of the economy. Huh). Monsanto’s sales people were sent around to ‘educate’ consumers on their products. They were fully aware of the opportunity to exploit this owner-manager system that had developed on the large farm. The Monsanto representatives would give rewards to managers who used their products. Either “cold, hard cash,” as Bob said, or things like free trips to exotic places.

 

This served as incentive to the Cline’s manager, as he began purchasing and using weed-killers on the vineyards. Bob, of course, did not like that poisons were being used on his friend’s farm. One day, he observed this manager directing workers to spray the weedless fields with the poison in the rainy season. It became apparent to Bob that not only was this manager ruining the Cline’s land, but was over-utilizing the poisons so that he could buy more and receive more incentive packages. Because, you see, this poison must stay on the leaves of the weed for three days to be effective, and spraying just before rain makes no difference. Not to mention there were no weeds to begin with. They had all already been killed.

 

The problem here was partly a lack of ownership. The manager didn’t own the land, and so didn’t have a sense of ownership of the land, and didn’t mind destroying it for a trip to Hawaii. The owner, the one who cares about the land, cannot even manage it for lack of time. Needless to say, that man was fired, and now Bob takes care of the Cline’s vines in exchange for some land of his own to grow on. Fred Cline still has too much land to manage himself, but I think at least now he found a manager with morals.

Saving Seeds to Save the World

The past few days, we have been working on seed-saving techniques with B, the store manager. She started out by talking with us about why we should save seeds. She discussed Monsanto and its patents on life forms. It is very dangerous for farmers to be dependent on these large corporations, she said, because if they control farmer’s crops, then they control the entire world’s food supply. I mentioned how scary it would be if all crops produced terminator seeds (which can happen just from terminator seed blowover into other farmer’s fields— these plants do not occur in a vacuum). 

 

Secondly, the genetic diversity of plants must be maintained. If a large producer only distributes certain varieties, and every farmer buys from them, those will become the only varieties of plant available for crops. This makes for a very vulnerable crop. With genetic diversity, different plants will be resistant to different conditions. A biodiverse crop will never be wiped out by one or two extreme conditions (like draught or frost).

 

Thirdly, (and here’s one I didn’t think of), B said a plant adapts to its environment, and so saving seeds will accumulate the plants adaptations. Also, I think, the plants that survive will be the plants with the seeds (natural selection), and the nicest tomatoes that we choose to take seeds from will reproduce (artificial selection). I think we’re both right.

 

So we set to work, cutting open tomatoes and massaging their seeds out, collecting their seed and juices in a bucket, and throwing the meat and skin in the compost. B said to use tomatoes when they are overripe and squishy. This way, the seed has had time to absorb the nutrients of the juice. The seed is further strengthened by leaving them with the juices in the bucket for a day before rinsing them in a strainer. After rinsing, dry on a cloth or paper towel in the sun, spread out. Viola! You now have seeds for next year. External cost: zero. Pleasure of squishing tomatoes: priceless.

“I Want to Kill a Rooster”

The first of the month. This is supposed to be a special day, right? It is said to signify and foreshadow the month as a whole. The part indicative of the whole.

 

It was my morning for chickens. I don’t like to do the chicken-work in the morning when we have to be somewhere early, and this morning, we had to be out the door at 8 to go harvest chard. We picked up Angelica at the farm store, as she was to help with the harvest. We needed as many people as possible, because the land that it was on (adjacent to Jacuzzi vineyard) floods soon. This was to be the final harvest before flood, and we (seven of us altogether) harvested many many boxes for Planet Organics. The plants were certainly very mature, with wild weeds protruding at ever opportunity. So many bugs were there, from diabrotics to fuzzy caterpillars. When I took this position, I never thought about how the frequency of my encounters with insects would increase. But, you know, they’re okay. And I think about the “I (heart) bugs” sticker I have on my glasses case that was given to me at a kid’s event. We saw, touched, and held many exotic bugs.

 

And, yes, bugs are “icky.” We are taught they are icky, and that a place with bugs is an unclean, unhealthy place. Think of a cockroach-infested house. Now, think of neatly trimmed and insecticide-laden rows of corn stalks. Ah. Clean. Sterile. Healthy.

 

But, now, I have come to not only know, but understand why insects play such an important roll in plants’ lives, and therefore, our own. For plants can live without animals, but animals cannot live without plants. All of these pots and pans and preparation accoutrements are simply extra. All that we really need, and that these things are all made to embellish, are plants.

 

I was going to say, “I really want to kill a rooster,” but then I stopped myself. The thing is that there is an overcrowding of roosters here. You know that ratio from my last post? Hens to roosters should be no more than ten to one. I don’t know what our ratio is here, but it’s not good. Several of the roosters are in a different room of the coop to try to ease the rooster-tensions, but that also leads to an overcrowding of the hens. Two roosters have already died from roostericide. Today, I witnessed two roosters ganging up on a third, biting the back of its neck. I screamed and threw grain at them. They dispersed. I was mad. I thought, Just you wait, and directed by anger at what I perceived to be one of the ‘mean’ roosters.

 

The slaughtering of the excess roosters is supposedly in the works, but it just seems so much on the back-burner. Here, we are witnessing this chicken-violence, and they are cooped up. They are trapped. Those poor roosters, if they had just been able to get out they wouldn’t have had to die like that. And it’s like M says, it’s not that they died, it’s just that they died like that: under population pressure and group politics (they remind me of humans sometimes).

 

I stopped myself from saying, “I want to kill a rooster,” because I thought of what it would be like to actually kill a rooster with one’s hands (wielding a weapon, but still with one’s hands), or even to witness the killing of a rooster. What would it be like to look into that rooster’s eyes just before its life ends, knowing its life is about to end? How do you choose which one to kill? At least it could be quick and painless, and its body could enter into the food chain through humans.

 

Jeff, our newest intern, does not like the idea of killing a rooster, or a rooster being killed, for that matter. M and I have seen a lot more of the violence and the lagging, though. When we discussed it at lunch today, M said, “It will make everything so much better for the ones that survive. I said, “What else are you going to do? Let it out? And then what?”

 

That’s really what we should do is let it out. Let them out. They should be free-range. But then, at night, they must come in, or else they’re food for coyotes. They’re food for something, always; as are we.