Preparing For Winter - Butchering Chickens & Making Tomato Sauces

lyndsaybowes (71) in homesteading • 7 years ago

Today was a busy and hectic day on our little homestead...

It's never easy on butchering day, none of us enjoy the job, yet, if our family is going to become self sufficient enough to get through the Canadian winter, raising and processing animals is a skill we need. Obviously we are still in our infancy stage of self sufficiency.

The only animals we keep are chickens, we have egg layers, and meat birds. Other than that we grow as many vegetables as we can on our small homestead that we rent, yet we haven't grown enough yet to get us through a winter. Next year we will be incorporating pigs and that should help stretch out the food for a lot longer. We will also be adding even more garden space. We do it as we can afford it, so each year we grow our homestead more and more.

Our eventual goal is to be on a similar path as White Walking Feather's clan @wwf. They are completely off grid, and removed from the so-called 'government' as well. They are in every way self-governing. Please follow this incredible Steemian to learn more on how to UNGRIP from the so-called 'state' and 'corporations'.

I had our freezer almost completely full of tomatoes, so last night I filled the sink with them to let them defrost overnight. In these photos I'm about halfway through dicing them. We still have a bunch of tomatoes growing in the greenhouses still. I can't believe how many we got this year. We've been feasting on them like crazy and they just keep coming.

I ended up filling this huge roasting pan, and a huge pot with diced tomatoes. I cooked them all day, with onion, garlic, salt and sugar. They are cooling down now and in a little while I will do the portioning. We'll have our own tomato sauce to make pastas and chilis with all winter.

Next, butchering and processing chickens.

I will go through a few of the steps here, and will spare you any traumatizing photos, if you do need step by step directions on how to properly and humanely butcher your own chicken read this invaluable blog: How To Humanely Butcher Your Own Chicken Dinner.

A clean workspace, multiple knives, a cutting board for removing the feet and neck.

Stainless steel cone (that @hendrix22 fabricated, there are other cones you can make or buy that would work fine too). A bucket to catch blood, which I later mix with water and use in our garden beds to add nutrients to the soil. You put the chicken upside down, his head comes through the cone hole, and you quickly slit its throat and allow the blood to drain.

We have a good hot fire going in the burning barrel, as well as a big pot of water boiling on it. The fire is to burn up the entrails so we don't attract animals. The boiling water is to help with the feather removal. Take the chicken from the cone and put the chicken into the scalding water by the feet, leave it for 15-30 seconds. The feathers should come out easily, if not, put the chicken back in for a few more seconds. Once it has been de-feathered it is time to clean the inside of the bird. Once again, if you do need step by step directions on how to clean your own chicken READ: How To Humanely Butcher Your Own Chicken Dinner.

We are so grateful for all the plants and animals that help us survive. We could not live without them. Our dream is to live without so-called 'corporations' and 'governments', to be in total control of our own survival and cut the proverbial umbilical cord to those slave making institutions.

Thank you for witnessing our journey...

homesteading gardening ungrip survival chickens

7 years ago by lyndsaybowes (71)

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phoenixwren (65) · 7 years ago

I love seeing the day to day real life (as opposed to unnatural, "food comes from a box" life) of this. I saw a YouTuber who explained the cone thing who sold his chicken meat and eggs through a CSA and it was far easier to watch the quick, conscious, and careful guy do it than some horror show factory farm.
I am trying the freezing tomatoes thing for the first time this year, but so far my tomato harvest has been really low. The plants got ENORMOUS, far bigger than previous years, but far fewer blooms and toms. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I have a sneaking suspicion since my balcony garden acted very slow and sluggish and the sage keeps browning on the edges as soon as the leaves are a decent size (it was eaten by bugs once, but recovered). All the weird-acting plants, including the toms, I got from a community garden program, which is cool, right? They started them in their greenhouse.
Their greenhouse in a very polluted, industrial neighborhood.
Coincidence? Maybe. But suspicious nonetheless.

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phoenixwren (65) · 7 years ago

Oh, also! I keep meaning to ask you. You do all this work on land you rent. Is there any hope for a rent-ro-own possibility in future, or would you want to go someplace else if you were buying?