Chicken Heads

Warning: This post has a disclaimer. All of those who are faint at heart or are hardcore into animal rights, do not proceed reading the rest of this post. The words might be a little graphic, but the pictures are even worse.

Read at your own risk.

Alright with that out of the way, let me tell you about the evening I had yesterday...

While going through my daily E-mails yesterday I received one from my farmer friend/mentor Mark. It was mostly about some Farm-to-School stuff we've been working on, however he ended the note with an enticing offer. He was going to start slaughtering his 80 or so chickens that night and I was invited to witness the process.

For those of you who know me well enough, you know that until recently (due to some moose and yummy grouse) I've been a vegetarian for about five years. Now it seems there's this common perception that vegetarians are against the killing of animals, and I'm sure there are many vegetarians out there that are, but that is not why I was a vegetarian. I believe that humans are omnivores and that meat contains many vitamins and nutrients that are key to human health and well being. I became a vegetarian because of my distrust of the growing meat industry. The cows pumped with hormones, the chickens stuffed in cages so tightly they just constantly shit on each other harboring who knows what kind of harmful bacteria, and the corn and soy these animals are forced to eat even though it's completely un-natural and indigestible to them. Those are the reasons why I became a vegetarian.

I must say out here in Montana animals (both game and ranch) are much happier. They eat grass, they roam in fields and in woodlands, they don't get hormone cocktails to fatten them up. I like happy animals. Happy animals are healthy animals. Healthy animals are yummy animals.

Anyways, Mark raised some happy chickens on his farm and now it was time for those happy chickens to die.

I pulled up to Mark's farm yesterday with some anxiety. I've never seen an animal butchered. Would I get grossed out? Would I feel bad for them? I didn't know, but it was time to face my fears. I always say I want to know exactly where my food comes from, this was just a facet to that notion.

Mark butchers the chickens in two mobile trailers. He's developed this whole mobile chicken slaughter process himself. I must say it's pretty ingenious and just another reason why Mark is a badass and my hero. This is a picture of the inside of trailer #1:



Here's a rundown on the whole process....

#1. Chickens are placed upside down in "Kill Cones". Their heads go through the bottom of the cone and then you chop it off. Once the head is off you keep them in the kill cone for a few minutes to drain all the blood.

(I have pictures of this, but I've decided they're a little too gruesome to share. I'm trying to keep this blog PG-13)

#2. The be-headed chickens are put in scalding hot water for a couple minutes to soften the skin so the feathers come out easily.



#3. Chickens are then put in the "Chicken Washer" a cylinder that is full of rubber fingers. The chickens bounce around in there and the rubber fingers remove all the feathers.



#4. The naked chickens are taken to a second trailer where they're gutted.



And that's it. The whole process takes about 10 minutes. I must say while I thought I would be grossed out, I wasn't at all. If I had the chance next time I think I'd even be able to chop the heads off myself instead of just watching. Montana is turning me into more of a badass than I ever thought I would be, and I like it.

Well thanks for bearing with me through my semi-gruesome post. I hope each of you learned something about how chickens go from the field to something what you'd find in the grocery store. Now I leave you with some goofy pictures I took.

Love,
Becky

Mmmm Meat!

So I've become quite the carnivore (at least in my book). This Friday at work I was greeted by my supervisor Todd holding a limp grouse he had killed the night before. For those of you unaware of what grouse is, it's a bird kinda similar to a pheasant I'd say. I think the Ohio Becky might have been a little freaked out about this, but I must say as the new and improved Montana Becky, it didn't phase me at all. Here's Mr. Grouse himself.



At lunchtime Todd cut up the bird, sauteed it with some garlic and butter and everyone in the office enjoyed grouse nuggets! Yum Yum!



The grouse tasted kinda like chicken with the texture of pork. Here's me munching on some grouse.



Next is antelope.....

Love,
Becky

Drumroll Please...

I'm going to be an organic farmer.

Love,
Becky

Trusty Rusty

Hola Amigos!

I need to write about my awesome Montana outdoor adventure weekend. Honestly I think it was one of the best weekends I've had thus far.

Let's start with Friday. After volleyball practice my coaching friend Lori and I went to dinner. She had a gift card to the Rib & Chop House which is hands down the best place to eat in Livingston. I got a margarita and ahi tuna....two of my absolute favorite things. Delicious! I went to bed happy as a clam that night.

After sleeping on Saturday I woke up with a small dilemma on what to do that day. Yellowstone had a free entrance fee AND I had a free ticket to the Museum of the Rockies.....decisions, decisions. Well I ended up not going to either. Inside I took a hike up to Pike Creek Falls which is located about 10 miles south of downtown Livingston. There's just something about walking alone in the woods that is so peaceful and liberating and just real to me. I love it. After about a mile hike I reached the falls. They were a little weak, but that's expected for this time of year. I even took a little risk and climbed straight up the falls to the very top. I'm glad I did. Here's a few pictures from my hike:









After my hike I returned to my car and my phone with a voicemail from Lori. She and her husband were going to dinner at here mother and father in law's ranch and I was invited to come. Free dinner? As a poor AmeriCorps VISTA I never turn that down. After dinner at Lori's in laws we did a little four wheeling on the property they own. We went to look for some wildlife, unfortunately all we saw was deer. Boo....deer don't impress me, there's enough of them in Ohio. I was ready to see a moose or a bear (in reasonable distance). Oh well!


Here's me and Lori's dog Maggie on the trail!

I concluded my busy Saturday by going to see my friend Wes and his band play in Bozeman. The show was in this super cool venue in the basement of a warehouse. It has tons of abstract artwork over the walls as well as many abstract people. I loved it. Words can't really describe the place, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, sorry.

On to Sunday.....

Again I slept in, a luxury I always take advantage of. Around 1:00 I went with Lori to her parent's house to make and can salsa(Dad- don't worry the salsa we made still doesn't top yours). It was at Lori's mom and dad's house that I did the inevitable. I ate meat! Not any kind of meat though. I had moose salami! I figured moose was a pretty ballin' to transition back to my omnivorous ways. If you don't believe me here's picture proof:



Some pieces of moose salami and several jars of salsa later I returned home just in time to meet Wes for some horseback riding on the ranch his dad works at. I wasn't sure what I was in store for, but let me just say I went on an epic Montana horseback ride. My horse was Rusty, who I would like to deem Trusty Rusty. Here's my man:



Rusty took good care of me. We even did some trotting and loping which is still a little scary to me, but everything was good with the Rust-man. This is us after we did some climbing to the top of a mountain.



There's one last thing I want to mention. Besides for the sheer awesomeness of just being on a horse, the views of the ranch and the mountains were breathtaking. The whole experience was such an authentic way to take in some of the most beautiful sights of Montana. I don't know if I'll ever forget it.

On that note, I need to do some laundry badly. Hope you enjoyed reading about my weekend as much as I did living it.

Love,
Becky

Food is Good

Tonight I had a great dinner. Yes, the food was great, but the company made it even better. Here's a little back story for you....

While at my FoodCorps training last week in Great Falls I had the opportunity to meet with a farmer who also happens to be the CEO of Timeless Seeds an organic bean, lentil, and barley company. Awesome man. Anyways when he found out I was in Livingston he automatically told me I needed to meet his friend Jim. A few E-mails later and I was invited to dinner at Jim's home.

Jim is an architect for AERO (Montana's Alternative Energy and Resource Organization) which does a lot of work with sustainable food systems. Jim and his wife have a killer garden, do tons of composting, have totally remodeled their home to be modern/rustic themed.....totally my type of people. Tonight they also invited a couple over who they've been friends with for awhile. The husband is a part-time professor at MSU he also runs a couple acre farm near Bozeman and even sells at the Livingston farmers market. Totally my type of people too. I received some great advice from the farmer/professor when I told him I was considering the Food Systems graduate program at MSU. He told me that I shouldn't waste my time and money and I'll learn more staying in the real world, something I am really taking to heart.

I had a great time talking and more importantly listening with these people. They were all very accomplished people, but yet so laid back and happy. They are people who haven't let their careers let them loose track of the little things in life that are critical for true and pure happiness. Little things like sitting around having a meal together.

That brings me to a point I really want to make. It was a dinner like tonight that really reminded me why I want to get involved with food and food systems. While we were all sitting around the table sharing stories and eating one thing I realized is that the food at the table is just like every person sitting at the table. It has a story too. Some food (like the food we ate tonight) we know the story of. We know were it came from, how it was raised, and how it got to the table. Some food we don't know it's story other than the fact it came from a box or a bag. When you talk to people you seem to connect best with the people that are most willing to share their stories. The same I think is true with food. The more we know the story of our food, the better we connect and enjoy it.

We should eat the foods in which we know their stories, not only that, but we should eat the foods with the best stories. The stories that start in gardens or small farms. The stories that don't include shipping from across the country or world. The stories that don't involve pesticides and herbicides. I like to know the stories of the foods I eat. That's why farming has become so intriguing to me. When you farm you get to make the story of your food and you get to share it. However me and my farming dream is a story for another day.

Anyways, I hope everyone got the point I'm trying to make. I'm sure I'll bring it up again.

I'm tired I need to go to bed.

Love,
Becky

It's Official

This afternoon I booked my flight to come home for the holidays. I'll be back in Cleveland Decemeber 14th-January 2nd. I can't wait! As much as I love it here I miss all my family and friends dearly.

See everyone the 14th!

Love,
Becky

Buddhas, Orphans, and Cats

Hello All!

It's been a quick minute since I posted last, I was traveling all last week.

I had to mentally prepare myself for this post. It's going to be a long one.....hope you're ready.

So last week I was on the road doing some cool stuff and some lame stuff as well. I've decided I'm going to separate this post into those two categories: COOL and LAME. I'll start with the lame.

THE LAME:

1. The Mobilizing Rural Communities Conference: Wednesday and Thursday us FoodCorps gals went to Great Fall for this conference. I'm not a big fan of sitting indoors all day so I already wasn't really looking forward to it. The conference itself was super boring. Myself and some my FoodCorps buddies couldn't muster up the patience to sit through some of the talks, so we played a little hooky. No big. Overall the conference gets a big, fat "L" for lame.

2. The Orphanage: Okay so I wasn't at a real orphanage, but close. While in Great Falls we went to the Mobilizing Rural Communities Conference Wednesday and Thursday. After that we had a FoodCorps training part of Thursday and Friday. So in total we staying in Great Falls for three days. During those days we stayed in a place called the Ursuline Center, which I believe is a Catholic boarding school. All nine of us got to sleep in one room "Annie" style. Check it out:



To make matter worse, there were pictures of Jesus glaring down at us all over the walls. Nothing against the guy, just kind of creepy.

THE COOL:

1. Missoula: I know I already posted quickly on this topic, but I just want to reiterate how much I love Missoula. Here are some pics:








(Yeah I really like this place)

2. The Peace Festival at the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas: Over September 11th weekend all VISTAs were required to do a service project of their choice. My friend Jared invited me to volunteer at this Peace Festival with him and some other VISTAs since he knew how much I was into Buddhism. We drove up north to Arlee on Friday where the garden is located. Saturday was the festival. I got put in charge of helping a Tibetan nun cook a bunch of Tibetan food for the festival. Which worked out great for me because I love cooking. Here are some of the things we cooked:


Mo-Mo's traditional Tibetan dumplings.


Veggies with a bunch of Tibetan spices.


Dal, a yellow lentil soup.

Helping out at the Peace Festival was great, but let me also give you a little background on the Garden of 1,00 Buddhas where the festival was at. The garden was started by a Tibetan lama who had a premonition that this place was holy ground. He came to Montana and started this garden. The garden includes a sculpture of Yum Chenmo, a female manifestation of the perfect of wisdom. Here's a picture of Yum Chenmo:



The reason the garden is call the Garden of 1,00 Buddhas is because the garden will not be complete until 1,000 ceramic Buddha statues are completed. Currently there are around 800. They are hanging out in the "Buddha Barn" right now.



Once 1,000 Buddhas are completed, the Dalai Lama is going to come to Montana to bless the Buddhas and the garden! I really hope I'm around for that!

Just for fun here's a picture of me being a little Buddha and one of me doing some trampoline jumping in front of the monks' house.





3. Cats: With Leroy gone I miss having a cat around. Luckily this week I had the chance to hangout with two cool kitties. Shimmy was the house cat at the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas. The other cat I hung out with was Twiggy. Twiggy was the cat at an organic lentil farmer's house I spent the night at. Twiggy had only one eye like Leroy! She lost it getting in a fight with a raccoon.


Shimmy


Twiggy

So those were the highlights and low lights of my week on the road. Overall I had a good time and I got to see and do things I've never done before. Definitely a lot of memorable moments.

Back to work tomorrow for me.

Love,
Becky