Independence Day 2013

     Today would have been my Mother's 89th birthday had she lived beyond the age of 64.  I am older than she was when she died.  Today was not a typical celebration of the 4th of July for us.  There was no cookout, though we do have our eldest son and eldest grandson here and we rushed into town late this evening and found a parking spot about 6 blocks from the fireworks, found an uncrowded spot in the grass on the highest part of the park above where they were fired.  It was a good show, we arrived around 9:15 pm, very hungry because of how we spent the rest of the day.
     The morning started with grandson's guitar practice and his daily assignments of doing a writing exercise and a math exercise, followed by lunch in town and a few errands and purchases that were needed back at the farm.  The afternoon was a marathon of harvesting the meat birds and rooster culls that have been providing us with a morning serenade of crowing challenges between several birds.  Tomorrow will be silent.  The only chickens left are my egg layers and today, we got our first two pullet eggs.

 

The girls are 16 1/2 weeks old and we should start seeing all of them lay within the next 4 weeks.  There are 10 pullets remaining in the coop.

 

In total, we harvested about 40 pounds of chicken and right now that is the last food item in the world that I want to eat.  The process smells revolting and as I am not much of a meat eater anyway, the process is very unappealing.  Son on the other hand, repeatedly stated, "They look delicious."  We finished the process just in time to make the run into town.  Upon our return, the last of the vacuum seal bags were sealed, the birds put in freezer camp, the garage and kitchen cleaned.  Now it is time for showers, start a load of laundry and settle in for the night.