Bone broth and blessings

Harvest and give thanks. A freezer full of tomatoes, string beans and zucchini, cases of fresh peaches a memory of the glorious summer harvest. We’ve got more than a winter’s supply of fresh squash, garlic to eat and plant, and enough purple potatoes to keep trying another year. The pantry is full of dehydrated apples, jars of granola and pickles. We still get greens daily from the cold frames or hoop house and the ducks are giving us just enough eggs to keep us going while the hens take their sabbatical.

Given only sunlight, chickens lay over an annual cycle. The winter solstice starts the cycle, they peak in the spring (think Easter eggs and Seder plate) level out through the summer and slow to stop in the fall. As of this writing it’s been three days since we last received a chicken egg from hundreds of multi-aged birds. If I supplemented their light with electricity they would lay more eggs. I’m not. The chickens are molting, energy going into a new set of feathers they need to get them through winter instead of producing eggs. Amazing creatures, they make it through 100 degree days as well as polar vortexes inside the barn, kind of squatting with feathers puffed out and over their legs and tuck in their beaks.

Hens lay less as they age, eventually they make it into the stew pot. It’s maybe a 15-minute process from the barn to the kitchen. I thank them and apologize, let them air their grievances. We take a moment of silence. I like to think they have a better life than their contemporaries. Their life of work, predator evasion and eventual sacrifice allows me to feel that same way about myself. I hold them as they flap their wings and fly home for the last time. They keep giving, a whole chicken to the kitchen, gallons of bone broth after that.

Sore muscles after seeing the woodshed is full the last few weeks. This past weekend it was time to process a few hens on the same day I lucked out with a doe – one of two that offered themselves to my bow in the home stretch of early bowhunting season. Two hens went into soup, one gallon to keep, one to share. Two went through the meat grinder, nothing wasted. One will be meatballs, the other a delicious partner-made chili, made with our tomatoes and pumpkin. Pumpkin chili? Try it! After pulling in a 75-pounder last week, we’re getting creative. Everything we need is out there, right outside our door.

The surprise bounty of venison we’ve been feasting on for dinner, dehydrating for jerky, grinding for meatballs and burgers. The dog is living her best life on the scraps, staying closer to home, no need for dog food or fancy bagged treats this time of year.

Harvest and give thanks. It’s a Native American teaching and how they lived their lives, and it’s become my take on what my job is as caretaker here every day. A simple to-do list if I do nothing else: Harvest and give thanks.