?Please pardon the punctuation in the following post, I can{t figure out where the apostrophe is on this keyboard?
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Seven of us went out for dinner in the pueblo last night to celebrate two birthdays. We ate well and had a good time then hiked back up to the Yoga Forest single file along the narrow path.
We found out at breakfast this morning that four of the chickens, half the full count, had been killed in the night by a mystery animal. Cat thought it was some kind of big cat, but the locals thought it was some kind of racoon-like rodent. One bird had most of its body eaten out and went straight to the compost. The other three had just been strangled and otherwise mangled about the neck.
I was part of the group of volunteers to prepare the chicken for consumption. When Cat handed me the dead rooster by its feet, I was taken aback. Several minutes later I pulled that same chicken from a bucket of warm water and began to pluck the feathers. Ive never done this before. Chickens have many festhers, but when you pull most of them out, the farm-pecking chicken begins to look more like a Big Y chicken, except the bird still has head, feet, and guts.
The head and feet can go with a sharp machete. After I chopped the chickens head off, I shook out the crop. This is a bunch of undgested food, in this case it was mostly corn, which Blake suggested we could reuse by heating it up and eating it. Gutting the chicken was the worst part. After cutting off the chickens ass, you reach your fist in and grab everything and pull it out. You junk it all except for the liver and the heart. The liver was delicious, but we will eat the rest of the chicken later. The discarded parts of the chicken, get inserted into a compost pile to add nitrogen and speed up the breakdown.
With another volunteer and friend Hannah, it was also my job to turn that compost pile adding the chicken parts along with some rabbit poo. It was a large pile and when we were done it seemed like it chould be lunch time. I was crossing the little bridge back toward where both the tools are kept and lunch is served. Gaspar, a local worker and friend of mine, addressed me with some urgency from the greenhouse and pointed toward the kitchen. My Spanish comprehension, which has been coming along nicely along with my speech, always suffers in ambient noise. The creek that runs through the property makes a good rumble so it was hard for me to understand Gaspar. I decided to set down the shovel and pitchfork I was holding then approach Gaspar from the kitchen. As I crossed path the kitchen, I looked in to see Cat wearing a beekeepers hat and finally understood there was some kind of bee attack going on about which Gaspar was trying to warn me.
At that moment, I felt a bee land on my face, find its footing, and sting me unprovoked on my cheek. Some years back, I got stung by something on the back of my arm and had a strong allergic reaction that prompted the triage staff at the ER to wheel me in without waiting. I was telling this to Hannah when a couple more bees came around. I fled back across the little brdge toward the cabanas and sat down, closer to my Epipen. The sting hurt a bit but not too bad and I had no abnormal reaction. 15 minutes later, I returned to the kitchen, thanked Gaspar for his good intentions and sat down to a delicious vegetarian lunch.
We had a nice, sunny morning though we are just in the middle of Guatemalas rainy season. Sunshine held up long enough for Laura and me to show the newer volunteers, Blake and Hannah, the Trampolin. This misnomer is really a platform for jumping into Lake Atitlan from 7m, or 23 feet, above the surface. We all made the jump. I scampered down to dive from about 15 feet, but I couldnt muster up the courage to dive from the trampolin. Im commited to doing it before I leave town. Like every other day in the afternoon, its raining, and Im caught in the village with no raincoat. Ill cross the little plaza to the library where the 19 year-old staffer there, Max, and I will have another informal Spanish-English lesson. When I sense an abatement in the downpour, Ill hike back up the hill.
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Seven of us went out for dinner in the pueblo last night to celebrate two birthdays. We ate well and had a good time then hiked back up to the Yoga Forest single file along the narrow path.
We found out at breakfast this morning that four of the chickens, half the full count, had been killed in the night by a mystery animal. Cat thought it was some kind of big cat, but the locals thought it was some kind of racoon-like rodent. One bird had most of its body eaten out and went straight to the compost. The other three had just been strangled and otherwise mangled about the neck.
I was part of the group of volunteers to prepare the chicken for consumption. When Cat handed me the dead rooster by its feet, I was taken aback. Several minutes later I pulled that same chicken from a bucket of warm water and began to pluck the feathers. Ive never done this before. Chickens have many festhers, but when you pull most of them out, the farm-pecking chicken begins to look more like a Big Y chicken, except the bird still has head, feet, and guts.
The head and feet can go with a sharp machete. After I chopped the chickens head off, I shook out the crop. This is a bunch of undgested food, in this case it was mostly corn, which Blake suggested we could reuse by heating it up and eating it. Gutting the chicken was the worst part. After cutting off the chickens ass, you reach your fist in and grab everything and pull it out. You junk it all except for the liver and the heart. The liver was delicious, but we will eat the rest of the chicken later. The discarded parts of the chicken, get inserted into a compost pile to add nitrogen and speed up the breakdown.
With another volunteer and friend Hannah, it was also my job to turn that compost pile adding the chicken parts along with some rabbit poo. It was a large pile and when we were done it seemed like it chould be lunch time. I was crossing the little bridge back toward where both the tools are kept and lunch is served. Gaspar, a local worker and friend of mine, addressed me with some urgency from the greenhouse and pointed toward the kitchen. My Spanish comprehension, which has been coming along nicely along with my speech, always suffers in ambient noise. The creek that runs through the property makes a good rumble so it was hard for me to understand Gaspar. I decided to set down the shovel and pitchfork I was holding then approach Gaspar from the kitchen. As I crossed path the kitchen, I looked in to see Cat wearing a beekeepers hat and finally understood there was some kind of bee attack going on about which Gaspar was trying to warn me.
At that moment, I felt a bee land on my face, find its footing, and sting me unprovoked on my cheek. Some years back, I got stung by something on the back of my arm and had a strong allergic reaction that prompted the triage staff at the ER to wheel me in without waiting. I was telling this to Hannah when a couple more bees came around. I fled back across the little brdge toward the cabanas and sat down, closer to my Epipen. The sting hurt a bit but not too bad and I had no abnormal reaction. 15 minutes later, I returned to the kitchen, thanked Gaspar for his good intentions and sat down to a delicious vegetarian lunch.
We had a nice, sunny morning though we are just in the middle of Guatemalas rainy season. Sunshine held up long enough for Laura and me to show the newer volunteers, Blake and Hannah, the Trampolin. This misnomer is really a platform for jumping into Lake Atitlan from 7m, or 23 feet, above the surface. We all made the jump. I scampered down to dive from about 15 feet, but I couldnt muster up the courage to dive from the trampolin. Im commited to doing it before I leave town. Like every other day in the afternoon, its raining, and Im caught in the village with no raincoat. Ill cross the little plaza to the library where the 19 year-old staffer there, Max, and I will have another informal Spanish-English lesson. When I sense an abatement in the downpour, Ill hike back up the hill.
Glad to hear you have out grown your allergy to bees. Things seem to be going well.. Keep on keeping on. Nothing has changed here... different weeks with the same activities. Everyone is well... We miss you.. Be safe.. XO
ReplyDeleteHi Max, I'm curious about the bit of undigested corn. Did you/they eat it?
ReplyDeleteSounds like you're having many new and interesting experiences. Thanks for sharing your journey, I appreciate learning through you. Kate
Hey Kate,
DeleteThanks for all the nice notes. I'm learning a ton down here.
These were whole kernels of dried corn which the chickens were eating. They seem to eat a bunch of it, or any real food, then store it in a part of their throat. Then, as I understand, and I'm sure this is wrong, they eat a bunch of 'grit', dirt and small rocks, to wash down the food. At the time of this rooster's demise, he had a good bit left in his 'crop', which spilled out when I chopped his head off. We didn't eat the corn, but the tortillas here are good. They're usually about 4 inches in diameter and relatively thick.