Edgar's Great Escape and The Circle of Life

I think you're going to love this.

About a month ago, i told you about the darlings, Lily and Edgar in A Story About Two Little Chicks.  In the comments of that post, some of you protested the upcoming fulfillment of Edgar's destiny (dinner).

Today, as i foretold, was our Second Summer Slaughter 2010 (SSS'10).  And Edgar was on the schedule to join his peers in that great big freezer in my house.

(*Warning, this is the part where i share some slaughter details.*)

I wasn't there, so the details are a little hard for me to describe.  But from what i understand, this is how it happened.  It was Edgar's turn at the hatchet.  The slaughter-master, still perfecting his method and having some trouble with an inferior hatchet, decided to put Edgar in the killing cone, a.k.a. empty bleach bottle nailed to a tree, and use the knife like we used to.  So he put Edgar down in the cone, pulled his head through the hole in the bottom, and prepared to cut the jugular vein.  At that moment, it occurred to the slaughter-master that he wouldn't have to use the jugular method (which we don't like because it doesn't appear to kill instantly).  Why not just go ahead and break his neck?   That would be faster.  So, giving a little too much credit to the stability of the killing cone, the slaughter-master took hold of Edgar's head and gave it one quick yank to break his neck.  But instead, the killing cone gave way.  The slaughter-master, thinking that Edgar's neck was broken in spite of the failing killing cone, let go of Edgar's head, leaving the killing cone and Edgar on the ground, free of restraints.  Then, Edgar, seeing his chance for life and freedom, sucked his head back out of the hole, did a cartwheel inside of the bleach bottle, and escaped out the wide end of the killing cone,  into the woods before the slaughter-master could do anything to stop him.

(*Slaughter details ended.*)

For those of you who didn't read the slaughter details paragraph, the non-gory version is that Edgar, in an unlikely maneuver, narrowly escaped death at the hand of the slaughter-master, and now basks happily in the woods, apparently unharmed.

Ok, in this picture, he isn't exactly basking.  But that's because he's keeping such a close eye on me.  He was basking before i walked up.  And do you notice who's company he's keeping?  Yes, that's right, over on the right hand side of the picture - is Lily.  How entirely sweet!

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Thankfully, the other boys were not as crafty and are now cleaned and wrapped in my fridge.

I feel really good about today.  Today, for the first time, we have harvested food from chickens that we produced.  What i mean is, these are chickens that were hatched here, brooded under our own hens, raised with our chickens, free ranging and foraging.  Their feed (other than the range) was paid for by eggs and chicks that we sold.  They're free food!  They're hard work food.  This is a little piece of what we mean by food sovereignty.  And i love seeing and participating in God's design for (for lack of a better term) the "circle of life."

Speaking of the circle of life, Mathilde, my broody hen, now sits beautifully with 8 brand new baby chicks.

This is a really good day.